Nenad Ristić: Years of Comparison That Ended in Peace
Nenad Ristić grew up in southern Serbia and was baptized in the Orthodox Church at fifteen, by his own and his family's choice. He said the wars and propaganda of the 1990s worsened the image of Muslims around him, and that he was not free of those inherited assumptions.
Studying history opened a different door. Religious texts formed part of his university work, and he later worked as a tourism guide in Turkey and Egypt. There he saw Muslim lives that differed from what he had imagined, moving the question from an inherited image of people to a direct comparison between life and text.
He did not attribute his decision to a sudden moment. He said the process lasted several years and involved reading the Old Testament, New Testament and Quran while seeking a path to God. When he reached conviction, he decided; he described becoming Muslim as reconciliation with God and peace with himself.
The interview was published in February 2017 and said he had become Muslim eight months earlier. It also described him going to Belgrade's Bajrakli Mosque on a Friday in the previous June and reciting the shahada. The text does not establish the day, so the account retains approximately June 2016 and adds no unnamed witnesses.
Ristić kept his name and Serbian identity and rejected making nationality synonymous with an inherited religion. He said he changed his diet, learned the Arabic phrases needed for prayer, and tried to fit worship around work. His son and close friends received the news calmly, according to his account.
The clearest value in his story is that correcting an image may require both reading and encounter, and that a mature religious decision need not erase name or homeland. [N1, N2]