Convert or Revert?

I have mixed feelings about the use of the term revert. In general I avoid having to use convert or revert altogether by just saying I embraced Islam or became a Muslim. Just this weekend though I was at the mosque and got into a conversation with a man there who, when I mentioned how long it had been since I converted, informed me that he preferred the term revert, as if he were correcting me.

I guess I don't like to be corrected... hm.

Anyway, I don't mind if other people choose the term revert as opposed to convert. It doesn't really bother me, and I don't mean to fuss at anyone who prefers it that way. But to me, that word (revert) carries some negative connotations that I don't like to associate with my decision to embrace Islam.

But first let's see why anyone would say revert in the first place. The word convert is the obvious choice for someone who changes his or her religion, that being one meaning of it. In other words, going from one thing to another thing--that's a conversion. The word revert on the other hand, means going from one thing to another also, but it actually means going back to what something was before. Where I work, we use the word revert to describe traffic signal operation forcing the signals to turn back to red lights.

So when a person says that he or she reverted to Islam, undoubtedly he means that he went back to being Muslim--that he was a Muslim before, then was not Muslim for a time, and then returned to Islam. Now if a person was raised outside the faith of Islam, does that make sense?

Perhaps it does--the logic is based on the following hadith, which is reported in Saheeh Muslim:

Abu Huraira reported from Allah's Messenger (may peace be upom him) many ahadith and one amongst them is that he is reported to have said: An infant is born according to his (true) nature. It is his parents Who make him a Jew, a Christian, just as a she-camel gives birth to its young ones. Do you find any deficiency in their limbs? You cut their ears (i. e. after birth).

Born according to the fitrah, to be precise--his true nature. To those preferring the term revert, the true nature is Islam, therefore implying that a person is actually born Muslim--in fact, that every person is born Muslim, and then raised as something else (if not raised as a Muslim.)

That bothers me a little bit, because the hadith doesn't actually say that a person is born Muslim. And I always have understood Islam to be willful submission and surrender, therefore it has to be a conscious decision. I never made that decision as a baby, so I don't see that I could have been a true Muslim at birth. So when I discovered Islam as an adult and chose to embrace it, I was making a conscious decision to convert, not revert. I was going from what I was (a Christian), to something else (a Muslim.) I wasn't going back to being Muslim since I didn't consider myself to have been a Muslim before that.

So I suppose the difference hinges upon the way the word fitrah is interpreted--whether it means what I understand it to mean, true inclination towards monotheism and purity, or whether it means the way others understand it, that a child is actually born as a Muslim, despite not being aware at all of the faith of Islam or making any decision to accept or reject it.

And at any rate, that's why in general I prefer to use the word convert instead of revert. In case anyone wondered. But I'm not trying to bash anyone for disagreeing with me--I know I seem to be in the minority. If I said that I reverted, to me that would undeniably mean that I went backwards, back to being a Christian, so my tongue stumbles over ever saying that. Because to me, it means going back to something, something I remember, or going in a backwards direction. And I don't remember ever being a Muslim until I said shahadah, and since then I intend only to move forward.