FROM THE WATCHTOWER TO THE MINARET And He sends down from the sky mountain masses [of clouds] wherein is hail: He strikes therewith whom He pleases and He turns it away from whom He pleases. The vivid flash of His lightning well-nigh blinds the sight. (Quran 24:43) by Raphael Narbaez, Jr. A forty-two-year-old Latino, Raphael is a Los Anodes-based comic and lecturer. He was born in Texas, where he attended his first Jehovahs Witness meeting at age six, gave his first Bible sermon at eight, tended his own congregation at twenty, and was headed for a position of leadership among the 904,000 Jehovahs Witnesses in the United States.1 But he traded in his Bible for a Quran after having braved a visit to a local mosque. On November 1, 1991, he embraced Islam, bringing to the Muslim community the organizational and speaking skills he developed among Jehovahs Witnesses. He speaks with the urgency of a new convert, but one who can make immigrant Muslims laugh at themselves. He told his story mimicking a cast of characters. I remember vividly being in a discussion where we were all sitting in my parents living room and there were some other Jehovahs Witnesses there. They were talking about: Its Armageddon! The time of the end! And Christ is coming! And you know the hailstones are going to be out here as big as cars! God is going to use all kinds of things to destroy this wicked system and remove the governments! And the Bible talks about the earth opening up! Its going to swallow whole city blocks! 1. Reportedly, there are 4.5 million Jehovahs Witnesses worldwide. Im scared to death! And then my mother turned around: See whats going to happen to you if you dont get baptized, and if you dont do Gods will? The earth is going to swallow you up, or one of these huge hailstones is going to hit you on the head [klonk], knock you out, and you will not exist ever again. Ill have to make another child I wasnt going to take a chance being hit by one of those big hailstones. So I got baptized. And of course Jehovahs Witnesses dont believe in the sprinkling of the water. They submerge you completely, hold you there for a second, and then bring you back up. I did that at the age of thirteen, September 7, 1963, in Pasadena, California, at the Rose Bowl. It was a big international assembly. We had 100,000 people2. We drove all the way from Lubbock, Texas. 2. 118,447 people .mended the public talks; 2,496 people were baptized. Eventually I started giving bigger talks—ten minutes in front of the congregation. And a circuit servant3 recommended me to give the hour lectures that are done on Sunday when they invite the general public. They usually reserved those [sermons] for the elders of the congregation. [In an authoritarian voice:} Sure hes young. But he can handle it. Hes a good Christian boy. He has no vices, and hes obedient to his parents and seems to have pretty good Bible knowledge. So at the age of sixteen I started giving hour lectures in front of whole congregations. I was assigned first a group in Sweetwater, Texas, and then eventually in Brownfield, Texas, I got my first congregation. At age twenty, I had become what they call a pioneer minister. Jehovahs Witnesses have a very sophisticated training program, and they also have kind of a quota system. You had to devote ten to twelve hours a month to door-to-door preaching. Its like sales management. IBM has nothing on these guys. So when I became a pioneer minister, I devoted most of my full time to doing the door-to-door ministry. I had to do like 100 hours a month, and I had to have seven Bible studies. I started lecturing other congregations. I began to get a lot of responsibility, and I was accepted at a school in Brooklyn, New York, a very elite school that Jehovahs Witnesses have for the creme de la creme, the top one percent. But I didnt go. 3. Traveling minister. A few things no longer made sense to me. For example, the quota system. It seemed like every time I wanted to turn a corner and get into another position of responsibility I had to do these secular material things to prove my godliness. Its like if you meet your quotas [his month, God loves you. If you dont meet your quotas next month. God doesnt love you. That didnt make very much sense. One month God loves me and one month He doesnt? The other thing I starred noticing is tunnel vision. Jehovahs Witnesses are the only ones who are going to he saved in Gods new order, nobody else, because all of them are practicing false religions. Well, I thought, Mother Teresas a Catholic. Thats our dire enemy. So I said, Wait a minute. Mother Teresa has spent her entire life doing things that Jesus said: take care of the poor, the sick, the orphans. Bur shes not going to have Gods favor because shes a Catholic? We criticized the Catholic Church because they had a man, a priest, whom they had to confess to. And wed say, You shouldnt have to go a man to confess your sins! Your sin is against God! And yet we went to a Body of Elders. You confessed your sin to them, and they put you on hold, and said [Elder as telephone operator:] Hold on Just a minute . . . What do you think, Lord? No? . . . Okay, Im sorry, we tried our best but youre not repentant enough. Your sin is too big, so you cither lose your fellowship in the church or youre going to be on probation. If the sin is against God, shouldnt I directly go to God and beg for mercy? Probably the nail that hit the coffin was that I noticed that they started reading their Bible less. Jehovahs