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The Islamic Bulletin

By Stephen Magagnini

A S

ENSE OF

EACE

AND

ONNECTEDNESS

Todd Wilson, a third-generation Italian American, swore off his

beloved prosciutto. Thy Loun, a refugee from Cambodia now at-

tending UC Davis, had to give up her twice-weekly staple of dou-

ble-pepperoni pizza.

Wilson, 31, and Loun, 21, say they’ve sacrificed their favorite foods

(both made from pork) for something more fulfilling: their belief in

Islam. They are among an increasing number of converts who have

made Islam the fastest-growing religion in America.

There are now as many as 7 million Muslims in the United States -

half of them American-born. In recent years, Americans of African,

European, Southeast Asian, Latin American and American Indian de-

scent have left their parents’ spiritual paths to follow Islam, a religion

that includes more than 1 billion believers from nearly every country.

At 10 p.m. on a recent Thursday, Wilson joined several dozen worship-

pers of different races and ethnic backgrounds at SALAMMosque inNorth

Sacramento for the last of the day’s five prayers. Wilson, who teaches sixth

grade in Elk Grove, observes his midday prayer between classes.

A one-time Marxist who still has posters of the late revolutionary Che

Guevara, Wilson says Islam gives him a sense of peace and connected-

ness he never found in Catholicism, the religion of his parents. He and

other made-in-America Muslims often combine the American values of

democracy and gender equality with Islamic ideals, such as devotion to

family, charity, modesty (women often cover their heads, arms and legs)

and bans on alcohol, pork, smoking and premarital sex.

The growth of Islam in America has led to a growing acceptance of the

hijab (the head cover worn by many Muslimwomen) and daily Muslim

prayers during breaks at schools and workplaces.

Sacramento, home to the oldest mosque west of the Mississippi,

at 411 V St., now has nine mosques, several Islamic schools and

a Muslim cemetery. Community leaders estimate 35,000 Muslims

live in the Sacramento area.

Wilson, Loun and dozens of others interviewed say they were drawn to

Islam because it places emphasis on prayer rather than on place of wor-

ship - no idols or icons are found in mosques, which tend to be relatively

spare - and because it attracts a diverse group of followers across the

economic and ethnic spectrum.

While many people associate Muslims with Arabs, most Muslims

aren’t Arabs, and millions of Arabs aren’t Muslim. At a Muslim picnic

in Sacramento’s Haggin Oaks Park last summer, believers from 20

nations prayed and ate barbecue together.

OMEN

’

IGHTS

SLAM

Islam, like other religions, is interpreted differently in different cultures.

From the time of the prophet Muhammad, who Muslims believe re-

ceived the word of God (the Qur’an) in the seventh century, Muslim

women were allowed to choose their husbands, divorce, own property

and do battle - rights afforded few Western women at the time, said

Kathleen O’Connor, who teaches Islam and the Qur’an at the Univer-

sity of California, Davis.

“This Western notion that Muslim women are all tied up in a closet

somewhere, bound and gagged, is utterly ridiculous,” O’Connor said.

Only a small minority of Muslims advocate violence in the name of re-

ligion, O’Connor said. “They’re just like (U.S.) paramilitary groups - you

wouldn’t judge Americans by Oklahoma City.”

African Americans account for 30 percent of America’s Muslims,

according to O’Connor. She said the figure isn’t surprising given

that as many as 20 percent of the Africans brought to the United

States as slaves were Muslim.

FRICAN

MERICANS

OMING

SLAM

“African Americans who have converted to Islam believe it represents

a return to cultural roots pre-slavery, a culture of self-respect and in-

dependence,” O’Connor said. “And Islam is a religion of social justice.

This speaks to blacks, whose experience has (often) been marked by

injustice. They don’t want to turn the other cheek - they’ve been

turning it for 200 years.”

