Source: Jihad of the Pen

My name is Ataul Wahhab Ahmad Rybinski. The name Ataul Wahhab means ‘Gift of The Bestower’ was given to me by Hudhur. I was born on October 9th 1980 in Warsaw, Poland. Shortly after taking my A-level exams (or rather Polish equivalent) I faced the necessity of working full time in order to support myself. I am a Jack-of-all-Trades in a sense that I was working as a bartender,decorator, promoter, stage technician, light engineer, sound technician, construction worker, bouncer, porter and chef, not necessarily in this particular order. I came to the UK, to Bradford to be specific on September 1st 2006, like most Eastern Europeans in a search for a job. I plan to start my BA in Modern European History this October.

1. Tell us about your journey to Islam/Ahmadiyyat.

For most of my adult life, or rather conscious life – from adolescence or salad days until 2006 when I came to the UK, I was an Atheist, also a very militant one. That did not mean that I didn’t want to learn about the spiritual or religious side of life, which is precisely why I thought that coming to the UK is a perfect opportunity to learn about Islam. In Poland, where I’m from, Muslims are a minority and a very, very small one and I always knew that I can’t trust the western media or even historians to paint a fair picture of Islam. I arrived in the UK in September 2006 and almost straight away started to read whatever I could about Islam – globally and locally you might say, because I wanted to know a thing or two before I would contact any sect or branch of Islam present in Bradford, where I live. Alhamdolillah, I established a very friendly relationship with Abdul Latif sahib from Bradford Jama’at and his son Muhammad Tufail with whom I worked in one of the many warehouses located in Bradford. Through them I’ve learned about the Ahmadiyya Jama’at, about the Promised Messiah (as) and about Islam generally. In 2007 after one of theJama’at’s (Community) Q&A sessions Abdul Latif sahib introduced me to Naseem Ahmad Bajwa sahib, the regional missionary for the North East region at the time, but now is the Imam of the Baitul Futuh mosque in London. It was through the long hours that I spent with Murrabi (Missionary) sahib that I came to the conclusion that in fact, I am a believer. And since even before that I’ve stated on many occasions, after due consideration of course, that ‘If there’s a God then Islam is the proper way to worship Him’; as a consequence I needed to admit to it and start changing my life. But it wasn’t until November 2008 that I was ready to sign my bay’at form though. So you might say that I needed over two years of learning through both actual studying Islam and Ahmadiyyat and through certain events in my personal life to finally make the decision that now seems to me more instinctive and natural that it would appear even a year ago.

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