Lulua
10-02-2002, 11:14
NEW MUSLIMS
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have served as a catalyst to conversion
for some Americans attracted by Islam's 'mysticism and clear theology'
Marina Jiménez
NATIONAL POST
January 19, 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020119/1180278.html
Tiffany Motschenbacher, 30, of Dedham, Mass., converted to Islam after
Sept. 11 at a Boston mosque. She is among the surprise converts who are
making Islam the fastest growing religion in the United States.
CONVERTS TO ISLAM: U.S. citizens Tiffany Motschenbacher, left, and
Debra Portmann. Motschenbacher says she has found "peace of heart."
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks served as a catalyst for Debra Portmann,
45, on her spiritual journey toward becoming a Muslim.
- - -
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Like all Americans, Debra Portmann felt overcome
with grief after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and mourned for the
slaughter of her countrymen.
But she also felt something else: a lingering sadness for Islam itself,
a faith she felt had been grossly abused by the terrorists to justify
their actions.
Ms. Portmann, a Boston native whose Christian ancestors arrived here in
1649, wrote a note of sympathy and slipped it under the door of the
Islamic students' group at the University of Massachusetts, where she
studies classical music.
Less than a month later, the 46-year-old liberal converted to Islam, in
the basement of the Islamic Society of Boston's Sunni mosque. It was a
simple ceremony that took only moments. She said the shahadah (There is
no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger) in Arabic, a simple
testimony of faith she will repeat five times a day for the rest of her
life.
Tiffany Motschenbacher, an extroverted theatre major from Michigan with
curly brown hair, converted a few days later, sitting on the floor of
the society's cultural centre with a group of sisters, celebrating the
occasion later over pizza and soda.
"I said the testimony and, poof, I was a Muslim. I was shaking and
weeping," recalls Ms. Motschenbacher, 30, with a laugh. "I really felt
that this religion was the truth and what I'd been looking for my whole
life. I used to feel something was wrong with me because I couldn't
grasp the concept of God. Now I finally had peace of heart."
The terrorist attacks perpetrated by fundamentalist Islamists served as
a kind of a catalyst for both of these women and at least four others
in their class of New Muslims, propelling them forward on a long and
sometimes hesitant spiritual journey toward conversion.
"Instead of running away, I felt myself running toward Islam. My heart
had already opened to the religion and I knew that what had happened
[in New York and Washington] was not Islam at all," Ms. Motschenbacher
said.
Adds Ms. Portmann, who wears a shalwar kameez -- baggy trousers and a
loose tunic -- and covers her red hair with a pink hijab, or head
covering: "When 9/11 happened, it gave Islam a black eye. But I knew
the terrorist act was nothing Islam would ever sanction. I knew the
terrorists' idea of jihad was wrong."
These women are part of a curious trend: a surge in conversions since
Sept. 11 both in the United States and in Europe. It is a pattern that
has replicated itself throughout recent history; there were many
converts during the Bosnian conflict. During the Gulf War, the Saudis
claimed to have welcomed 5,000 new Muslims into the fold.
"Americans have bought more flags since 9/11, but they've also bought
more Korans," says Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who runs the al-Taqwah mosque in
Brooklyn, N.Y. "I've had more converts since 9/11 and I've spoken in so
many different forums and inter-faith meetings."
At Harvard's Islamic Society, attendance at the annual Ramadan dinner
nearly doubled this year, while several open houses at the Islamic
Society of Boston attracted so many people they spilled over into the
parking lot.
In New York, Sheik Ishaq Abdul Malik-ul-Mulk, a convert who also goes
by his Puerto Rican name Luis Alejandro, says that every week, someone
takes shahadah at the Long Island mosque where he worships. "The more
controversial something is, the more people it attracts," he says. "But
attraction is just the first step. After that, you have to believe, and
the message of Islam is so simple, without any of the Holy Trinity
mysteries. You can practise it on your own."
