By Ashley Bates
abates@gainesvilletimes.com
POSTED March 15, 2009 1 a.m.
Less than a year ago, Jason Michael Middleton was searching for something, spiritually. But he had no idea what.
He thought maybe it was his absence from the Christian church, so he began attending.
That wasn’t it – and then he had a dream.
“Right before I went to sleep … I said, ‘God, if you could just show me the right path,’ and I went to sleep,” said the 31-year-old Cleveland resident.
In Middleton’s dream, he was climbing over the top of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He saw Arab men and women and then the face of Jesus, who said to Middleton, ‘I am all the same.’
“When I woke up I couldn’t hate anymore, I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
Middleton began researching different religions and faiths, and he said Islam made the most sense to him. For about three months he worshipped and prayed on his own before revealing to anyone that he had converted.
This was a big leap of faith for Middleton, who spent many years of his life following the practices of white supremacy.
Life before Islam
Middleton said hate helped fuel his feeling that there was nothing good outside of the white race.
“My high school (James Madison High in San Antonio) was a war zone,” said Middleton, the son of a former soldier. “I’ve been involved in street gangs. There was a point in time that I didn’t even like white people because of things I saw. I cannot think of a reason why I became racist (at age 15) … I woke up and I started hating everybody.”
Middleton described his former beliefs as “hard-core militia.”
“You have a lot of skinheads groups, you have just your neo-Nazi, you’ve got more hard-core militia, and that’s what I was,” he said. “It’s kind of like the special forces of the skinheads. I was mostly a loner, and then I would recruit as I went.”
After high school Middleton joined the military and was stationed in Virginia. But he was discharged after an injury. After briefly moving back to Texas, he settled in White County and has lived there for the past 10 years.
Today, Middleton says hatred is a disease.
“It’s a plague that will kill somebody. When you hate someone, you will go to the ends of the earth to eradicate that person.”
It is only through actions, he added, that those around him could believe his change. And part of the conversion to Islam involved letting it become Middleton’s life.
“The people that know me, if they find out, I’m a dead man. But that is human fear,” he said. “I put my trust in God and that’s what Muslims do.”
Imam Bilal Ali, the religious leader at the Gainesville Islamic Center on Summit Street, agreed people will see changes in those who have converted. Although not born into the faith, both Middleton and Ali said implementing the religion as they learn it puts a new perspective on their lives.
“It’s a way of life, and when you implement this way of life it overtakes everything that you do,” said Ali, who was Baptist as a youngster and then converted to Islam. “When you eat, drink, sleep, when you are with your spouse … the beauty of any of the reconverts here is we are going to implement what we are learning about. We pretty much know what we are talking about when people question us because we went through enough problems.”
Seven months later Jason Michael now has a Muslim name – Talib – and attends weekly jumah (worship service) at the Islamic center in Gainesville.
“I came to Gainesville to take my mom to the doctor and I passed by the center,” Middleton said. “I decided to just go on in, and there was someone in there praying.”
Facing the family
There wasn’t total ease in Middleton’s faith transformation. He said he was concerned his new faith would make his family upset.
“In Islam, one should not speak without knowledge, and of course if I were to say something about Islam that is incorrect then I could be wrong,” Middleton said of his fears. “But (the fear) was more losing my family. I was showing that I was serious and I want to help and do whatever I can.”
Middleton is the oldest of three boys, and younger brother Daniel Middleton said he wasn’t surprised at Talib’s conversion.
“I know that for several years he looked into several religions and then when I saw that he took hold of the Islamic religion I was like, ‘OK,’” Daniel said. “I don’t judge somebody by their religious preference. At first we did have our doubts. As time progressed he stayed with it and in a way I was surprised.”
But there is one thing that Middleton knows – he doesn’t want to go back to the way he was before he was Muslim.
“I’m too scared, not of people but of God,” he said. “The more you study, the more you grow … the less attracted to the things you used to do; just don’t do bad stuff anymore.”
Questions of faith
Middleton and others in the Gainesville Islamic community said they are asked many of the same questions by people outside of their faith.
One topic all of them hear is that Muslim women live their life in fear and are oppressed by Muslim men.
“The Quran (the Muslim holy book) says that the best of men treat their wives the best,” said Middleton, an insurance salesman. “Another misconception is that we oppress women; that is not true either. Islam itself is perfect – people that practice it are not. So, what they see on the news is not Islam.”
Abdul Mateem, a member of the Gainesville Islamic Center, said he can understand the questions about Islam.
“Of course people just ask many questions about how we do particular things,” said Mateem, who converted about 10 years ago. “Why do you pray five times a day? … You first have to understand you are worshipping one God, you are praying and why you are praying.”
Praying is an important part of Islam, which is why there are five prayers each day.
“There is a prescribed prayer that you say … you go anywhere around the world there is going to be a prescribed prayer at a prescribed time,” Ali said. “Then we would recite other portions of the Quran and then some other verses.”
Gainesville resident Monica Thomas said she fields questions about her faith, too, including questions from fellow students at Gainesville State College about her hijab (head scarf) or why she sticks to a certain diet.
Thomas said the answers, like with the diet, come easily because they are clearly written in the Quran.
“Now I do have to watch the ingredients in food. I never paid attention before,” she said. “So now I have to be more aware of what I was putting inside my body. But, as I learned, there are different Web sites I can go to to tell me what foods (to eat).”
Mateem said he converted to Islam because of the simplicity of the religion.
“Basically, once I saw that I just liked the concept of the oneness of all things,” he said of his conversion. “They never showed any hostility or hatred; they just stuck behind me while I was changing and they saw how I was changing.
“Now the spiritual benefit is that I know that I’m doing what God wants me to do.”
Thomas said she converted to Islam because she thought the faith matched her life.
“I felt more whole and I noticed a difference in myself,” she said. “It’s not something that happens overnight; it is one day at a time. You are always excited because there is always something you can learn about it. You can never know enough.”
A spiritual life
Overall, Ali said, religion – no matter what it is – is about being close to God. And it’s how you bring that faith into your life that makes a difference.
“Naturally people want to get closer to their creator,” said Ali, a native of Gainesville. “We don’t worship the created, we worship the creator.”
And, Ali added, “your purpose in life is to serve your creator.”
These basic principles are what believers of all faiths need to remember, he said. “Go to the basics,” he said. “We pray to the same God.”
Since Middleton has spent a little more than seven months in the Islamic faith, he said he has made some personal changes.
He doesn’t swear anymore. He feels he has more control over his life. And he has found that other images have become beautiful that he wouldn’t have considered before.
“Prayer is the is the most beautiful thing you can see,” he said. “Overall, Islam is a beautiful thing. It truly, truly is.”
So praying five times a day, as the faith orders believers to do, is not a big deal to Middleton.
“What’s wrong with taking five minutes out of your life and separate yourself from the world and worship God?” he said.
In Middleton’s spare time he chats with other Muslims on a social networking site on the Internet, and helps them with problems. He does not claim to be a Muslim scholar – he still asks the imam many questions – but now, he says, he is just trying to live his life for Allah.
“After the first three months (of practicing Islam), the high was kind of over with,” he said. Although his prior beliefs were “not something that is completely gone. No one can change overnight, just stop everything.”
