Before joining the fragrant religious environment of Dawat-e-Islami, I was living a life full of sin. Love for the world and greed for money had blinded me. I was heedless of the Hereafter whilst wasting away my life. On top of this, the evil company of bad friends had caused me to fall into the habit of stealing. Due to this evil habit, I had fell in the eyes of people; I would be looked at with hatred and with no respect, but it did not bother me in the slightest. In this manner, I would spend my days stealing and committing other wrongs. If anyone would try to tell me off, I would not listen to them, and I would remain absorbed in my fun.

However, I was fortunate, as I was introduced to the religious environment of Dawat-e-Islami. The way this happened was that one day, I saw that one of my friends, who was also involved in stealing, had joined the religious environment of Dawat-e-Islami. Through its blessings, he had left his evil ways and was living his life with the Prophet’s devotees, in accordance to the Quran and Sunnah. After this, I also began to attend Ijtimas with him. Then through the individual efforts of an Islamic brother, I decided to sit in I’tikaaf for the last 10 days of Ramadan. Alongside learning rulings regarding salah, wudu, ghusl, purity and impurity, I heard the heart-trembling bayan of Ameer of Ahl al-Sunnah دَامَـتْ بَـرَكَـاتُـهُـمُ الْـعَـالِـيَـهْ, “Pul Sirat ki Wah-shat”.

This caused fear of Allah Almighty to overwhelm my heart, and the terrifying scenes of the Bridge of Sirat began to fill my mind. Thus, in order to save myself from its terrors and horrors, I wept in the court of Allah Almighty and sincerely repented of my previous sins, and in order to live a virtuous life, I associated myself with the religious environment of Dawat-e-Islami. As well as offering the five daily prayers, I began to offer Tahajjud salah too. Through the blessings of the sunnah-inspired I’tikaf, I developed a passion for reciting the Quran, so I joined Madrassa-tul-Madina for adults, where I learned how to recite the Quran in the correct manner. Like this, اَلْـحَمْـدُ لـِلّٰـه, the religious environment completely transformed my life. At the time of writing,