One Dutch Islamic centre claims a tenfold increase while the New
Muslims Project, based in Leicester, England, reports a steady stream
of new converts.
In a videotape released by the Pentagon last month, Osama bin Laden
himself remarked on the phenomenon to his al-Qaeda lieutenants. "In
Holland, the number of people who accepted Islam during the days that
followed the operations were more than the people who accepted Islam in
the last 11 years. I heard someone on Islamic radio who owns a school
in America say: 'We don't have time to keep up with the demands of
those who are asking about Islamic books to learn about Islam.' This
event made people think [about true Islam], which benefitted Islam
greatly."
Some of the high-profile Western converts who have captured the public
limelight have been those drawn to the terrorist cause espoused by
radical Islamists. According to the FBI, John Walker, a 20-year-old
California man, took up arms with the Taliban and even met bin Laden
and knew he had ordered the attacks.
Richard Reid is alleged to have packed plastic explosives into the
heels of his black suede high-tops in an attempt to bomb American
Airlines Flight 63 last month. In the mid-1990s, he came out of prison
and joined a Brixton mosque in London, where he met Zacarias Moussaoui,
the "20th" terrorist who engineered the hijacking of the planes that
crashed into New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon in
Washington.
However, many American and European converts are similar to those in
the New Muslim class for converts run by the Islamic Society of Boston.
They do not support terrorism, nor share the al-Qaeda credo. They are
well-educated, articulate, former Christians; some are even Jewish and
Hindu.
These new Muslims, like the approximately 25,000 Hispanic converts in
New York and California, are surprise converts to a religion that is
the fastest growing in the United States. There are now six million
adherents across the country, and more than 30% of mosque attendees are
converts, according to a recent survey by four Muslim-American groups.
Some had studied Buddhism, flirted with Roman Catholicism or spent time
with Quakers, but ultimately found them lacking.
Conversion is an intensely personal journey. But the influx of new
Muslims prompts a number of questions. Why would people choose to
embrace the faith at this time in history, when it suffers from such a
public relations problem that Muslims can be spit on for wearing a
hijab, called rag-heads and taunted in the street? And, a more
fundamental question: What can a religion that segregates genders, bans
dancing and drinking and requires women to cover up not just their
hair, but their elbows and knees, offer to liberated American women?
- - -
"Asalam Alaikum!" the New Muslims sisters call out to one another as
they arrive at the Old Country Buffet in a suburban mall to celebrate
Eid, the end of Ramadan. The class is marking the occasion a few weeks
late, to accommodate the Christmas holidays, which many of the new
converts observed with their families.
Some are dressed in jeans and running shoes, their long blond hair
shiny and loose; others are in shalwar kameez, their hair completely
covered by embroidered hijabs.
Laughing boisterously, they tuck into plates of baked potatoes, roast
beef and ice cream sundaes. A few have brought along their young
children, who race around the restaurant.
Around the table are Ms. Motschenbacher and Ms. Portmann, as well as
two "closet converts": Laura, a 21-year-old Harvard medical student in
a V-necked sweater and T-shirt, and Lisa, a 36-year-old sales manager
with blue eyes and honey-coloured hair, looking as all-American as a
Gap ad.
The evening might be mistaken for a women's book club meeting, or a
girls' night out, albeit one with lemonade instead of wine.
The conversation flows from social niceties, such as plans for a class
member's upcoming engagement party, to where to buy halal meat, and
purchase a hijab online.
The eldest class member, Karen Courtenay, a 61-year-old linguist who
said the shahadah over the telephone last May, sums up how many of the
converts feel about what she calls Islam's rich mysticism and clear
theology and rules, which include fasting during Ramadan, praying five
times a day and making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
"Many Christians express dismay about the Trinity, about the
tri-partite God. With Islam, there are no miracles and things you can't
understand. Also, the congregational prayer, where everyone prays in a
certain way in Arabic and in ritual positions is very powerful. Then
there's the social aspect: If you come from a cold, WASP New England
culture, the hugging and hospitality you get from Arab sisters is just
wonderful."