Like many African American Muslims, Askia Muhammad Abdul-

majeed came to Islam after experimenting with the Nation of Is-

lam, an African American group led by Louis Farrakhan that is not

part of orthodox Islam.

Abdulmajeed, 56, joined the Nation of Islam under the late Elijah

Muhammad in the early 1970s. He said he admired the Nation’s

self-help approach to inner-city problems but said he was repulsed

by its anti-Semitic, anti-white doctrine.

He says Allah saved him from himself: “I was into drugs, I ran with

a fast crowd, didn’t hold down a job very long. My perception of

women was decidedly chauvinistic.”

He ultimately became an Imam, or prayer leader, and now serves as a

sort of Muslim circuit preacher who travels from mosque to mosque,

explaining the Qur’an in modern American terms.

Abdulmajeed, like many AmericanMuslims, is trying to strike a balance

between American notions of equality and democracy and much-old-

er Islamic laws that preach absolute adherence to the Qur’an.

His wife “can be a CEO as long as she doesn’t walk away from her

responsibility as a wife and mother,” he said. “If my wife is unedu-

cated, unsophisticated, what kind of children is she going to raise?”

Wilson, Abdulmajeed and other American converts appreciate Islam’s rigor-

ous, direct relationshipwithGod.Muslims areexpected topray, ina kneeling

positionwith their foreheads touching the floor, five times a day.Where they

pray is immaterial as long as they’re facing Mecca. They also are required to

fast during Ramadan - one month out of each year during which Muslims

are to abstain from food, water, sex and arguing from sun-up to sundown.

ATINO

USLIMS

In April, California State University, Sacramento, hosted a forum on

the “Islamic Presence in Latin America” before and after Columbus.

One of the speakers, Salvadoran-born AbdulHadi Bazurto (President

of Latin American Muslim Unity), said the more he examined his

roots, the more he questioned the validity of Catholicism in his life.

“Since the day the Spanish arrived, we as people have suffered a

slam

the

astest

rowing

eligion

the

lot,” he said. “Christianity’s ‘white God’ concept was harmful to

our people, who were definitely not white.”

Another speaker, Daniel Denton, a Stockton elementary school

teacher who was born in Mexico, said he was a hard-drinking vet-

eran of the Gulf War when he began to explore Islam in 1994. At

the invitation of Muslims at Delta College, he went to a mosque.

“There was a carpet on the floor, and the walls were bare. I wondered,

‘Where is everything?’ and then I realized that was everything. If you go

to a Catholic church, every few feet they have an image or a statue, but

in Islam, there is no association between God and any image.”

Denton also was impressed by the Islamic belief that each individual

will be judged by their deeds on Judgment Day. That night, he took

the shahada, the Muslim vow that says “There is only one God,

Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.”

When he started fasting for Ramadan, “I heard my relatives in Stock-

ton were calling my mom in San Diego and telling her I had become

a terrorist and was doing drugs,” Denton said. “When I went down

to San Diego toward the end of Ramadan, I had lost 15 pounds and

was starting to grow my beard. My mom was just in tears for days.”

But, Denton said, his mother soon realized that instead of partying,

he was staying home and talking to her as he had never done before.

“As she began to see the change, she came to accept it, and now she’s

happy. There’s a saying in Islam that goes, ‘Heaven lies at the feet of

the mother. You have to treat her well at all times, take care of her.’”

Denton, 29, sees similarities between Islamic and Latino culture.

“I’ve noticed that if you take away the crosses, the alcohol and the

pork, the smells in my house are similar to Muslim homes. So is

the behavior - the respect for family.”

IEWED

RAITOR

Those similarities also ring true for Italian Americans such asWilson andNi-

cole Ianieri, who teaches Italian language classes in Davis andWoodland.

“After the birth of my children (Miles in 1996 and Darius in 1998),

I began to feel a very spiritual need,” said Wilson, who converted

in 1998. “If I don’t pray five times a day, I get a little antsy. It’s as if

my whole day is out of whack.” Wilson’s wife and mother accept

his change of faith. But Ianieri, 24, initially was viewed as a traitor.

