Career military veteran Richard McKinney, who served in the Middle East, planned to blow up an Indiana mosque until a visit there sparked a remarkable transformation, leading to his conversion.
As guest speaker May 18 at the American Moslem’s Society annual Humanity Day event in Dearborn, McKinney spoke about the remarkable course his life took, from extreme hatred to becoming a Muslim and a leader at the mosque in his hometown.
“I was filled with hatred and rage,” McKinney said. “I hated anything and everything about Islam and anyone who even looked Islamic. I felt Islam was a cancer in this world and the hatred I had was like another organ inside my body.”
McKinney said he was forced to retire from the Marine Corps after 25 years because he was injured in Iraq, and when he retired, he took his nationalistic beliefs and magnified them, and decided Islam was his enemy.
He said he then decided to create an improvised explosive device and detonate it in the mosque in the Indiana town where he lived, anticipating that about 200 men, women and children would be in attendance. He assumed he would be caught, and would be executed in prison.
“So, knowing that I would end up eventually laying on a gurney, with a needle in my arm, didn’t phase me,” McKinney said. “What I felt cheated from by getting out of the military was the fact that I wanted to die. I wanted to die a soldier’s death.”See AlsoA Marine was plotting to bomb an Indiana mosque. Then his plans took a surprising turn | CNN
McKinney said soldiers who come home in a coffin have their sins forgiven and are remembered as heroes.
“At this point in my life, I had been all over the world,” he said. “Did just about everything I wanted to do at that point.”
McKinney said his 7-year-old daughter had a Muslim friend at school, and he reacted with vitriol. He said her reaction of disappointment to his prejudice made him decide to go to the mosque and meet the people there – a move which ultimately changed his life.
Following his initial visit, he said, he took home a copy of the Quran, the Islamic sacred book, with the suggestion he return with any questions he had.
McKinney said he came to the realization that nothing that terrorists were doing was based on what he was reading in the Quran. He said he found a few passages that have been used to criticize Muslims, to which the people at the mosque responded in a very straightforward manner.
“They would explain it in a way that I could understand what they were talking about,” he said. “They didn’t try to answer a parable with another parable; they just gave me a plain answer.”
Eight weeks later, McKinney returned to the mosque and made his Shahada, his declaration of belief.
“I knew that I had found answers to things that I was questioning in my own life for so long,” he said. “I found something that was going to help me carry on for the rest of my days. Ever since then, I have been out there, talking to people about releasing this hatred.”
McKinney said so many hateful, ignorant actions of people can be avoided.
“I truly believe we come from the same creator,” he said. “That one creator has the same purpose for all of us. The No. 1 mission is to get along.”
McKinney said it’s fashionable to some to hate.
“We are all the same, yet we will always different,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is what you have inside of you, and you being willing to make that change.”
Out of 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, less than 1 percent of them are speaking for the rest, and that is the distorted image of Islam to which the rest of the world is being exposed, McKinney said.
He said people of other faiths are curious about the Muslim religion, and Muslims can explain their faith to people without giving them the impression that anyone is trying to convert them.
“Just answer their questions, smile and be friendly,” he said.
McKinney said the U.S. is the best place in the world to learn about other faiths, to investigate one’s own beliefs and to coexist, even when their beliefs are different from those of others.
He noted that the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – all originated in the Middle East.
“There is wisdom in all of them,” McKinney said. “I call it the Big Three – the Abrahamic religions. Beautiful ways to live your life at the core.
“The problem is, they started involving people, and that is when everything went sideways. But people of faith can bring this back. We are the ones that are leading the charge, not the politicians. We are the leaders of this world, to show the creator that we are willing to put ourselves out there to make change.”
For more information about the American Moslem Society, go to amsdearborn.org.
Originally Published: May 24, 2019 at 4:48 AM EST