Laura, who was raised as a secular Christian, says she converted by
herself in her room a year ago. "The Koran really touched my heart and
I liked the inner logic of the religion. It can be seen as un-American,
but it is one of the great religions of the world and applies to all
places and times," she says.
Neither she nor Lisa cover their heads -- they are not ready to take
this final step of being publicly identified as Muslims.
"It was a big step to convert. Until I found this class, I felt like I
was the only American girl in the whole world who wanted to convert to
Islam and that I was losing my mind," says Lisa, grinning.
She converted before she met and married a Pakistani Muslim, and has
not disclosed either life change to her Anglican parents. She takes
solace in her new faith: "I liked the fact that to become a Muslim you
don't have to disrespect Jesus. He is still a prophet, just not the son
of God, which I'd always struggled with."
But even as she joyfully embraces Islam's family values and moral
certainty, she, like many converts, continues to struggle with some of
the cultural mores that forbid women to wear short sleeves or shake
hands with males who are not relatives.
"I have an independent nature and there are lots of things I'm still
trying to understand," says Lisa, who plans to renew her vows at an
American-style wedding reception, with bridesmaids and a white gown.
Some converts do not like having to pray in a separate area from men,
with the imam's words coming to them via closed-circuit television.
"It's like being back in Alabama in the 1960s with whites on one side
and blacks on the other," says Ms. Courtenay, who adds that at her
mosque, some women do pray upstairs, behind the men.
Other converts do not miss the distraction of men, and feel more
comfortable praying only with women and children. For Ms.
Motschenbacher, not having to date or wear the latest styles came as a
relief.
Protection from male lust is also what attracted the group's youngest
convert: 15-year-old Nirva Guirand, a Haitian-American, in a white head
scarf.
"When I developed in the sixth grade, I got unwanted attention from
guys. With Islam, I felt I got respect as a young woman," she says.
It was the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, an act perpetrated
by al-Qaeda in 1998, that prompted Andrea Useem, a 28-year-old
journalist who was raised Episcopalian, to convert. Through her
interviews with prominent Muslim leaders, she began to appreciate the
religion's structure and form. She separated the theology from the
actions of extremists who claimed to kill in the name of Islam.
"I thought it was genius to pray five times a day," says Ms. Useem, who
now teaches the class. "It is more comprehensive than Christianity.
It's a total package. Sometimes I've had to stop and pray under a tree.
At times, you feel you're just like every other weird American doing
their thing."
- - -
Religious scholars believe it is difficult for a Western, secular
culture to understand the power of religion, because it plays such an
ambiguous role in our own society. This might be precisely the draw of
Islam. While new Muslims see their change of faith in theological
terms, it also gives them a sense of community order they might not
find in U.S. society, explains Earl Waugh, a professor of religion at
the University of Alberta.
"They may be converting in reaction to feelings of ambivalence and
ambiguity of being a Christian in the U.S., when Santa Claus is more
predominant in the consciousness than the birth of Jesus," he says.
Islam is seen as the best and only way to answer the United States'
moral decay and materialism.
Others might be identifying with the underdog and the downtrodden and
see conversion as an act of defiance.
A crisis such as the terrorist attacks can often prompt those who have
not yet had publicly to declare their conviction to do so. "It makes
them want to say something about their existential person, rather than
just to be an American," says Prof. Waugh.
Last September's terrorist attacks may have attracted new converts --
but they also prompted a crisis for the larger Muslim community.
When Ms. Useem heard bin Laden's bragging about the many Islam converts
that followed the terrorist "operation," she felt sickened. "I
converted in spite of him, not because of him," she said. "Sept. 11 has
forced Muslim-Americans to become outward-looking overnight. There are
inner contradictions. With immigrant Muslims, you get their politics,
and you have to figure out what are your politics? What is a Muslim's
responsibility when a Muslim does something like that?"
