Meet Salim Muslimani. Once an addict and drug dealer, this self-confessed “tyrant king” has radically transformed his life. Today, when his old acquaintances meet him, they can’t believe he’s the same “big, loud, and intimidating” man.
Talking to The Epoch Times, Mr. Muslimani, 43, shared his remarkable story of a childhood riddled with neglect, the damage done by drugs, partying, and chasing money—and the painful fear of failure that threatened his roles as a husband and father. It was coming back to God at his lowest point that heralded the route to healing.
Bouncing Around
“I was conceived on a drunken night,” Mr. Muslimani told The Epoch Times. “My dad really urged her to abort, he really tried to push for that, and by God’s grace she didn’t, and I was born.”However, later on, his absent father sensed neglect and intervened when Mr. Muslimani was a toddler, winning legal custody. But life wasn’t much better with the other parent.
“I think it was sort of like he just wanted to win. ... He took me and immediately dropped me off at his brother’s house, where I lived for the next few years,” said Mr. Muslimani. Ten years later, that same uncle would be jailed for child molestation for abuses against other children.
Mr. Muslimani bounced between his mother’s and father’s homes until the age of 10. His mother, who worked at a gas station, moved often. He attended different schools in different neighborhoods, where he was often the racial minority. Many of these neighborhoods were “drug-infested,” and at one of his mother’s trailer park homes, social services paid regular house calls.
But there was one safe haven: the church where his mother would sometimes drop him off. “That was really the only faith I knew,” he said.
‘I Was on My Own’
Returning home high on drugs one day, Mr, Muslimani got into a fight with his father. His father raised an object with which to strike him, missed, and hit his wife. The teen ran away.“For two days I was on the street,” he said. “I called my mom. I needed my mother, and she was like, ‘No, this isn’t going to work, I’m sorry. ... I love you so much, I would do anything for you, I just can’t take it now,’ and that was just the end of it. That day was a big pivotal time in my life. I think, from there, I realized I was on my own.”
When Mr. Muslimani turned 16, his father was in a serious car accident that left him disabled. It caused further conflict in the home, and the teen had had enough. At 18, he left home for good, got a job, and attended community college. He started dealing drugs “just seeking to fill this void” and lived that way for two years until enrolling at Radford University, Virginia, in 2004, on scholarships and financial aid, to study design.
Life was about to change again. He met his soulmate.
“Jackie and I met on a blind date in college, our senior year,” said Mr. Muslimani.
He agreed to chaperone his would-be wife to a costume party after they were connected by a mutual friend. “That was the first night we laid eyes on each other, and the rest is history,” he said, adding, “When my wife first met me, she didn’t know where I'd come from or know my story. I always had a way of covering that up.”
The Baggage
Between 2007 and 2012, Mr. Muslimani made upward of $200,000 a year but says his income became his self-worth.He said: “I started making, like, serious money, and that became a very dangerous thing. ... it was a false competence. Because all my confidence was in my numbers, money. I was out doing events every night, happy hours, drinking, and every night I‘d come home and put myself to sleep ... then every morning I’d get up, go to the gym, work out, hustle all day, do happy hour at night, come home. This was my cycle.”
This cycle of addiction to work and substances built a wall between Mr. Muslimani and his wife. “Our marriage was a disaster,” he said. “I was totally lost in thinking that I had it all. I thought, ‘Hey, I’m providing for her, this is great.’”
Mr. Muslimani says that his wife’s parents have been married for 50 years at this point today; her dad’s retired from the military. “I’m from a broken family,” he said. “Inside my heart, I was still carrying around baggage, wounds from my childhood that I'd never addressed.
“I never knew what marriage was. I never knew how to be a husband, a man, a leader, nothing. And so now, I’m coming into this [relationship], and I’m sort of just super selfish, super broken, super insecure. I would get angry and just say things and yell and scream. ... I just ran my own show,” he said.
In June 2012, the company Mr. Muslimani was working for was shut down. Around that same time, his first child was born. It was a wake-up call to fatherhood. Mr. Muslimani found another hustle and went back to work, but his former drive had disappeared.
A Radical Turn
Wanting to free himself from the multiple faces of the sales world, Mr. Muslimani started his own company. When his boss found out, he was fired. He remembers Nov. 11, 2012, the day he came home and told his wife, as though it were yesterday.“I‘ll never forget, my wife was like, ’I really think we should go to church,‘” he said. “I remember thinking, ’This church is going to set on fire when I go, because I’m, like, the worst person in the world.'”
But the preacher that day reignited Mr. Muslimani’s faith.
“For the next couple of months, I started feeling this tug on my heart ... I didn’t want to run anymore,” he said. “I just began reading the Bible, ... and since then it’s just been a radical, radical turn.”
Mr. Muslimani committed to staying home and building his own honest business from the ground up. He shifted focus to his family. He and his wife began taking walks together every day. “We would talk about all the things we were going to do,” he said. “We were just living on a budget ... but it was honestly, probably, one of the most amazing times of my life.”
A few months into his life-changing perspective shift, Mr. Muslimani’s wife gifted him a handwritten list titled “101 Things I Love About You.”
He said: “I remember she’s reading, and I’m just weeping in my office because of the wretch that I was, and the guilt that I felt for the way that I was living. Just to know this woman, her loyalty, her faithfulness to me, her never leaving, never turning her back on me ... that was overwhelming.”
Sharing the Love
In 2013, Mr. Muslimani was baptized. On Oct. 1 of that same year, he opened the doors to his own home health agency in Jacksonville, Florida. Armed with a compassionate outlook, he began building trusting relationships with his new employees.“I wasn’t motivated by the money, I was motivated by taking care of people,” he said. “Now I’m like this guy who is trying to exude kindness and patience and love for people.”
Two years later, the Muslimanis sold their first home and built a new home that would accommodate their growing family. Upon a foundation of faith, their marriage grew stronger by the day.
“I just started understanding my role as a man, my role as a father, my role as a leader ... continuing my walk with God,” he said. “I started getting involved in ministry and going on missions, seeing poverty on levels that I’ve never seen before. It just plugged into my heart because I can relate; seeing boys without fathers and boys without mothers, and just knowing where that can lead them.”
Mr. Muslimani has compassion for his own parents, whom he knows grew up in poverty and lacked leadership. Since coming back to God he has tried to reconnect, but by 2020, his already fragile relationship with his father was dealt a blow when his father was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. He began visiting his father in nearby Naples, Florida, to share his faith and spark conversations about life after death.
Mr. Muslimani’s mother is still alive, but he hasn’t seen her since he was 20 years old. “We’re friends on Facebook, and that’s about the extent of it,” he said. “I’ve talked to her about flying down here, and she just doesn’t want to fly. I’ve tried to sort of meet her where she’s at.”
Having finished a year-long seminary, Mr. Muslimani is now working on creating teaching modules for Christians who are looking to go deeper in their faith.
“I’m creating online resources for people to help them grow, to help them find peace, and find what they’re looking for,” he said.
The devoted husband and father is determined that his own children will be raised in a home filled with love, safety, and consistency. The couple are expecting their fourth baby in December.
