Salaam,
I'll try to keep it short / readable.
I live in the Netherlands and I'm 33 years old. I grew up without religion: my parents are catholic in name only. When I was about 20, I "decided" i was an atheist, and I really tried hard: Richard Dawkins was my guru, and I loved getting into discussions with religious people all the time, to tell them how irrational they were. I only cared about myself, and didn't think about the rest of the world.
About 5 years ago, I met a woman I really liked, and - don't ask me why - she liked me too. The only "problem": she was muslim. As I've always read a lot of books, I began reading the Qur'an, with the intention of explaining the irrationality of her belief to her.
Things didn't work out the way I planned it: the Book convinced me, I became a muslim, and I'm still married to that amazing woman.
The thing that struck me first with regard to Islam in general: all the things that the muslims around me we're preoccupied with every day; most of these things I couldn't find in the Qur'an. You guessed it right: hadith.
So I started delving a little deeper in the subject of hadith, and read the 'standard' books/articles on the subject, authors like Schacht, Juynboll, Motzki, Brown, Musa, Khalifa, Hallaq etc. I also read books/articles from Sunni circles, refuting the anti-hadith arguments. The more I read, the more I became convinced that something was wrong with the whole "hadith science".
Only the last year I really started studying the Qur'an: I try to read the whole Qur'an at least once a month (reading, thinking, making notes).
One thing still amazes me when I get into discussions with other muslims. Although the try to say it nice, what they are actually saying is that I am not allowed to have an opinion about hadith, because I don't have the knowledge to make a judgement. Off course, the people who tell me this, don't have that knowledge either: I guess they say it because they heard the imam say it.
My plans for the near future: keep reading the Book, and start studying Arabic. In between I hope I will have the time to join the discussions on this forum every now and then.
Peace