Witnesses have books for everything that are put out by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.4 The only people on the entire planet who know how to interpret Bible Scripture correctly are that group of men, that committee in Brooklyn, who tell Jehovahs Witnesses worldwide how to dress, how to talk, what to say, what not to say, how to apply Scripture and what the future is going to be like. God told them, so they can tell us. I appreciated the books. But if the Bible is the book of knowledge and if its Gods instructions, well, shouldnt we get our answers out of the Bible? Paul himself said find out for yourself what is a true and acceptable word of God. Dont let men tickle your ears. 4. The publishing arm of the organization. The Watchtower, its bimonthly magazine, has perhaps the highest circulation of any religious periodical—16,400,000 copies, printed in 112 languages. I starred saying, Dont worry so much about what the Watchtower says —read the Bible for yourself. Ears started to prick up. [Old Southerners drawl:} I think we got us an apostate here. Judge. Yup. I think this old boys one taco short of something. Even my father said, You better watch it, young man, thats the demons talking right there. Thats the demons trying to get in and cause division. I said, Dad, its not the demons. People dont need to read so much of these other publications. They can find their answers with prayer and in the Bible. Spiritually I no longer felt at ease. So in 1979, knowing that I could not make headway, 1 left, disgruntled and with a bad taste in my mouth, because all my life I had put my soul, my heart, my mind into the church. That was the problem. I didnt put it in God. I put it in a man-made organization. I cant go to other religions. As a Jehovahs Witness, I had been trained, through the Scriptures, to show that they are all wrong. That idolatry is bad. Trinity doesnt exist. Im like a man without a religion. I was not a man without a God. But where could I go? In 1985, I decided to come to Los Angeles and get on the Johnny Carson show and make my mark as a great comedian and actor. I have always felt like I was born for something. I didnt know whether it was going to be finding the cure to cancer or becoming an actor. I kept praying and it got frustrating after a while. So I Just went to the Catholic church close to my house, and I tried it. I remember on Ash Wednesday I had that ash cross on my forehead. I was trying anything I could. I went for about two or three months, and I just couldnt do it anymore, man. It was: Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Okay, stick your tongue out. You got a lot of exercise. I think I lost about five pounds. But thats about it. So now Im more lost than ever. But it never passed through my mind that there is not a Creator. I have His phone number, but the lines always busy. Im doing my little movie shots. A film called Deadly Intent. A telephone commercial in Chicago. An Exxon commercial. A couple of bank commercials. In the meantime Im doing construction work on the side. Were working on this mall. Its the holiday season, and they put these extra booths in the hallways. There was a gal at one, and we had to pass right in front of her. Id say, Good morning, how are you? If she said anything, it was Hi. And that was it. Finally, I said, Miss, you never say anything. I just wanted to apologize if there was something I said wrong. She said, No, you see, Im a Muslim. Youre what? Im a Muslim, and Muslim women, we dont talk to men unless we have something specific to talk about; otherwise we dont have anything to do with men. Ohhhhh. Muslim. She said, Yes, we practice the religion of Islam. Islam—how do you spell that? I-s-1-a-m. At the time, I knew that Muslims were all terrorists. She doesnt even have a beard. How could she possibly be Muslim? How did this religion get starred? Well, there was a prophet. A prophet? Muhammad. I started some research. But I just came from one religion. I had no intention of becoming Muslim. The holidays are over. The booth moves. Shes gone. I continued to pray, and asked why my prayers werent being answered. In November of 1991, I was going to bring my uncle Rockie home from the hospital. I started to empty his drawers to pack his stuff and there was a Gideon Bible. I said, God has answered my prayers. This Gideon Bible. (Of course, they put it in every hotel room.) This is a sign from God that Hes ready to teach me. So I stole the Bible. I went home and I started praying: O God, teach me to be a Christian. Dont teach me the Jehovahs Witness way. Dont teach me the Catholic way. Teach me Your way! You would not have made this Bible so hard that ordinary people sincere in prayer could not understand it. I got all the way through the New Testament. I started the Old Testament. Well, eventually theres a part in the Bible about the prophets. Bing! I said, Wait a minute, that Muslim lady said they had a prophet. How come hes not in here? I started thinking, Muslims—one billion in the world. Man, one out of every five people on the street theoretically could be a Muslim. And I thought: One billion people! Cmon now, Satan is good. But hes not that good. So then I said, Ill read their book, the Qur an, and Ill see what kind of pack of lies this thing is. It probably has an illustration on how to disassemble an AK-47. So I went to an Arabic bookstore. They asked, What can I help you with? Im looking for a Quran. Okay, we have some over here. They had some