I just wanted to share a funny story with you all.
A few years ago, a rumour spread that the snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan had converted to Islam. Amongst people I knew, and on the internet, on UK message boards where I spent time chatting with Muslims, there were celebrations and joy.
A high profile convert to Islam, the genius world champion snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan!
Mashallah, the ways of Allah were great. Here he had brought O'Sullivan into the fold, and the truth of Islam had once again been proven, and the self esteem of Muslims across the land was once again lifted.
Ronnie had seen the light, he had understood the truth and beauty of Islam.
Teenage Muslim girls began to profess that they had always found him so handsome, and the Muslim guys acted as if their snooker cues had grown by two feet, and that the world would tremble because O'Sullivan was now a Muslim, surely it was all just proof of evidence that when a kufr is shown the truth without Jewish controlled media being unfair to Islam, they would all bow down to their knees and just like one day England would gradually become Islamic, so did Ronnie O'Sullivan represent an early indication of how the Truth of Islam would prevail.
Joy! Celebration! Ecstacy! Hysteria!
Until, a few days later, Ronnie gave an interview about how he was friends with Prince Naseem the boxer. Ronnie, a very open minded chap, who has mates from a wide variety of backgrounds, had spent a couple of days with Prince Naseem in London, during which Naseem had spent long time extolling excitedly the wonders of Islam to him.
Well, you know how it goes, not wanting to seem impolite, Ronnie had said, yes, I'd love to visit Regents Park Mosque, because he was curious about all cultures, he did, after all, have Jewish and Sikh friends, for example.
Well it seems there was some confusion and in the Mosque Prince Naseem whispered something to an Arab looking fella in baggy pyjamas and Ronnie just repeated some gobbledygook thinking it was just a greeting ceremony or something, didn't think anything else of it, and much to his confusion, lo and behold, a few days later in the newspaper it said he had become a Muslim.
There was silence, and shock on the message boards, and amongst previously rapturous dawah merchants I knew. Except in the background could be heard the giggling of some people, and that sound of dripping was the egg on the faces of many Muslims who had been in ecstacy of having Islam validated and their self esteem boosted, only for it to end in farce, comedy and the future laughter of myself and present laughter of those who had enjoyed the spectacle.
I guess what the story shows, is that there is a lot of humour and comedy in Islam, and in the sometimes pompous attitudes of Muslims towards themselves and their religion, especially in the realm of conversion, whoops, sorry, I meant 'reversion', because everyone is a Muslim in denial, they just don't know it yet
And comedy and laughter at the expense of Islam can do almost as much to undermine it as anything else.
Ronnie O'Sullivan-hu-Akbar!
Topic: Ronnie O'Sullivan