Co-Workers Prayed, Latino Manager Accepts Islam
How did Muslims praying the 5 daily prayers at work inspire their Manager to embrace Islam?
Roberto, originally from El Salvador moved from Oregon to Houston at age 19. He is an assistant manager at a Ross retail store where several of the employees are Muslim. He noticed that there was a repeated request by these workers to have certain break hours. It was strange for him because normally there are only 1 or 2 breaks per shift, and these people wanted 3 or more.
When he asked why the frequent breaks, he was surprised to know that it was to fulfill their 5 daily prayers. He was shocked and amazed at how dedicated and disciplined they were. This made him curious to look into Islam. After some time he asked the Muslim employees how he could find out more information and they directed him to look up IslamInSpanish. He continued to independently learn from the IslamInSpanish YouTube Channel and joined the IslamInSpanish Facebook page community.
Growing up as a catholic he would go to church and attend the usual services and felt he was pretty religious but the more he looked into Islam he felt that many of his doubts were cleared up. He preferred watching and listening to the Spanish Islamic material available from IslamInSpanish online since it was in his native language.
He eventually asked his co-workers about the IslamInSpanish Centro Islamico which is only 10 minutes from where they work. They encouraged for him to visit and he came into the center and met with Imam Isa Parada and Jaime “Mujahid” Fletcher. After a few questions in about half hour, he told them that he was ready to take his Shahadah (Testimony of Faith to enter Islam) alhumdulillah.
TAKEAWAYS
• Never underestimate how your obedience in Islam may affect someone in society to look into Islam.
• There are people who have spent countless hours asking ALLAH for guidance while in solitude and they are searching for something.
• No matter if someone is higher or lower in the chain of command in a company, we all have one common God that provides for us.