From Children’s Questions in Bahrain to a Public Decision in Mecca: Jermaine Jackson’s Journey to Islam
Jermaine Jackson traced the beginning of his path to Islam to a Middle East tour in 1989. In Bahrain, a brief conversation with a group of children turned to religion. He told them that he had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and asked about their faith. The confidence and pride with which they answered—Islam—caught his attention. The meeting was not a completed conversion in a single instant, but it opened a door that continued to widen.
Jackson had carried questions about his former beliefs, particularly about Jesus and salvation. In the interview attributed to him, the first exchange led to longer conversations with Muslims and to knowledge he had not previously encountered. These are his personal questions in a dated testimony; the story does not turn them into a scholarly judgment on another faith or into an approved theological answer.
He said conviction grew inwardly before he disclosed it to a family friend, Qunber Ali. His friend helped him travel to Riyadh, and from there he accompanied a Saudi family to Mecca for Umrah. In Saudi Arabia he also listened to a recording by Yusuf Islam and said he learned from it. Conversation, reading, listening and travel therefore belonged to one process, not to a scene invented after the fact.
In Mecca, according to his account, he first declared publicly that he had become Muslim. The sources place the journey and declaration in 1989, but they provide no day or month and preserve neither the wording of a shahada nor the names of witnesses. The honest date boundary is therefore the year alone, with the first questions in Bahrain kept distinct from growing conviction and the later public declaration in Mecca.
After returning to the United States, he said his family was surprised. His mother asked whether the decision had been sudden or the result of long thought; he answered that it had followed reflection. He also described leaving practices he regarded as prohibited and facing a hostile media image of Islam. This is dated testimony about that period, not evidence from which to infer his private religious state today.
The strength of the story lies in its quiet sequence: children’s confident answer awakens a question; conversation and learning follow; an inward decision forms; then travel and a public declaration. The long text published in 2006 is credited to Jackson and edited by its publisher, while a specific citation to Al-Majalla’s 1998 interview and independent Bahrain and 2010 Al-Arabiya reporting corroborate the outline. The story is therefore accepted at grade B, with the missing original issue scan recorded and personal claims kept separate from specialist guidance.
Sources
- Jermaine Jackson, USA (parts 1 and 2) — The Religion of Islam, 16 January 2006
- د. عمار عبد الكريم بكار / مجلة المجلة، العدد 966 (1998) — إحالة ببليوغرافية ونص منسوب
- صحيفة الوسط البحرينية — الشقيق المسلم لمايكل جاكسون يزور البحرين، 19 أبريل 2004
- Los Angeles Times — report on the nearly hour-long Al-Arabiya interview, 22 January 2010