9/11 Attacks Spark Resident's Journey From Dislike Of Islam To Convert

Midtown resident Rafiq Kemp remembers well the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. He could still feel the sting of a fresh tattoo. 

"I was living a wild lifestyle," said Kemp, who was 17 and living in St. Paul, Minn., at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon and over Pennsylvania. 

"I had just got my mom's tattoo on my arm," the 27-year-old explained Friday outside , a Muslim temple on 14th Street in Midtown. Kemp now lives in the Home Park neighborhood near Georgia Tech. 

Little did he know at the time but the Sept. 11 attacks would evoke emotions in him, sending him on a more than six-year journey of self-discovery that eventually led him to convert to the Muslim religion.

"At the time, I didn't know what Islam was," Kemp said. "I was really ignorant toward who they were as people and as a religion.

"I felt sad about [9/11] because a lot of innocent people died. I was mad. I had a lot of feelings inside."

He said he supported President George Bush when he sent troops overseas in response to the attacks.

"I was like, 'Yeah, they did it to us. Let's go do it to them,'" Kemp said. "I was really stressed out about the situation. I had a lot of family members that were in the military, a lot that went over to Iraq and didn't come back."

Soon after 9/11, Kemp's girlfriend revealed that she was thinking about becoming a Muslim. He didn't understand why she would convert to such a "hateful religion." But Kemp began to study Islam out of love for her. 

"One night, I just went for a long walk and started talking to God," Kemp said. He said he grew up in a non-denominational Christian household, and at age 16, he was baptized in the Baptist church.

"I felt like some side of me started questioning Christianity, so I started researching it," he said. Kemp said his life was spiraling out of control due to drug use when 9/11 occurred. He was eager to find deeper meaning in life.

When he almost died during a surgery in 2005 at Piedmont Hospital, Kemp said he began having dreams telling him to become a Muslim.

"Every night for six months, I had the exact same dream," he said. 

It took Kemp more than six years to convert to Islam. But ever since he became a Muslim in 2008, "the doubt in my heart has been answered," Kemp said.

He said if 9/11 hadn't occurred "I never even would have cared about [Islam] ... I probably would have been in jail or dead" by now.