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I nearly came to believe in Islam in 1997. For a week, I secretly fasted in the month of Ramadan, unseen. But then I read a polemic in the university library written by a pseudonymous Christian author which blew my nascent faith to smithereens.

I nearly believed again months later, but this time I responded to my rekindled belief in God by choosing to attend a cultish church for a while. Months after that, I would finally formalise my faith by uttering the Muslim testimony of faith in the university prayer room.

But that was not the end of my journey either, for I continued to seek in the months, weeks and years that followed, much to the alarm of those around me. I was supposed to be a fixed entity by then, but instead I continued to read the polemical websites of Christian evangelists preaching against my new-found faith.

I won’t be alone in that. In the present age, those hostile arguments are found everywhere, just a click away, in viral videos and social media posts. For the seeker today, everything is so much harder as the attacks become ubiquitous. For those who have not come across it before, it is a constant challenge.

For me? Less so, because none of it is new. I inoculated myself against most of it having consumed so much in the early days, creating antibodies which lets it all just wash over me, unmoved. My vaccine, learning to think for myself, rather than just slavishly accepting the claims of propagandists on all sides.

But I have every sympathy for today’s seekers who must now traverse all of the online detritus competing for attention. Least of all, the modern preachers pushing non-beliefs as essentials of faith, and the callers calling to something other than guidance for mankind. These days I feel so grateful to be a person of the periphery never invited to participate in that world.

What hope for the seeker, then? Only God knows. Perhaps God will touch them in some other way, carrying them towards the light of guidance regardless. In any case, I hope they shun the online world, but instead seek out the signs on the horizons and within themselves which will confirm to them without a shadow of doubt that not for nought was all of this created.

As for the polemics, everywhere found? Some of them may actually have merit. Not everything taught as orthodoxy is genuinely so. Not everything made essentials by others really is. No, you don’t have to move to everybody else’s deadlines. You don’t have to become what you’re not. And, certainly, you don’t have to transmogrify into an utter jerk with a superiority complex.

The servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk humbly on the earth. Seek those folk, if you can. By their fruits you shall know them.