BOLA
"I was born into a mixed religious family in Nigeria. My Mother was Christian and my Dad, Muslim so we four children were exposed to both. It is not uncommon in the southwestern part of Nigeria where there are more Christians than Muslims, for couples of mixed beliefs to marry and raise their children, it was typical. My Dad would encourage us to go to the church with our Mum, and my Mum would likewise encourage us to follow the Muslim practices. We would joke we were ‘Chrislams’ not really one or the other.
"You must learn Arabic as a first introduction to Islam. The Quran is not translated into other languages to protect its authenticity, so learning is imperative in the faith. To be a practicing Muslim, you must first learn Arabic, the original Arabic not changed over time or by man. Children attend Madrasa (Arabic school) for the purpose of learning Arabic, understanding the text of the Quran, and thirdly, the culture.
"I was not the first-born son, but I was more serious about Islam than my brother. The school was about 8 minutes’ walk away, and my brother wouldn’t go, but I was intentional and made more than the expected improvements. Due to my accelerated learnings and enthusiasm as a 11-year-old boy, another school with an Imam was brought to a mosque closer to where I lived, and I became more involved.
"Within a couple of months, I became a teacher in the school. My Father was so proud of me and my Mother thought this was quite normal. Even though I had knowledge and understanding, I pushed myself to learn and advance more. From a very young age I thought I had a revelations and inclinations of the things of God. It seemed effortlessly I gained insight beyond my years. I was a brilliant student, winning scholarships, and awards and intuitively without being told, would tithe my money and always give back.
"I wanted to know about God. There were churches around my area preaching about giving your life to God, and getting saved and I was listening to that, but I was more inclined to Islam. From my own perspective and experience at that time, Islam felt very physical and logical and that worked for me. Physics, chemistry and mathematics stimulated my brain and made sense to me and Islam appealed to that same way of thinking. In Islam I needed to study more I order to know more about God and that appealed to me. It was about what one does to get closer to God. I was trying to earn my way and that made sense to me then. Logically I believed I could know more about God revealing himself to me. In Islam it is not about oneself, it is about God.
"During high school I was still going to church with my Mum every Easter and Christmas and as my Mum was active in the church we would all go to support her. My older brother invited me to go with him to church to hear someone preaching and this was the first time I heard someone speaking in tongues.
"Once in university, I was away from home and in a totally different environment. The university I attended was the best in Nigeria and run by the federal government and designed to teach the most intelligent students. It was all about competition, about being the best amongst highly cerebral people. People were divided into 3 categories: good Christians, atheists and fanatical Islams. Every day people brought ideas, manuscripts, Bibles, Quran and beliefs to debate and argue on any subject.
"I became even more involved in Islam. I was hungry for more and believed through deeper study and greater discipline I could draw closer to God. I started living in the mosque, sleeping in the mosque and I was calling to prayer 5 times a day. I was calling people to prayer. I was leading prayers. I was the person at the front. I became fully radicalized in my devotion and practise.
"When I went back home after 2 years of exposure to Islam in the university, I became angry with my Dad, and questioned how he could have married a Christian? I knew better! It showed he was more liberal and not fully practicing the way Islam was to be done. I was immersed in the culture, a purist, and he was not. Not practiced in my home was how to wear your hair or beard, what length your trouser must be. Women must not expose any part of her body. Alongside the Quran, Islam is guided by the Hadith [recorded sayings and actions of Muhammad] which together form the Sunnah [the model of how Muslims are to live]. Muhammad is the perfect person, and his example is how to live as a human being. He lived like this, he spoke like this, he drank water like this, he used his left hand like this, and we should live that way. There is even a joke that if Muhammad opened a book a certain way, then we must open the book the same way.
"Normally in an Islamic family, it is the oldest person who would lead prayer. The father is considered to be priest of the house leading his family, but when I came home, I told my father, he was not worthy of leading the prayer and I would not pray behind him! I led the prayer and my family stood behind me.
"This went on for a couple of years. During that same time, I was thinking more deeply about God, and doubts began to form in my mind. The more I learned, the more questions I had. Yes I was studying. Yes I was very cerebral. But if God is almighty and all powerful, why did everything seem to be reduced to physical actions? I felt like something was missing. I began to wonder if God was meant to be a spirit, and some kind of being unlike like you and me. If so, why things like the length of my beard or my trouser, or the way I opened a book, matter so much. How did these things make me better, cleaner or more spiritual. These doubts grew.
"Because I had that kind of mind, and was still in university hearing all kinds of ideologies and beliefs, I explored a range of options, including new age spirituality, concepts like astral projection, the third eye, and ideas of spiritual awakening. I was telling myself that yes Islam was good, and I had learnt so much from it, yet there was still something inside me. A void.
"I awoke one morning and said, no more! No more Islam! No more nothing! It was that quick. I decided to just carry on with my 5-year degree in quantity surveying and go with a secular life.
"When I went home my Dad laughed at me. I told you he said, ‘I’ve lived this life longer than you! You have gone full circle’. There was no more prayer at home! I was not practicing Islam even in a small way, I left it completely. I dropped my Islamic name Abdulgafar meaning the servant of the forgiver. I told others to simply call me Bola.
