05 May 2011By Hajer Naili
Milena recently began attending
Qur'an classes on Wednesday nights at the North Hudson
Islamic Center in Union City, New Jersey.
Milena is one of thousands of Latino Americans who has
converted to Islam. She embraced the fast-growing
religion four weeks ago. Milena has been married to
her husband, who is originally a Pakistani-Muslim, for
seven years. Despite their long marriage, she had
always refused to convert just for her spouse's sake.
Like many Puerto Ricans, she was a regular Catholic
churchgoer with a strong faith. After her first son's
birth, she started to consider Islam.
"I became interested in learning
about Islam without converting, because our son is
going to be raised as a Muslim. That is how my
interest in Islam started." she said.
So far Milena has been satisfied with the learning
process.
"I am seeking knowledge, I am
hungry for knowledge. I am really excited about what I
feel," she said.
The new convert has adapted
herself rapidly into her new life, so much so that the
Imam and other students do not recognize her
immediately.
For the first time, Milena wore a veil covering up her
hair.
"Last Sunday, I went to a hijab
party," she said. "I didn't know how to wear one. It
was a really nice experience. And this is the first
time, I am wearing it today."
But she confesses "I was a bit reluctant because I
didn't know how anyone would react to me. But that was
fine. I feel good. I feel proud."
That night, four other Latino
Muslims attended the Islamic class. Among them was
Nylka Vargas, who has been a Muslim for 15 years.
Coming from a Peruvian-Ecuadorian family, she was born
and raised in New Jersey. Nylka chose Islam because
she said she "had a yearning to know God and I didn't
believe in things that I learned as a Christian. I
believed in a higher power. I was looking for the
truth, the connection between the believer and the
Creator."
"Islam taught me a lot of discipline. And Islam is
perfectly aligned: the prayers and its time. Why
things are done. It is flexibility but discipline."
According to a study led by Samantha Sanchez, one of
the founders of Latino American Dawah Organization (LADO),
the most attractive part of Islam to spirituality
seeking Latinos is its strict monotheistic orientation
and structured belief system.
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, currently the Ibn Khaldun
Chair of Islamic Studies, of American University in
Washington DC, agrees.
"Because Latinos are coming from Catholic background,
which is a fairly ordered world, to America where is
completely free, sometimes they find an alternative in
Islam, where they see an order," he said. "At the same
time, because they are coming from a Catholic
background, they also see some echoes in Islam of
their own faith. For example, Catholics have a very
high reverence for Mary, the mother of Jesus, so that
is something they very much appreciate."
Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center of New
York says he has a similar point of view.
"The most important reason why many Latinos embrace
Islam is because they are naturally religious people
as Catholic or Christian, so they are more inclined to
religion," he said. "That's why they can turn to
Islam."
Without any census based on the religious beliefs in
United States, it is difficult to give a precise
figure of Latinos who have converted to Islam within
the country.
Yet, it was estimated at about 200,000 in 2006, by the
American Muslim Council. Young and educated women make
up a large part of this group.
"More than 60 percent of converts are women these last
few years", Ali said, who has also noted an increase
of conversions to Islam after 9/11 attacks. "The
majority of those who became Muslims after 9/11 are
from the Latino community. Maybe more that 60 percent
of those who converted to Islam in America are
Latinos".
The tragic event seems to have aroused people's
interest in Islam, who want to understand what the
religion is all about.
Such is the case for Mustafa, born to Catholic parents
from Puerto Rican. Mustafa started to search for
answers in the Qur'an after the attacks.
"Once I started to read the Qur'an the first time, I
said this is true," he said. "I have to testify to
it."
But he explains that it was a long process that
stretched from 2001 through 2007, before his
conversion.
"I was still young, into partying," he said. "So it
took me a transition from that time when I first read
the Qur'an until I took my Shahaada (testimony of
faith in the Oneness of God and the finality of the
prophethood of Muhammad)."
Many Muslim organizations have stated that the Latino
Muslim community has tripled or quadrupled since 9/11.
Ahmed explains that there has been "so much literature
on Islam. If you are an American, and day and night
people are saying Islam is bad, Islam is terrorism, so
you may pick up a book on Islam and what do you see?
