All the Muslims are encouraged to learn to read the Quran in Arabic. Reverts, like me, would start with the translation into our own language. As we know, however, no translation can fully convey the message of the original - especially in case of such a complex language as Arabic. Hence, to get the best understanding of the actual text, we all aim to learn to read the Quran in its unaltered form.

I currently have zero knowledge of Arabic. Well, so far I had a go at learning the alphabet ;) But to read the Quran we need to know the Tajweed - a set of rules governing the correct pronunciation.

A while ago I was contacted by lovely sister Tahera, founder of the Olive Tree Study Support - a weekend Islamic school. Following the struggle to teach the children these complex rules, she came up with the idea for Tajweed Nursery Rhymes, and kindly invited me to check them out.

One thing I get asked a lot from my followers is for me to share the story of my conversion to Islam.

I've been meaning to write this for ages now, but I must admit I was a bit apprehensive due to all the negativity Islam gets. Yes, I do care what people think, and I can't help it. But I finally decided to do it.

Just to be clear - I'm not trying to convince anyone to do it. I'm simply sharing my experience, and explaining why I made this decision, because some people were interested.

So, here it goes.