“There are bad Muslim people?” his 8-year-old son asked innocently. Professor O’Brien and his son were in the midst of a trivia game when a question arose about 9/11. His son, who was raised as a Muslim in the UAE, had never heard of the tragedy or been exposed to the prejudices a religious identity can carry. O’Brien, who had converted to Islam, had a radically different experience with religious identity than his son.

Religion, described by some, is a burden: wrought with societal labels, behavioral expectations and arbitrary moral standards. For some, religion is a rewarding journey of challenging oneself in the search for goodness and grounding. And for many, religion is all of these things in one complicated, messy experience of imperfect people stretching towards a perfect truth.

The grass is green, the sky is blue, God created the world. These stories shed light on the moments of questioning the intrinsic truths with which they were indoctrinated. The approaches to spiritual exploration are diverse and the conclusions — if conclusions are ever reached — are varied.

“Any healthy person practicing religion should always question their faith,” Brian Kim, Class of 2021, stated with firmness. Brian grew up in a Christian family devoted to church, never missing a Sunday morning service. Yet, his urge for questioning led him to a fundamental doubt: does God exist? A question that weighed the validity of the religion that was foundational to his identity. “I just couldn’t find the answer. There wasn’t a breakthrough,” Brian remembered.

Brian began to explore different faiths with his mother, a partner who accompanied him in both questioning and researching. Eventually, Brian’s decision to convert was driven by intuition. “I went to the military. I went to church there and hated it. I just couldn’t be there anymore. I went to a Buddhist temple, just for the heck of it, and it was perfect. It felt so [much like] home,” Brian shared. He chose to convert to Buddhism because of a belief system he was confident in and the sense of tranquility it provided.

These spiritual stories are unique and personal, each person pursuing different routes to find faith and reaching different conclusions — if any. Persevering through scholarship, one may seek the ideology which proves most logical or most evidenced. Perhaps, one may wait for the religion that settles the commotion of thoughts in their mind. Yet, one may also encounter an inexplicable certainty, communication with something supernatural that solidifies a belief in one’s heart.

“Honestly, God Himself changed my mind, He talked to me,” Soojin Lee, Class of 2023, explained. As a child, Soojin believed in the existence of a God, yet never followed a religion. In her first semester at NYU Abu Dhabi, she visited church for an assignment to scout out a film shoot location. “First, I’m not going to shoot here … Second, I want to come back next week,” she shared her first impressions of the church. Throughout the semester, she Lee joined NYUAD’s blossoming Korean church community, a family-like group that embraced her as she converted to Christianity.

Lier Qiu, Class of 2020, was first introduced to Christianity by one of her former teachers. Having always been a spiritual person, the religion resonated with her and she started going to church. Yet, even after years of investigating life through the lens of Christianity, she has not decided to convert. Qiu explained that the journey of religious exploration is rewarding, yet it may possibly be a lifelong endeavor, “I believe that there is God, it’s just that I’m still on the journey of looking for the God that I actually believe in.”

“If you want a swimming suit, I’ll buy you ten. If you want a hijab, I’ll buy you ten,” Professor Khulood Kittaneh’s father told her. She was 16 years old, firm in her decision to start wearing a hijab after converting from an atheist family to Islam. While her father brought her colorful hijabs from Kuwait, her mother brought her a psychologist to probe into the troubles that could have led to such choices. “I dance with my friends, I go out and I travel. I’m still the same person with hijab or without it,” Kittaneh explained while detailing how her mother eventually came to terms with her daughter’s religion.

One’s religious path, though it may exist with a tight-knit community, is often at odds with others. Some have to decide between pursuing their personal religious journey or maintaining their family’s respect. As one’s religious exploration tends to be deeply private, an individual’s ideological revelations are difficult to translate to a society with its own preconceptions and stereotypes.

“I’m not [the] kind of Muslim that they see on the news,” described an anonymous Muslim convert. His family, accustomed to the prevalent Islamophobic rhetoric, were concerned about his decision to follow Islam. With time, his family overcame these prejudices and separated the religion from the extremists. “I’m not a radical person and, in fact, Islam teaches you to keep your family ties,” he reflected. “My relationship with my family became a lot stronger through Islam.”

O’Brien grew up Catholic but was never a devout religious individual. He decided to convert to Islam several years after being introduced to the religion in university and, in part, to marry his wife. Though he solidified his belief in Islam, he feared the cost of parting with Catholic traditions that were so familiar and meaningful to him, but later realized those feelings could translate to other religious practices. “Now I have those same feelings about Ramadan,” O’Brien said. “It really is the same feeling.”

Sooji Kim, Class of 2020, converted to Christianity in high school and structured her values around generous tenets of the religion. Her parents recognized the practical, economic sacrifice Christianity encourages in letting go of comfort and security. While Sooji discussed the charitable and low-income lifestyle of the pastor’s family at her church, she explained, “That’s exactly why my parents were worried about me being so religious because they thought that I would live a life like them.”

The process of practicing a religion, especially in a diverse community such as NYUAD’s reveals the complexity of both sociocultural and religious ideals. “Although there’s certain things in Islam that are central, that cannot be changed, there are certain expressions of Islam that vary depending upon country or cultural background,” an anonymous Muslim convert reflected. While meeting Muslims from other cultures at NYUAD, he was compelled to challenge his own practices: What is definitively halal and haram? Ultimately, this strengthened his faith and prompted him to contemplate and justify his practices.

Insun Woo, Class of 2022, converted to Christianity after her mother encouraged her to join the Korean church community at NYUAD. She cautioned people exploring religion not to simply take one person’s word as a representation of faith. For Insun, faith is continually developing for each individual, including herself in her short time practicing Christianity. “Go ahead,” Insun advised. “Go ahead and explore and ask a bunch of questions. Not asking questions is the scary part.”