Driving Across The Deserts Of Nevada

By Said Abdul Latif 

It’s been about a month and a half since I started my trek on the road east from California, yet it already feels like something of a lifetime. After decades of feeling drawn to Islam in varying degrees, I had finally decided to take the plunge. For this to happen, however, a physical move was necessary and in order, as I was living in a Catholic monastery. One simply can’t be a priest and monk publicly, and a Muslim privately.

For the better part of a year, this had been the situation — at least increasingly so in my private thoughts. Now, I had to step out into the unknown. No safety nets. Just trust in God.

In order to begin my new life as a Muslim, I felt it important to head back east — to go home — to the place where my journey into Islam began some twenty years ago at a little Islamic center in a university town in the rust belt of Appalachia.

I recalled the words of T.S. Eliot in his Four Quartets: With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time. And so I was coming Home.

I packed my truck in California with all of my earthly belongings, which is little more than two-dozen or so boxes of books and some various photos, icons, and papers. At dawn, I made my way past the monastery chapel where the monks were praying Matins. Their chanting lifting out into the cool, California mountain air and greeting the sun rising in the East.

So began my journey back home and into the Ummah. It took five days in all across the wide expanse of America. Up over the Sierra, through the stark beauty of Nevada, into the majestic mountains of Salt Lake City, through the lonesome cowboy country of Wyoming, and straight into the heartlands of the Midwest. A copy of the Quran — the very Word of God — on my dashboard leading the way.

This was really the first time I have driven across the country. I took I-80, which historically traces the old Lincoln Highway, as well as parts of the old Oregon and California trails. Watching hour after hour and day after day of sometimes rugged, sometimes barren landscape pass me by — over wide expanses of wild land and under an endless blue sky — my thoughts were on all of the original settlers and pioneers who braved elements and danger and disease to venture off into the unknown — risking their own lives and making their way out West to search for… something. Fortune. Freedom. The Almighty. The Promised Land of California. A better way of life — for themselves and for their children.

Manifest Destiny through the Wild West is at the heart of the American imagination. The Soul of America. Boldly going forth and following (they often felt) the Hand of God. Providence working in time and space. The founding idea of a nation. And here I am. Heading back East. Back to origins. Back to Beginnings. Back to my Home. My ‘primordial identity'. La ilaha illa ‘llah, Muhammadun-Rasulullah.

This was a leap into the unknown for me. A voyage into the wilderness. As the Lord said to Abraham in the Tanak: “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you.” As a younger, middle-age priest, my life until this point was set. I had a ‘promising’ career as a priest. I was well-liked. Well educated. Everything, by all accounts, was going ‘right’. Yet my inner convictions have changed. Matured? Perhaps. But a seed planted years ago had blossomed into full bloom. La ilaha illa ‘llah, Muhammadun-Rasulullah.

I really had no choice. “Whomever Allah guides, none can lead astray… and whomsoever Allah gives guidance, for him there is no one to misguide.” And it truly is like “coming home”. My primordial faith. For the Qur’an states that we worshipped God alone and submitted to him since before we were even born. It reads: “And ˹remember˺ when your Lord brought forth from the loins of the children of Adam their descendants and had them testify regarding themselves. ˹Allah asked,˺ “Am I not your Lord?” They replied, “Yes, You are! We testify.” ˹He cautioned,˺ “Now you have no right to say on Judgment Day, ‘We were not aware of this.’ “ — Qur’an (7:172). It is for this reason that converts to Islam often do not speak so much of ‘conversion’ as they speak of a ‘reversion’ to Islam — our primordial faith. A long process of Returning.

So begins my first baby steps into the Ummah. Arriving back east with no home. Little money. Just my old Ford, a bunch of books, and the clothes on my back. Hardly knowing a lick of Arabic. And yet, the warmth and hospitality that I’ve witnessed and received from the Muslim community is simply phenomenal. Never have I experienced such hospitality.

The future, for me, is uncertain. A leap into the dark is always wrought with some anxieties. And yet, I feel such a peace. A joy. A relief. My pull towards Islam over twenty years has finally led me home. Now begins the work of entering deeper into the faith. A deeper learning. A love for the Deen. A love for the Ummah. A love for the Prophet ﷺ.

This is the first step in a neverending journey back to God. Subhanallah.