Islam is the most important thing in life. At least that’s what my mom always told me. And when she did say that, it was usually after she had told me to pray – extra hard this time – because I had a midterm the next morning. She always got the same response from me: a pause, a nasal exhale loud enough to hear over the phone, and a terse “okay.” It always bugged me that she’d attribute my success (or failure), even on something as secular as an international finance midterm, to whether or not I prayed enough.  Despite my vexation with my mom’s preaching, I’d always feel a healthy amount of guilt when we hung up the phone — and I wasn’t entirely sure why.

When I was 11, I was one of only two Muslim kids at my middle school. And because of this novelty, the other kids wanted to know what other brown kids like me believed. I was the unofficial Muslim ambassador to E. Lawson Brown Middle School.

“Do you really pray five times a day?” one kid named Jonathan asked.

I wanted to be able to say yes — partly because it was fun being different, but also because I hated the shame and guilt that came with saying no.

“Not all the time … but I am supposed to.” I’d follow up with an excuse about not being able to pray during class — which, at the time was a legitimate excuse, but I knew school wasn’t the only thing keeping me from praying.

Jonathan had a deep voice (deeper than most boys’ voices in middle school) and pretty impressive facial hair. Jonathan was 14, almost 15 years old — he’d been held back a few times (I guess he didn’t pray before his tests). I remember looking at him and thinking, “So that’s what puberty looks like.”

I really wanted a beard — like Jonathan’s — and a low voice, too. So I prayed. Every time I prostrated and put my head to the ground, I’d ask God to let puberty be kind and generous to me. I figured it would help to look the part. Facial hair would not only cover up my face, but my shortcomings as Muslim ambassador.

The summer after sixth grade my parents enrolled me in Sunday Quran studies at the mosque in Greensboro. It was only one day out of the week, but the thought of memorizing Quran for two hours while other kids were playing bored me to tears.  

I brought Skittles to the classes to lessen the misery — sneaking them one-by-one out of the bag in my hoodie pocket. One of the kids there, a chubby boy, must have seen me and was walking toward me.

“Oh, crap!” I thought, “He’s coming to ask for some Skittles.” I pushed the bag deeper in my pocket and quickly swallowed the Skittle I was sucking on. I was ready to play dumb.

“You’re going to hell if you eat those,” he said.

My face didn’t hide my confusion.

“There’s pork gelatin in those,” he continued. “We’re not supposed to –“

“Yea. Okay,” I interrupted.

I felt like an idiot for not knowing Skittles were haraam. But Hell? Really? For eating a bag of Skittles? I could understand his point had I been eating a Christmas ham — but they were Skittles.

I threw the bag away and didn’t eat any more Skittles. Shortly after I started finding gelatin in everything: marshmallows, Rice Krispy Treats, gummy worms … everything that was good and sweet had gelatin in it. I caved. I ate them all in secret. The sugar highs were not subservient to the guilt. Though, it was still there.

I’m not a total heathen, though. Guilt implies faith. Why would I feel guilty if I didn’t believe there was something to feel guilty about?

Eleven years later – at 21 – I’m trying to figure out what my life will be after graduation. I never got the beard I prayed for, but Islam isn’t absent from my job search. In fact, it’s safe to say Islam turned me into the worst finance major ever.

What I learned about interest and inflation in college did not change what I believed and learned from Islam — interest is haraam (I could write an entire column about my feelings about interest, inflation and morality — but not today).

During winter break I was filling out applications for financial analyst and loan consultant positions at a few banks. And each time I hit the submit button, I felt an intense feeling of self-loathing and guilt. It finally became too much. I deleted whatever applications I hadn’t finished, and turned down the interviews I had gotten. Believe me, I’m in no position to confidently turn down interviews so close to graduation.

But something other than reason tells me I should use whatever knowledge and talents I have to help other people, not encourage them to take on debt. It sounds stupid and idealistic — and maybe it is.

I don’t always pray five times a day. And sometimes I eat Lucky Charms with pork marshmallows. I can’t say that I’ll stop, but I can say I feel a slight tinge of guilt about it — so that must mean something. I’m not a perfect Muslim, but my soul will go to Hell for eating marshmallows before it goes to Wall Street.