MUST READ: Yuvan Shankar Raja on what made him convert to Islam!

Music director Yuvan Shankar Raja, who embraced Islam a few years ago, has finally broken his silence and disclosed that one life changing incident that made him embrace Islam.

Music director Yuvan Shankar Raja, who embraced Islam a few years ago, has finally broken his silence and disclosed details of the life-changing incident that made him embrace Islam.

For a very long time, fans of the well known music director, who is the youngest son of Maestro Ilaiyaraaja, wanted to know what was that one incident that had made him convert to Islam. But until now, Yuvan had maintained a stoic silence.

However, recently, Yuvan chose to open up about the incident and released a video which was posted by his wife Zafroon Nisar on her instagram page.

In the video, Yuvan says, “Several people have been asking about that exact moment that brought about a change in me. It was a journey.

“A few years before coming to Islam itself (even when my mom was alive), I wanted to know what this religion had to say. I studied in St. Bede’s which is an Anglo-Indian school. It was around the year 2012, when an apocalypse was being predicted by those following the Mayan calendar. So, that made me wonder, “How is this possible?”

“There is an African religion called Zulu. In that too, this had been predicted. That started a journey and that made me take a few steps. I began wondering, “How can the world end?” “Can the world end?” At that point itself, I would discuss all this with my mother.

“Then itself, I read the Quran once. When I read it, within the first two hours itself, I was unable to grasp it because it was very harsh. I am being straightforward. When I read it for the first time, I found it to be very harsh.”

“Time passed. We cut to a time period several years later when my mom had passed away. A friend of mine went to Mecca. This friend, when he returned, gifted me a prayer mat which he had spread in Mecca and prayed. He said, “Whenever your heart feels heavy, you don’t have to do anything but just sit on it.”

“One day, my cousin came home and I was talking to her. The topic veered towards my late mother and it got me very emotional. Until then, I hadn’t thought about the mat which I had had for so many days. When I opened the door of the cupboard, the first thing that my eyes fell on was the mat.

“I went to the restroom to wash my face as I had been crying a lot thinking of my mother. Just as I was washing my face, I received a message on my mobile. It was a picture of the sky that had been sent by a friend. The friend had sent it to me saying,’Beautiful sky.’

“I messaged him back saying, ‘Do you see any sign in this picture?’ He replied,”Oh my God! It is Allah’. I was shocked. I asked him how he could say it was Allah and my friend showed me a cloud which was exactly in the shape of the Arabic letters of Allah.

“I came out of the room, spread the mat and knelt down to pray. Before kneeling down, I was missing my mom and that was my frame of mind. But just as my forehead touched the mat as I bowed down in prayer, I began crying without my knowledge, begging for God to forgive my sins. This was the turning point. Turning point is putting it mildly. This was a very deep experience. That night, I downloaded an app and studied the Quran. Again, I found it hard. It was heavy.

“It was later that I understood that this was the word of God. When the Creator of the Universe speaks to you through the Quran, it will be heavy. It was then that I started reading it and my heart became one with it,” Yuvan said.

This is the first time that Yuvan has spoken about his conversion at length.