Lack of understanding is often greatest closest to home.
After Sept. 11, Ms. Guirand's own mother interpreted her recent
conversion as a gesture of support for terrorism. "My mother said,
'What's the matter with you, do you love Osama bin Laden? Do you want
to be his wife?' I told her, it's something he did, it's not what the
religion teaches."
In the neighbouring state of New York, Ms. Guirand might have something
in common with another group of surprising converts, or "reverts" as
many of them prefer to be known: Latino Muslims.
At first glance, the religion might seem as alien to Latinos, with
their long tradition of Roman Catholicism and fiesta spirit, as to
liberated American women. But many Hispanic Muslims see their
conversion as a return to their Moorish roots, just as many blacks see
Islam as part of their African heritage.
"People say, you're not really Latino if you're Muslim but being a
Muslim means you've embraced Arab culture, which was present in the
Iberian peninsula for 900 years," says Ibrahim Gonzalez, a "Nuyorican"
or Puerto Rican New Yorker, who co-founded Alianza Islamica, a Hispanic
mosque in the Bronx.
Other Hispanics are attracted to Islam for reasons of spiritual
redemption; as an alternative to the Judeo-Christian establishment; and
because they are influenced by the African-American communities they
live near.
Some may have converted in prison, following the lead of their black
brothers. In New York State prisons, for example, as many as 40% to 60%
of black prisoners are Muslim converts, according to Robert Dannin, a
New York University professor and author of Black Pilgrimage to Islam.
As with American women, Latino Muslims must relinquish elements of
their effusive culture; samba music, dancing and the barranda, a Puerto
Rican holiday tradition that involves going from house to house dancing
and drinking, have no place in Islam.
Yet just as some new sisters still bare their tresses, some Latinos
continue to play their merengue and salsa music quietly at home.
Others know that conservative Islam forbids these pleasures -- and
relish the sacrifice as proof of their new-found devotion.
- - -
mjimenez@nationalpost.com
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have served as a catalyst to conversion
for some Americans attracted by Islam's 'mysticism and clear theology'
Marina Jiménez
NATIONAL POST
January 19, 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020119/1180278.html
Tiffany Motschenbacher, 30, of Dedham, Mass., converted to Islam after
Sept. 11 at a Boston mosque. She is among the surprise converts who are
making Islam the fastest growing religion in the United States.
CONVERTS TO ISLAM: U.S. citizens Tiffany Motschenbacher, left, and
Debra Portmann. Motschenbacher says she has found "peace of heart."
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks served as a catalyst for Debra Portmann,
45, on her spiritual journey toward becoming a Muslim.
- - -
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Like all Americans, Debra Portmann felt overcome
with grief after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and mourned for the
slaughter of her countrymen.
But she also felt something else: a lingering sadness for Islam itself,
a faith she felt had been grossly abused by the terrorists to justify
their actions.
Ms. Portmann, a Boston native whose Christian ancestors arrived here in
1649, wrote a note of sympathy and slipped it under the door of the
Islamic students' group at the University of Massachusetts, where she
studies classical music.
Less than a month later, the 46-year-old liberal converted to Islam, in
the basement of the Islamic Society of Boston's Sunni mosque. It was a
simple ceremony that took only moments. She said the shahadah (There is
no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger) in Arabic, a simple
testimony of faith she will repeat five times a day for the rest of her
life.
Tiffany Motschenbacher, an extroverted theatre major from Michigan with
curly brown hair, converted a few days later, sitting on the floor of
the society's cultural centre with a group of sisters, celebrating the
occasion later over pizza and soda.
"I said the testimony and, poof, I was a Muslim. I was shaking and
weeping," recalls Ms. Motschenbacher, 30, with a laugh. "I really felt
that this religion was the truth and what I'd been looking for my whole
life. I used to feel something was wrong with me because I couldn't
grasp the concept of God. Now I finally had peace of heart."