Ianieri, whose father is an Italian immigrant, said shewas raised “a very strong

Catholic.” Then, as a teenager, she befriended a Muslim youth from Egypt

and became curious about Islam. A few years later, a college friend invited

her toamosque. “As soonas Iwalked in, I felt a senseof belonging, a senseof

community that in all my years of going to church, I’d never felt. There were

people fromall over theworld sharing the same goals, and it touchedme.”

Finally, during Ramadan, she broke the news to her parents. “They

were really shocked initially, and who can blame them? They met

me for lunch, which was kind of a bad choice, because I couldn’t

eat or drink anything, and I was wearing a scarf and, unfortunately,

the cheapest material was black, and I’m all pale from not eating.

“My dad’s words were, ‘You’re Italian. Italians are Catholic. You were born

a Catholic, and you’re going to die a Catholic.’ ... My momwas crying.”

Ianieri said she no longer was welcome to serve as vice president of her

Italian cultural group. One association member, a relative, telephoned

to say “I no longer represented the cultural values they wished to rep-

resent. Fifty years ago, in the village, what were women wearing? They

were wearing long skirts and scarves, like me. They were moral.”

Ianieri eventually married a Moroccan immigrant who has been

embraced by her parents.

“Their biggest problem wasn’t about the religion, but about the way

I dress,” she said. The hijab - worn by some Muslim women, but not

others - can make life for young Muslims difficult in America.

RESSURE

ATE

Asma Ghori, 20, a UC Davis student from India, says high school danc-

es and college nights out have been exercises in misery.

“I can’t eat the food. I can’t dance, because I don’t dance in front

of men. I can’t dress the way other women dress. I don’t drink, and

I don’t go with a date - what’s the point?”

Ghori’s friend Roohina Diwan, a pre-med student who emigrat-

ed from Afghanistan as young girl, said that in high school she

was called a “scarf head,” “turbanator” and other slurs. After the

Oklahoma City bombing, she said, schoolmates asked her if she

knew how to make bombs. But it’s not just bigoted attitudes toward

Muslims that bother Diwan.

“Every time you turn on the TV, the word sex comes up about a

million times,” she said. “In high school, I felt a lot of pressure to

date and have a boyfriend.”

At Davis, she has struggled with the drinking and mating habits of her

non-Muslim friends and roommates. BecauseMuslimvalues so often clash

with mainstream American behavior, Diwan identifies as Muslim - not

American. Diwan has served as a spiritual guide for her friend, Thy Loun,

who was born in Cambodia a Buddhist, then became a Christian before

converting to Islam last April. Loun said she’s traded nights of clubbing in

mini-skirts for a hijab and the calmness that comes with daily prayer.

“When I have on the hijab, it makes me aware of what I do, and that

I’m accountable for all my actions,” she said. “I have an identity.”

Loun and her husband, a Mexican American Catholic, are among

many American Muslims struggling with the Quran’s ban against

usury, which holds that Muslims can’t make a profit lending mon-

ey. “Maybe we’ll get an interest-free checking account,” she said.

Jameela Houda Salem said her Egyptian husband refuses to buy life in-

surance because the Qur’an says it’s sinful to profit off someone’s death.

“That’s one of my issues, because I’m a licensed insurance agent,”

said Salem, who was raised Jewish and Catholic by divorced par-

ents in Brooklyn. “I have faith that God will provide for me, but

I also want the $250,000 (in the event of her husband’s sudden

death) to pay off the house.

“I’m working on the faith issue.”

Salem, who said she studied 11 religions before converting to Islam last

year, said it’s been a little tough getting used to her husband’s belief that

“the man is the head of the household and he does have the last say.”

“As an American woman who’s been on her own for a number of

years, I’m used to having my own say.”