ISLAM IS “under attack,” says Abdullah Yusuf Abu Bakr Ledesma, spokesperson of the Balik-Islam Unity Congress. “If we were terrorists, we would have gone into hiding.”

He says he has court papers to disprove allegations that the Islamic school in Pangasinan was a military training camp for terrorists. He also denies statements that accused converts of being prone to terrorism. If one chooses to become a Muslim, he or she might be more zealous, but not turn terrorist, says Ledesma, a scion of a landed Bacolod clan who converted to Islam two years ago.

He says, though, that he expects more crackdowns against the ranks of the Balik-Islam, especially with the renewed military campaign against Moro rebels in Mindanao. In the last few months, he has already spent days on end tracing the whereabouts of converts who were reported to be arrested by the police or picked up by the military. Those he found, he has had to raise bail money for, which meant soliciting extra funds from Muslim businessmen.

Ledesma, who used to be called ‘Joey’ by his friends but now answers to ‘Yusuf,’ assails the “black propaganda” he says is being waged by the government and the media against Muslims. He says of the media reports linking converts to terrorist groups: “I would like to ask, why do they continue to publish military intelligence reports verbatim without checking?”

To Ledesma, “What we feel as Muslims is different from what comes out in the media.” Yet he also says that many Muslims are filled with a deep “anti-Western anger” especially after authorities linked Islamic groups to terrorist organizations. He adds that the methods used by some Muslim groups in their effort to assert their rights “may be questionable, although not wrong.”

The “brotherhood of Islam” is under a global attack spearheaded by the United States right now, says Ledesma. If pushed to the wall, Muslims might fight back, he warns.

Ledesma, who holds a PhD from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, says he became a Muslim because Roman Catholicism has been “hijacked by the West.” He also says the history of persecutions and dictates by the West “leaves not a very good taste.” He believes that unlike in other religions, there is no mystery in Islam, only “pure logic.”

“When you do something for God, everything comes easy,” says Ledesma. But he admits that his conversion has cost him a lot of work opportunities. His mother even drove him out of their palatial home soon after she learned of his becoming Balik-Islam. Although she has since welcomed him back, other relatives have not been as understanding, and have taken to excluding him from clan gatherings.

Ledesma now goes around wearing a scarf, which he spreads on the ground and kneels on whenever it is time for him to pray. Says Ledesma: “In Islam we are called upon to establish the rule of God on earth. In spite of all the deceptions, lies and other evil doings that the unbelievers are trying to do to suppress our faith, they will not succeed.”

“Allah has promised us that His Religion or deen, the path of submission to His Will, would eventually succeed even if the unbelievers like it not,” he says “Our Muslim brothers will continue to unite and propagate our faith until it is safe for anyone in the world to say La ilaha illallah. There is no god but God. There is not god but Allah.”