Here is what attending a Christian school did to me…

Some days back I was singing a song by “Sinach” which I always sing by the way because it just lift my soul and gives me so much confidence in only few minutes (By the way, I am a terrible singer)…

A friend who walked into the room was shocked that I know the song and that I know sinach… I went on to sing “way maker” for her as well but of course with my little tweak to it to shock her even more…

She just couldn’t get over the fact that she thinks I know too much about Christianity…
She went ahead to say “I can’t with you this geh, Isn’t It enough that you have a bible on your ipad? Now you sing song as if you are doing praise and worship..GIRL I SHOULD LEARN MORE ABOUT ISLAM TOO…”

Myself and my siblings all went to a Christian school growing up, it was almost a rule in my house… Your first 6 years in school had to be in a Christian school… Reason why? I don’t know ( I should ask my parent..)…

My father is a knowledgeable calm Muslim, He sat us down severally to teach us the rulings of Islam, tell us stories about the Sahabas (The companions of the prophet ), constantly gifts us Islamic books, ensure we go to our various Islamic schools daily as well as send messages to remind us of the teachings of Islam…

At home, Just next to the Qur’an is a bible which my dad took his time to read occasionally, As I was that curious and observant child, I would always ask myself why my Dad read the Bible but then again, I would say to myself “It can’t be something bad now, since we go to a Christian school, have close relatives as well as good neighbors that are Christians …” I see how my parents treat them with utmost respect and never failed to show them love at all times…
We would regularly visit them and they would visit us as well, they were always quick to send us food during Christmas as we did during sallah…..

My teachers knew I was a Muslim and they respected that, there was never anytime I felt any kind of discrimination, As a matter of fact my parent had a good relationship with my teachers…. But of course once in a while they say things like “Lord Jesus..” which was new to me… As in Islam God is Lord…

I was taught by my parents at an early age that as a Muslim, You should believe in God, The prophets and their books… And in Islam, the last prophet is Prophet Muhammad who came after Jesus…
Jesus came with a book which is “The bible” and the Prophet Muhammad came with a book as well which is the Qur’an…

I Also learnt that of all the religions, Christianity is more closer to Islam and the prophet admonished Muslims to alway treat Christians right as they are closest to Muslims…All my friends in school were Christians and we showed each other genuine love, our parents were cool with each other and there was never an issue… My friends will always mention going to the church on Sundays and I will ask my parents why we don’t go to church and they would nicely say: Christians go to church and Muslims go to mosque…

My friends also always referred to themselves as children of God: Whenever I mentioned it at home, My parent will say, In Islam, We believe that God has no wives nor children… He is Ahd (He is one)…. Which is the main difference between Christianity and Islam: They believe Jesus is the son of God why we believe Jesus is a prophet)…

What’s interesting is how they explained this things, they would always take their time to explain in a non judge-mental way, they could finish explaining now and then ask that I go and say hi to our Christian neighbors and come back when it was time for me to pray…

I almost didn’t need anyone to teach me religious tolerance because I had parent who depicted that on every level… My friends and neighbors were also very tolerant as they would always remind me to pray or even tie my head scarf…

It was so easy for me to understand both religion as at that time I didn’t necessarily read the Bible as much but I took my time watching pastor Oyakilome on TV…And he would talk about a verse in the Bible and I would be so quick to say Haaa, we also have that same verse in the Qur’an…

In my secondary school, it was so easy to be friends with everyone, if you are Christian we roll and if you are Muslim we roll too… Of course I had people who tried to preach becoming a Christian to me and I was so quick to politely remind them that there is no compulsion in religion, do yours, I do mine, respect mine and I respect yours, just like my parents taught me…

In my early uni days, my roommate who was a choir member would always bring her song sheet to me to help her memorize and being that I went to a Christian school and we had a lot of churches around my house as well, I knew most of the songs… I would normally sing them with a tweak tho meaning wherever they referred to God as baba, I would change it to something else like instead of Baba( Father), I will say Oba (king) and she never for once had any issues with it….

I was the Ameerah (Head of Muslim girls) in school and The president of the Christian association who was also a pastor was my senior and my very good friend, we would regularly sit down and talk about religious related issues, he would often introduce me to various church members as “Dr President Muslim community “…

All of these make them so comfortable and make them want to ask me questions about my religion which I honestly love to answer…
We wouldn’t always agree but we would never result to disrespecting one another’s beliefs…

To cut the long story, All thanks to my parents for their efforts in making sure we have religious tolerance, It’s really something to thank God for as it has been proved that the society we live in today lack religious tolerance, your children don’t have to go to a Christian/Muslim school to understand these things (for me I am super glad that I was privileged to have attended one which made me asked a lot of questions and helped me understand my religion better) but you can take it upon yourself to UNDERSTAND YOUR RELIGION and always take time to educate them…. We need it, we need it for a better world and a better existence…. Honestly no religion preaches hate, we have only failed in interpreting scriptures the right way.. We can do better…