The terrorist attacks perpetrated by fundamentalist Islamists served as
a kind of a catalyst for both of these women and at least four others
in their class of New Muslims, propelling them forward on a long and
sometimes hesitant spiritual journey toward conversion.
"Instead of running away, I felt myself running toward Islam. My heart
had already opened to the religion and I knew that what had happened
[in New York and Washington] was not Islam at all," Ms. Motschenbacher
said.
Adds Ms. Portmann, who wears a shalwar kameez -- baggy trousers and a
loose tunic -- and covers her red hair with a pink hijab, or head
covering: "When 9/11 happened, it gave Islam a black eye. But I knew
the terrorist act was nothing Islam would ever sanction. I knew the
terrorists' idea of jihad was wrong."
These women are part of a curious trend: a surge in conversions since
Sept. 11 both in the United States and in Europe. It is a pattern that
has replicated itself throughout recent history; there were many
converts during the Bosnian conflict. During the Gulf War, the Saudis
claimed to have welcomed 5,000 new Muslims into the fold.
"Americans have bought more flags since 9/11, but they've also bought
more Korans," says Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who runs the al-Taqwah mosque in
Brooklyn, N.Y. "I've had more converts since 9/11 and I've spoken in so
many different forums and inter-faith meetings."
At Harvard's Islamic Society, attendance at the annual Ramadan dinner
nearly doubled this year, while several open houses at the Islamic
Society of Boston attracted so many people they spilled over into the
parking lot.
In New York, Sheik Ishaq Abdul Malik-ul-Mulk, a convert who also goes
by his Puerto Rican name Luis Alejandro, says that every week, someone
takes shahadah at the Long Island mosque where he worships. "The more
controversial something is, the more people it attracts," he says. "But
attraction is just the first step. After that, you have to believe, and
the message of Islam is so simple, without any of the Holy Trinity
mysteries. You can practise it on your own."
One Dutch Islamic centre claims a tenfold increase while the New
Muslims Project, based in Leicester, England, reports a steady stream
of new converts.
In a videotape released by the Pentagon last month, Osama bin Laden
himself remarked on the phenomenon to his al-Qaeda lieutenants. "In
Holland, the number of people who accepted Islam during the days that
followed the operations were more than the people who accepted Islam in
the last 11 years. I heard someone on Islamic radio who owns a school
in America say: 'We don't have time to keep up with the demands of
those who are asking about Islamic books to learn about Islam.' This
event made people think [about true Islam], which benefitted Islam
greatly."
Some of the high-profile Western converts who have captured the public
limelight have been those drawn to the terrorist cause espoused by
radical Islamists. According to the FBI, John Walker, a 20-year-old
California man, took up arms with the Taliban and even met bin Laden
and knew he had ordered the attacks.
Richard Reid is alleged to have packed plastic explosives into the
heels of his black suede high-tops in an attempt to bomb American
Airlines Flight 63 last month. In the mid-1990s, he came out of prison
and joined a Brixton mosque in London, where he met Zacarias Moussaoui,
the "20th" terrorist who engineered the hijacking of the planes that
crashed into New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon in
Washington.
However, many American and European converts are similar to those in
the New Muslim class for converts run by the Islamic Society of Boston.
They do not support terrorism, nor share the al-Qaeda credo. They are
well-educated, articulate, former Christians; some are even Jewish and
Hindu.
These new Muslims, like the approximately 25,000 Hispanic converts in
New York and California, are surprise converts to a religion that is
the fastest growing in the United States. There are now six million
adherents across the country, and more than 30% of mosque attendees are
converts, according to a recent survey by four Muslim-American groups.
Some had studied Buddhism, flirted with Roman Catholicism or spent time
with Quakers, but ultimately found them lacking.
