I am an American woman and I embraced Islam five years ago without publicly announcing it. Am I still obliged to publicly announce my conversion?
I am an American woman who embraced Islam wholeheartedly since 2005 and uttered the testimony of faith and married a Jordanian Muslim in the mosque of Chicago in the USA. Since this day, I have been practicing all the Islamic rituals from praying, fasting and zakat. The thing is that I didn’t publicly announce my conversion when I came to Egypt in 2009. Does that mean that I wasn’t a real Muslim all this time?
You were a real Muslim all this time and your faith is true and intact. Publicly announcing your faith is not one of the conditions for embracing Islam. The Quran tells us that the believer from the Pharoas was concealing his faith for a period of time. Also Negus embraced Islam without telling his people about it and the Prophet (peace be upon him) prayed the Absent prayer when he was informed about his death.