Why Islam is my choice — Page 130
130 Bil ā l ‘Abdus Sal ā m How I accepted Isl ā m and A ḥ madiyyat I was born in 1934 in the state of Florida. My birth name was Earnest Moorhead. I changed this name in 1976 to Bil ā l ‘Abdus Sal ā m. My mother was a very spiritual woman, so I am told. My mother and father died when I was six years old. My elder sister raised me and my younger brothers and three sisters. Two brothers and four sisters are deceased; four of us by the grace of All ā h are living. The sister that raised me is enjoying old age. She is a very religious woman. She gave me the religious training that I needed. I had to go to church every Sunday and sometime in between. I went to school in Philadelphia but when I was eight years old, I was sent to a boarding school for discipline. In this school, we had to learn the books of the Bible, the Old and the New Testament. At the age of fourteen I ran away from home. I worked odd jobs from New Jersey to New England. That’s when I started to learn about horses. I worked at the racetrack until 1950. In that year I joined the Army in April. I spent fourteen months in the Korean war and finished my military duty in Japan. In 1953 I was discharged and when I returned home, I