IRISH Imam Ibrahim Noonan came within two days of becoming a Catholic priest before deciding it was not the right path for him.
Mr Noonan toured Queensland this month to visit his family and preach a peaceful interpretation of Islam with followers of the Stockleigh Ahmadiyya Mosque.
His path to Islam was unconventional. Mr Noonan was raised as a devout Catholic who went to mass twice a day and confession twice a week.
Mr Noonan studied theology for five years and came very close to priesthood.
“I seriously thought about it. I was two days off making a decision. I was a staunch Catholic by the end of those five years but a lot had happened and I decided not to do it,” he said.
After taking a critical eye to his religion, Mr Noonan could not come to terms with specific tenets of Catholicism.
“Dents in my faith came along as I began to realise the Catholic understanding of god was not as perfect as I was led to believe,” he said.
“When studying trinity... I used to put three oranges in front of me and convince myself they were one. But they were not one, they were three.
“I wanted to study Islam because I liked the concept of the unity of god. One god and one creator made sense. You don’t have to say god is three things in one entity.”
Mr Noonan remained a Catholic after his studies and started living with his Irish girlfriend.
He said his interest in Islam left his partner feeling uneasy.
“My girlfriend told me to get off this nonsense,” Mr Noonan said.
“She asked me: “What are you doing? You go to mass and confession. Aren’t you happy the way you are?
“I said no something is eating me up inside.
“She said I needed to keep away from these (Muslim) nutcases.”
The couple decided to take a vacation and ‘forget about god for a moment’.
But, Mr Noonan said god had other plans.
“The strangest thing happened. I couldn’t get a ticket (to our Irish destination) on the date we wanted to go,” he said.
“The travel agent suggested a new destination for us. She said Tunisia was a great place, it was new on the market, beautiful, magnificent and had a magic about it.
“So I decided to go to Tunisia. This was the worst place I could have gone if the goal was to forget god for a while.”
Mr Noonan said he fell in love with the Islamic call to prayer and visited a Sufi mosque with his reluctant girlfriend.
After the holiday was hijacked by religion, Mr Noonan’s girlfriend gave him an ultimatum to choose her or god.
“I did not want to do this but I had to say god,” Mr Noonan said.
Mr Noonan continued to explore Islam, flirting with Sufism and Salafism before he found his calling to Ahmadiyya Islam.
He struggled with the question of whether Indian born Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the awaited messiah and reformer of Islam.
After prayer and study, Mr Noonan said he felt at ease with his religion.
He studied to become an Imam at a mosque in Galway, Ireland and has since preached the Ahmadi message at every opportunity.
“I have spent the best part of 10 years in the media trying to present the opposite of extreme Islam,” he said.
“Islam is a religion of peace with remarkable ethical and moral teachings.”
Imam Noonan arrived in Brisbane on July 9 and returned to Ireland on July 23.
