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I’m seriously considering Islam as a way of life.”
    There was no pause, no hesitation on her part. “If that’s where you feel God is leading you, you should follow your convictions,” she said. I had been worried, since my parents were Jewish, that they might disapprove of the direction I was heading in spiritually. But she sounded positively enthused.
    When I finally landed in Venice, I was excited and overwhelmed to be an ocean away from the United States. I found a water taxi that bobbed along the waves, cutting a furrow in water toward the heart of Venice. I couldn’t believe I was actually here.
    We moved past lazily swaying boats tied to the tall wooden poles by the sides of the canals, past stone walkways, bridges, and buildings that looked like they had been ripped straight from a postcard. I finally got off in the Dorsoduro district and lugged my heavy bags past throngs of sweaty tourists and hungry pigeons. Eventually I arrived at Casa Artom, Wake Forest’s palatial house on the Grand Canal.
    I knew that my semester abroad would be a time of change, a time to learn about myself and the world from a vantage point I had never before enjoyed. But the coming changes would eventually take me places that I couldn’t then imagine.
    Within a couple of weeks of arriving in Venice, I e-mailed a Muslim group that al-Husein had told me about. Known as the Naqshbandis, they were a Sufi order that considered it vital to adhere to Prophet Muhammad’s example. One of their distinguishing characteristics was that the men wore the garb of the Prophet, including flowing turbans. The group was located in the coastal city of Rimini, just a few hours away by train.
    Jamaluddin Ballabio, who maintained the Naqshbandis’ Italian Web page, invited me to come out and join them for a Thursday night dhikr. Although I had never heard of dhikr, I accepted the invitation. We had four-day school weeks that semester, and as soon as Thursday classes ended, I headed to the train station.
    When I met Jamaluddin at his shop, a clothing retail store called Body & Soul, I found that he was a scholarly-looking Italian man who seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties. He wore spectacles and had a big, bushy beard. He told me the story of his conversion to Islam. He converted in India. He had been a Buddhist at the time, and was flying to India to see his lama, when he met a Muslim on the flight who held strong yet simple beliefs. Meeting that man caused Jamaluddin to embrace Islam before he returned home.
    On hearing Jamaluddin’s story, I had no doubt about how the past several months had illuminated a new spiritual path for me. I immediately asked, “How do I become Muslim?”
    Jamaluddin said that I would need to repeat the phrase: Ash shadu an laa ilaha illa Allah, wa ash shadu anna Muhammadar Rasulallah. This Arabic phrase, known as the shahadah, or declaration of faith, means: I bear witness that there is no object of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Jamaluddin said that the phrase had to be repeated in public, before two witnesses.
    “I’d like to do that,” I said. “Here. Today.”
    If Jamaluddin was surprised, he didn’t let it show. “We will do it tonight, then.”
    I had read the Qur’an when I was in North Carolina but didn’t bring a copy to Venice. I told Jamaluddin that one of my concerns was finding a good English-language translation. He said that, unfortunately, they’re hard to find in Italy.
    After Jamaluddin closed the store, we drove to his apartment. Once there, he donned a green turban. Soon, some other Naqshbandi men, mainly Caucasian converts, arrived. Most of them sported bushy beards and turbans. Some wore Arabic-style robes.
    Near the beginning of my semester in Venice, my Italian was lacking. The discussion was hard to follow. I wanted to understand all that was going on, wanted to be able to add to the conversation without someone translating