very nice ones—thirty dollars, forty dollars. Look, I just want to read it, I dont want to become one, okay? Okay, we have this little five-dollar paperback edition. I went home, and started reading my Quran from the beginning, with Al-Fatihah. And I could not get my eyes off of it. Hey, look at this. It talks about a Noah in here. We have Noah in our Bible too. Hey, it talks Lot and Abraham. I cant believe it. I never knew Satans name was Iblis. Hey, how about that. When you get that picture on your TV set and its got a little bit of static and you push that button [klop\—fine-tune. Thats exactly what happened with the Quran. I went through the whole thing. So I said, Okay, Ive done this, now whats the next thing you got to do? Well, you gotta go to their meeting place. I looked in the yellow pages, and I finally found it: Islamic Center of Southern California, on Vermont. I called and they said, Come on Friday. Now I really start getting nervous, cause now I know Im going to have to confront Habib and his AK-47. I want people to understand what its like for an American Christian coming into Islam. Im kidding about the AK-47, but I dont know if these guys have daggers under their coats, you know. So I come up to the front, and sure enough, theres this six-foot-three, 240-pound brother, beard and everything, and Im Just in awe. I walked up and said, Excuse me, sir. [Arabic accent:] Go to the back! He thought I was already a brother. I said, Yessir, yessir [meekly}. I didnt know what I was going back for, but I went back anyway. They had the tent and the rugs were out. Im standing there, kind of shy, and people are sitting down listening to the lecture. And people are saying. Go ahead, brother, sit down. And Im going. No, thanks, no, thanks, Im just visiting. So finally the lectures over. Theyre all lined up for prayer and they go into sajdah. I was really taken aback. It started making sense intellectually, in my muscles, in my bones, in my heart and my soul. So prayers are over. I say, hey, whos going to recognize me? So I start to mingle like Im one of the brothers, and Im walking into the mosque and a brother says, Assalaamu alaikum. And I thought, Did he say salt and bacon? Assalaamu alaikum. Theres another guy who said salt and bacon to me. I didnt know what in the world they were saying, but they all smiled. Before one of these guys noticed that I was nor supposed to be there and took me to the torture chamber, or beheaded me, I wanted to see as much as I could. So eventually I went to the library, and there was a young Egyptian brother; his name was Omar. God sent him to me. Omar comes up to me, and he says, Excuse me. This your first rime here? He has a real strong accent. And I said, Yeah, it is. Oh, very good. You are Muslim? No, Im just reading a little. Oh, you are studying? This is your first visit to a mosque? Yes. Come, let me show you around. And he grabs me by the hand, and Im walking with another man—holding hands. I said, These Muslims are friendly. So he shows me around. First of all, this is our prayer hall, and you take your shoes off right here. What are these things? These are little cubicles. Thats where you put your shoes. Why? Well, because youre approaching the prayer area, and its very holy. You dont go in there with your shoes on; its kept real clean. So he takes me to the mens room. And right here, this is where we do wudu, Voodoo! I didnt read anything about voodoo! No, not voodoo. Wudu! Okay, because I saw that stuff with the dolls and the pins, and Im just not ready for that kind of commitment yet. He says, No, wudu, thats when we clean ourselves. Whv do you do that? Well, when you pray to God, you have to be clean, so we wash our hands and feet. So I learned all these things. He let me go, and said, Come back again. I went back and asked the librarian for a booklet on prayer, and I went home and practiced. I felt that if I was trying to do it right, God would accept it. I Just continued to read and read and visit the mosque. I had a commitment to go on a tour of the Midwest on a comedy circuit. Well, I took a prayer rug with me. I knew that I was supposed to pray at certain times, but there are certain places where you are not supposed to pray, one of which is in the bathroom. I went into a mens room on a tourist stop and I laid out my carpet and I started doing my prayers. I came back, and when Ramadan was over, I started getting calls from different parts of the country to go and lecture as a Jehovahs Witness minister who embraced Islam. People find me a novelty. [Two immigrants converse:} This guy likes apple pie and he drives a Chevy truck. He is a red-blooded American boy. He was a Jehovahs Witness. Those people that come in the morning? Yeah, those. That never let us sleep on Sundays? Yeah, this guy was one of them. Now hes one of us. Eventually somebody would come up to me and say [Pakistani accent], Oh, brother, your talk was so good. But you know, in the Shafii school of thought— The only thing I could do was turn to them and say, Gee, brother, Im so sorry, I wish I knew about that, but I dont know anything about Islam except whats in the Quran and Sunnah. Some of them are taken aback and say, Ha-ha! Poor brother. He doesnt know anything. He only knows the Quran. Well, thats what Im supposed to know. And its been a very loving protection. I think its all in Gods hands.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:50:39 +0000
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