Miller, Duane Alexander. ‘THE CONVERSION NARRATIVE OF SAMIRA: FROM SHI’A ISLAM TO MARY, HER CHURCH, AND HER SON’ in St Francis Magazine Vol 5:5, October 2009, pp 81-92.
Download it here. Following is an excerpt from the interview portion of the article (pp 82, 3):
DAM: What was your first exposure to Christianity or Jesus or the Bible or any of those things?
Samira: Well, my first exposure was when I was six and had avision of the Virgin Mary. And at the time I didn’t know who Mary was or who Jesus was or who Muslims were—I didn’tknow anything about anything. I was in a mountain place; itwas dark, I fell and I couldn’t get up. And there was this huge rock; this lady came from behind the rock: she was all in white, and she held my hand and picked me up and said that she was Mary. And when she held my hand something stayed with me and I just loved her and I asked my mother who she was, and she said she was the mother of Prophet Jesus, as Muslims knew her. And I just knew since then that I wanted to be where she was, which was the church. And then when I was nine I learned about St Bernadette; there was a movie called The Song of Bernadette and that is when I received my calling into ministrybecause I knew that my life belonged to the church. Andthat was the place to go to [inaudible]. And the interesting [thing] about that is I didn’t know anything about Jesus and—or the Bible. It was all the love of the church through the Virgin Mary.
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