"I was not interested in parties, drugs or alcohol, but the void was still there. No amount of learning could fill it. It was so real, I could almost touch it.
"I graduated with honors and turned my focus to my career in the industry".
"In my fifth year at university, a woman studying the same degree, 3 years behind me began attending my classes. I was tutoring physics and mathematics to help any student struggling, especially in their freshman year. Around the time she started university, I had made my decision to step away from Islam and became very reserved. When we met, she had no idea of the struggles I was dealing with, and thought I was an intelligent, but arrogant snob.
"After I left university one of my mentees called me up and arranged a meeting with this same woman, Oyin. She had grown up in a Christian family. Her father a Reverend in the Anglican diocese wore a clerical collar and a cassock [full length black robe]. His dream was to one day wear his cassock when leading his daughter down the aisle in marriage. He was the Reverend and served in several churches around where we lived. One of those churches was my mother’s church which I attended while growing up.
"Oyin was a Christian in a Chistian family, and I was not believing anymore in anything. One day I invited her home to meet my parents. When Oyin came to the house my mother almost fell down. She asked me ‘do you know who she is’? I said I did. She repeated her question. I said yes, it was nothing to me. My mother persisted ‘She is the daughter of the Reverend. Her grandfather is the Bishop. And you are, who you are!’ she continued ‘now God has caught you. You will not have a choice. You will have to get your act right’.
"Before I met her parents, I knew I had to get my thinking straight. The void in my life was still there. I wasn’t doing anything wrong but I wasn’t involved in anything. I was just sitting on the fence.
"A Christian cousin came to our house and invited my mother and me to a church just a short walk away. It was KICC [Kingsway International Christian Center] a church that started in London with branches worldwide. The lead Pastor and founder Mathew Ashimolowo established this Pentecostal church, and his evangelist services were recorded for television. Every night my dad would watch this evangelist teach from the Bible, and because he watched, our whole family watched with him. Without us realizing it at that time, a seed was planted in our spirits. Later KICC opened its first church in Nigeria, the very church my cousin invited us to, almost beside our house. I realised this was the same evangelist we had watched so many times with my father, on tv.
"I began attending this church with my siblings and cousin. Around the same time a colleague from the office who was a Christian believer, had moved to the area and started attending this same church. Through some divine orchestration we began walking in the same place. It was exactly as my mother had said!
"I started attending the church and one day while listening to the preacher, his words just got to me. I had an epiphany, a sudden and profound understanding. There was an altar call, and I got up. I wasn’t weeping or emotional, but something touched the essence or the core of that void I had carried for so long. This God they were worshipping needed to only to be in spirit. When that truth sank into my spirit, I gave my heart to the God of all creation. The great I Am.
"Years before I heard my Christian brother speaking in tongues and it wasn’t long before I experienced this gift too. I was discipled, went through the teaching classes and was Baptised. One day at a time, I began to grow in my faith. Slowly things my mother had taught us as children, lessons I had heard from the evangelist on tv, and now the guidance through church discipleship all began to come together. Everything started to make sense. All the things I had not wanted to accept I could now accept and understand. Even simple things started to make sense, for example in the church there are 3 kinds of people. Those who during worship are all in – clapping, singing and speaking in tongues, but when it’s time for the word they’re snoring and not fully engaged at all. The third kind strike a balance between the two. I’m still working on being this third kind because I always just want to get into the word.
"I was transformed, and as I learned my faith grew deeper. A watershed moment had come when I had to decide where my life was going. I have always considered myself a spiritual person, and I believed that all of this was happening for a reason. I knew this was the leading of God.
"I was able to accept myself saying I believed in God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. As a Muslim you must be able to declare the Kalimah Shahada which states ‘there is no God but Allah and Muhammad (the only prophet) is his messenger’. This felt like a declaration too, but this time it was not spoken out of duty, it came from my heart.
"The first teaching that really dropped into my spirit was the story of the woman at the well.in John chapter 4. Jesus a Jew, spoke one on one with a Samaritan woman, someone from a people historically divided from His own. As I reflected, I sensed a parallel in my own life. The divisions between Islam and Christianity and my own struggle to understand God. God was showing me that the day would come when true worship would no longer be about labels or rules, but about worshipping Him in spirit and truth. That encounter made me realise He met me exactly where I was – beyond all division. When I heard that, I knew this was it for me, it made sense to me. True believers worship their God in spirit and in truth and this was not believed in Islam. -one was so ritualistic, and Christianity was so humble and so simple.
"I married Oyin and her dad’s dream was fulfilled when he walked her down the aisle in his cassock. Together we became foundation members of a small Pentecostal church and immersed ourselves in all aspects of church fellowship and administration. I was leading classes for new members, teenage classes and prayer often at the front of the church. I was selected to become an ordained Deacon of the KICC church worldwide. In 2014 I gained a Masters in Construction and Real Estate.
"A year later, we moved to Doha to further our work. While there I went on to complete my 2nd Masters in Construction Law and Arbitration. It’s quite a good CV!
"Professionally, I have achieved recognition as a fellow of 4 professional bodies – Fellow of Quantity Surveyors United Kingdom, Fellow of Nigerian Quantity Surveyors, Fellow of Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors and Fellow of Arbitrators.
"I am a son of the Most High God called to worship him in spirit and in truth".