No, Islam is saying something else. In that sense, the
interest in Islam has gone up since 9/11."
Conversion to Islam by Latinos may also be seen as a
look back to their Spanish roots, which is embedded in
Islamic history for 800 years in Granada, Cordova,
Seville and Andalusia.
"There is a kind of reawakening," Nylka Vargas. "We
want to discover our roots, our ancestries. How our
culture fitted into Islam. It's amazing, I have seen
how our community has transformed.
There is more availability of Islamic information in
Spanish. Islam is not so much seen as something
foreign. That misconception is going away. Now it is
our religion too. Islam is not for others only, it is
for all. "
The largest communities of Latino Muslims exist in
areas, unsurprisingly, that have the highest
concentrations of Latinos, such as New York City,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and other urban centers.
According to an ongoing survey led by LADO, California
is the state with the most Latino Muslims.
In his essay, Latino Conversion to Islam, Khalil
Salgado, currently the secretary of the League of
Latin American Muslim Organizations, puts forward five
factors that have lead Latinos to accept Islam.
From the 1960s until the mid-1990's, Latino
conversions seem to be the results of the interactions
between Puerto Ricans and African-Americans, who were
the first Muslims. From the mid-1990's, the explosion
of Internet has facilitated connections between people
thus many Latinos have gotten connected to other
people around the world including with Muslim people.
Another factor is that Latinos have been living among
Muslim immigrants.
"In the post-9/11 period, most Latinos have come to
learn about Islam primarily from their interactions
with immigrant Muslims," Salgado said.
The two remaining factors, which "are not restricted
to any particular time period" are "the conversion in
prison" and the "conversion through marriage."
From Puerto Rican family, Salgado, a 33 year-old, is
himself a converted Muslim. Born and raised in the
Bronx, New York, he became Muslim in 1995.
He then went to Mecca and Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia
where he attended Arabic and Islamic studies. He is
now a teacher at the Islamic school in Nashville
Tenn.
Like Salgado, Anthony Umar Navarro, an American-Puerto
Rican with a Catholic background, also chose to go
abroad to learn Arabic and Islamic studies.
He currently resides in Egypt with his wife. He says,
he is trying "to learn how to live like the Prophet
without all of the distractions that the "modern" era
has brought with it."
Umar confesses that before he became Muslim he "got
into tons of troubles on the streets -fighting every
day, being arrested by police. I really didn't care
much about anything until I witnessed my best friend
get murdered. Now that my best friend was gone I
needed to know where he was."
A short time later, he came across a Muslim Dominican
who was also dealing with the streets and was
befriended by the troubled youth, which led Umar to
discover Islam.
"I took my Shahaadah two months before my 21st
birthday and left the streets life alone".
In embracing Islam, Latino Muslims change part of
their life spiritually and physically.
"Before there was nothing to scare me, now I am scared
of only thing and it is about Allah," he said." It
changed my life. It makes me a fearful man. It makes
me also patient. I had never had any kind of
patience."
Born in a Catholic Puerto Rican family, he explains
that "the hardest part is watching what you eat. You
have to be more aware of everything you do, aware what
time is it for your prayers. But it is just a
transition."
For over two months, Ziyad has taken Qur'an and Arabic
classes at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York to
develop a better understanding of the religious texts.
Gina* has also started attending the same class, after
having embraced Islam over two months ago. She was
born and raised in New York, with an ancestry from
Panama and Dominican Republic. She has not told her
parents about her conversion, but recently opened up
to her sister, who she says "made a couple of comments
and repeated what the media says. But when I started
to explain to her certain things she understands it
more now."
Gina finds it regrettable that "there are a lot of
misunderstandings that people have about Islam and
they feel that it's the truth because what they hear
on television."
The rise of Latinos who have converted to Islam in the
United States might also have an impact beyond the
American borders.
Ali tells this story: "In Nicaragua there was no
mosque in the past, but recently a business woman from
New York, who became Muslim, went back to Managua and
she bought a house that she turned into a house of
worship, a mosque. So there is some influence."
Today, Latino Muslims seem to face a double challenge
in America: ethnic and religious.
*Gina, is a substitute name to perserve her anonymity.
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