Conversion is an intensely personal journey. But the influx of new
Muslims prompts a number of questions. Why would people choose to
embrace the faith at this time in history, when it suffers from such a
public relations problem that Muslims can be spit on for wearing a
hijab, called rag-heads and taunted in the street? And, a more
fundamental question: What can a religion that segregates genders, bans
dancing and drinking and requires women to cover up not just their
hair, but their elbows and knees, offer to liberated American women?
- - -
"Asalam Alaikum!" the New Muslims sisters call out to one another as
they arrive at the Old Country Buffet in a suburban mall to celebrate
Eid, the end of Ramadan. The class is marking the occasion a few weeks
late, to accommodate the Christmas holidays, which many of the new
converts observed with their families.
Some are dressed in jeans and running shoes, their long blond hair
shiny and loose; others are in shalwar kameez, their hair completely
covered by embroidered hijabs.
Laughing boisterously, they tuck into plates of baked potatoes, roast
beef and ice cream sundaes. A few have brought along their young
children, who race around the restaurant.
Around the table are Ms. Motschenbacher and Ms. Portmann, as well as
two "closet converts": Laura, a 21-year-old Harvard medical student in
a V-necked sweater and T-shirt, and Lisa, a 36-year-old sales manager
with blue eyes and honey-coloured hair, looking as all-American as a
Gap ad.
The evening might be mistaken for a women's book club meeting, or a
girls' night out, albeit one with lemonade instead of wine.
The conversation flows from social niceties, such as plans for a class
member's upcoming engagement party, to where to buy halal meat, and
purchase a hijab online.
The eldest class member, Karen Courtenay, a 61-year-old linguist who
said the shahadah over the telephone last May, sums up how many of the
converts feel about what she calls Islam's rich mysticism and clear
theology and rules, which include fasting during Ramadan, praying five
times a day and making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
"Many Christians express dismay about the Trinity, about the
tri-partite God. With Islam, there are no miracles and things you can't
understand. Also, the congregational prayer, where everyone prays in a
certain way in Arabic and in ritual positions is very powerful. Then
there's the social aspect: If you come from a cold, WASP New England
culture, the hugging and hospitality you get from Arab sisters is just
wonderful."
Laura, who was raised as a secular Christian, says she converted by
herself in her room a year ago. "The Koran really touched my heart and
I liked the inner logic of the religion. It can be seen as un-American,
but it is one of the great religions of the world and applies to all
places and times," she says.
Neither she nor Lisa cover their heads -- they are not ready to take
this final step of being publicly identified as Muslims.
"It was a big step to convert. Until I found this class, I felt like I
was the only American girl in the whole world who wanted to convert to
Islam and that I was losing my mind," says Lisa, grinning.
She converted before she met and married a Pakistani Muslim, and has
not disclosed either life change to her Anglican parents. She takes
solace in her new faith: "I liked the fact that to become a Muslim you
don't have to disrespect Jesus. He is still a prophet, just not the son
of God, which I'd always struggled with."
But even as she joyfully embraces Islam's family values and moral
certainty, she, like many converts, continues to struggle with some of
the cultural mores that forbid women to wear short sleeves or shake
hands with males who are not relatives.
"I have an independent nature and there are lots of things I'm still
trying to understand," says Lisa, who plans to renew her vows at an
American-style wedding reception, with bridesmaids and a white gown.
Some converts do not like having to pray in a separate area from men,
with the imam's words coming to them via closed-circuit television.
"It's like being back in Alabama in the 1960s with whites on one side
and blacks on the other," says Ms. Courtenay, who adds that at her
mosque, some women do pray upstairs, behind the men.
Other converts do not miss the distraction of men, and feel more
comfortable praying only with women and children. For Ms.
Motschenbacher, not having to date or wear the latest styles came as a
relief.
Protection from male lust is also what attracted the group's youngest
convert: 15-year-old Nirva Guirand, a Haitian-American, in a white head
scarf.
"When I developed in the sixth grade, I got unwanted attention from
guys. With Islam, I felt I got respect as a young woman," she says.
