while in lebanon haddad realized that he was a nominal christian who "did not really live according to what he knew were the norms of his faith" he then decided that whenever the chance came he would try his best to live according to his idea of christian standards for one year he tried to do so while he was a student at columbia university during that time one of his american christian friends converted to islam haddad recalls that this event had a significant impact on him and made him feel envious “here was an american embracing the religion of my people - the arabs - and the religion i felt attached to” during a year he spent in paris on a scholarship haddad bought a complete set of tapes of the recitation of the quran upon returning to new york he heard the tapes and paid special attention to the passages that concerned christians he recalls that he felt the words of the quran were those of god but also "squirmed" at some verses that threatened christians he read many other books about islam and eventually became dissatisfied with the christian way of worship in  he went to a muslim student group at columbia university and pronounced the shahada thereby formally converting to the hanafi sunni branch of islam