THE IDEAL MUSLIMAH

Myriam Francois-Cerrah says, “There were several things that were pivotal in leading to this change in me. One was looking into the Prophet Muhammad [PBUH]. I think he is one of the great misunderstood figures of history.”

“My intellectual curiosity was sparked as a result of the backlash against my Muslims friends after 9/11 when I, like most people, was convinced that Islam was responsible for this atrocity. I wanted to understand why my friends would remain part of such a faith.“

“When I began looking into the faith, I realised how antithetical those terrorist actions are to the core message of Islam which enjoins peace, moderation and fairness. I then began to realise what was actually behind 9/11 was the distorted ideology of some political extremists, using Islam as a veneer to justify their actions.”

“Islam is about always having balance and I think the Prophet’s (PBUH) message was fundamentally about having balance and equilibrium in all that we do.”

“The Prophet’s message was always that you repel bad with good that you always respond to evil with good and always remember that God loves justice so even when people are committing serious injustices against you, you have a moral responsibility and a moral obligation in front of God to always appall justice and never yourself transgress those limits.”

She quotes a few favourite quotes by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) such as

‘Forgive him who wrongs you. Join him who cuts you off.

Do good to him who does evil to you and speak the truth even if it be against yourself.’”

“Islam’s beauty really becomes to its own when it becomes manifest and it becomes manifest when you make it into a tool for the betterment of society, human kind and the world.”

“The ideal from an Islamic perspective is for ethics to become lived ethics to become an applied body of values and not remain unfortunately as it often is cloistered in the mosque of somewhere which is some more divorced from reality.”

Myriam Francois-Cerrah became popular when she was a child for acting in the 90's hit film ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ Now she is gaining more popularity for being one of a growing number of educated middle class female converts to Islam in Britain.