It was the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, an act perpetrated
by al-Qaeda in 1998, that prompted Andrea Useem, a 28-year-old
journalist who was raised Episcopalian, to convert. Through her
interviews with prominent Muslim leaders, she began to appreciate the
religion's structure and form. She separated the theology from the
actions of extremists who claimed to kill in the name of Islam.
"I thought it was genius to pray five times a day," says Ms. Useem, who
now teaches the class. "It is more comprehensive than Christianity.
It's a total package. Sometimes I've had to stop and pray under a tree.
At times, you feel you're just like every other weird American doing
their thing."
- - -
Religious scholars believe it is difficult for a Western, secular
culture to understand the power of religion, because it plays such an
ambiguous role in our own society. This might be precisely the draw of
Islam. While new Muslims see their change of faith in theological
terms, it also gives them a sense of community order they might not
find in U.S. society, explains Earl Waugh, a professor of religion at
the University of Alberta.
"They may be converting in reaction to feelings of ambivalence and
ambiguity of being a Christian in the U.S., when Santa Claus is more
predominant in the consciousness than the birth of Jesus," he says.
Islam is seen as the best and only way to answer the United States'
moral decay and materialism.
Others might be identifying with the underdog and the downtrodden and
see conversion as an act of defiance.
A crisis such as the terrorist attacks can often prompt those who have
not yet had publicly to declare their conviction to do so. "It makes
them want to say something about their existential person, rather than
just to be an American," says Prof. Waugh.
Last September's terrorist attacks may have attracted new converts --
but they also prompted a crisis for the larger Muslim community.
When Ms. Useem heard bin Laden's bragging about the many Islam converts
that followed the terrorist "operation," she felt sickened. "I
converted in spite of him, not because of him," she said. "Sept. 11 has
forced Muslim-Americans to become outward-looking overnight. There are
inner contradictions. With immigrant Muslims, you get their politics,
and you have to figure out what are your politics? What is a Muslim's
responsibility when a Muslim does something like that?"
Lack of understanding is often greatest closest to home.
After Sept. 11, Ms. Guirand's own mother interpreted her recent
conversion as a gesture of support for terrorism. "My mother said,
'What's the matter with you, do you love Osama bin Laden? Do you want
to be his wife?' I told her, it's something he did, it's not what the
religion teaches."
In the neighbouring state of New York, Ms. Guirand might have something
in common with another group of surprising converts, or "reverts" as
many of them prefer to be known: Latino Muslims.
At first glance, the religion might seem as alien to Latinos, with
their long tradition of Roman Catholicism and fiesta spirit, as to
liberated American women. But many Hispanic Muslims see their
conversion as a return to their Moorish roots, just as many blacks see
Islam as part of their African heritage.
"People say, you're not really Latino if you're Muslim but being a
Muslim means you've embraced Arab culture, which was present in the
Iberian peninsula for 900 years," says Ibrahim Gonzalez, a "Nuyorican"
or Puerto Rican New Yorker, who co-founded Alianza Islamica, a Hispanic
mosque in the Bronx.
Other Hispanics are attracted to Islam for reasons of spiritual
redemption; as an alternative to the Judeo-Christian establishment; and
because they are influenced by the African-American communities they
live near.
Some may have converted in prison, following the lead of their black
brothers. In New York State prisons, for example, as many as 40% to 60%
of black prisoners are Muslim converts, according to Robert Dannin, a
New York University professor and author of Black Pilgrimage to Islam.
As with American women, Latino Muslims must relinquish elements of
their effusive culture; samba music, dancing and the barranda, a Puerto
Rican holiday tradition that involves going from house to house dancing
and drinking, have no place in Islam.
Yet just as some new sisters still bare their tresses, some Latinos
continue to play their merengue and salsa music quietly at home.
Others know that conservative Islam forbids these pleasures -- and
relish the sacrifice as proof of their new-found devotion.
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mjimenez@nationalpost.com