From: Nagikheir@aol.com
Subject: When shall we wake up? A
must read.
Islam Luring More Latinos
Prayers Offer a More Intimate Link to God, Some Say
By Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2001; Page C01
At dusk, Aminah Martinez prepares dinner in her small Fairfax kitchen. Corn
tortillas for enchiladas, grated cheese and beef for tacos, maybe an avocado
for guacamole -- all staples of her youth.
But dusk is also time for prayer. So every evening, with her husband and two
children, she places her hands together and kneels to the east. It is
Maghrib, Muslims' fourth prayer of the day, and she begins whispering in
Arabic as the subtle aromas of Mexico mix with sounds often associated with
the Middle East.
Martinez is one of the thousands of Latinos nationwide who have converted to
Islam. It is an amalgam of two seemingly disparate communities. But in
growing numbers, Hispanics, the country's fastest-growing ethnic group, are
finding new faith in Islam, the nation's fastest-growing religion. Moved by
what many say is a close-knit religious environment and a faith that provides
a more concrete, intimate connection with God, they are replacing Mass with
mosques.
"Islam has given me a sense of religious community and well-being that I
was
starting to miss in my life," said Martinez, 26, who converted from
Catholicism in 1993. "It's helped give me a sense of completion."
The steadily increasing number of Latino Muslims illustrates how deeply
rooted Islam has become in the national landscape -- even spreading to
communities not normally associated with the faith, religious scholars say.
The Muslim population in the United States is estimated at more than 4
million, nearly six times the number in 1970, but still a fraction of the
nearly 1 billion Muslims worldwide.
Although exact numbers are difficult to find, the American Muslim Council, an
advocacy group in Washington, estimates that there are 25,000 Hispanic
Muslims in the United States. The largest communities are in New York City,
Southern California and Chicago -- all places that traditionally have had
large Hispanic and Muslim populations. All-Spanish mosques have emerged in
some of those areas.
Many of the converts say they are choosing Islam because they feel the
religion gives them greater direct contact with God, without saints and a
rigid church hierarchy. Some also point to what they see as a closer-knit,
smaller community that helps replace the extended family they have lost here
in America, as well as a supportive sanctuary to help sort through their
sometimes recent immigration. The Latino Muslims are part of a larger trend
of American Hispanics leaving the Catholic Church, experts say.
In the Washington region, the population of Latino Muslims is largely from
Mexico and Central America, as it is in western states, according to Latin
American Muslim Unity, an advocacy group in Fresno, Calif. In other eastern
cities, including Miami, significant numbers of converts are from Puerto Rico
and Cuba.
"It certainly is a community that we have seen grow throughout the country
over the past several years," said Aly R. Abuzaakouk, executive director of
the American Muslim Council. "The community is not as organized as other
Muslim groups here, so sometimes it's hard to determine the numbers."
Signs of the growth of Islam in the United States can be seen in everyday life
. A few colleges are building student centers for Muslims, just as they built
Hillel centers for Jewish students or Newman centers for Catholics several
generations ago. The White House now sends greetings for the Muslim holiday
of Id al-Fitr, the feast that ends Ramadan.
"I think on college campuses and other public spaces, you're finding a
greater acceptance of the views and the presence of Muslims," said John L.
Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University and director of its Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding. "A generation ago you might use the phrase
'Islam and the West,' and now you would say 'Islam in the West.' "
Indeed, acceptance and exposure are fueling the conversions, making it easier
for Latinos to learn about Islam. Martinez, for example, converted when she
was a student at the University of Texas in Austin. The eldest child in a
strict Catholic household, she says Islam was largely alien to her until she
began talking with Muslim students on campus. Like many Hispanics who have
converted, she said she felt a distance from the Catholic Church, both as a
religious community and a spiritual path.
"Growing up, I was a very devout Catholic. . . . Youth groups and
everything," Martinez said. "But as I got older, I felt there were too
many
distractions in the church. Islam, to me, was a more direct faith where I
felt a strong sense of belonging."
Her faith was tested immediately. Martinez's grandmother was so disappointed
by the conversion that she asked her granddaughter to leave her home and
refused to support her financially. She saw the defection from Catholicism as
a rejection of family and tradition, Martinez said. It would be a year before
the two would reconcile.
Such stories are common among Latinos who have abandoned Catholicism for
Islam.
Others have had a smoother transition. Becky Diaz Abu Ghannam, 39, a Chilean
American resident of Sterling who converted in 1984, said that she grew up
feeling that Catholicism did not provide the close-knit religious community
she was looking for. As she became more aware of Islam when she came to
America, she found that it provided a warmth and direction that appealed to
her -- particularly the five daily prayers. Initially, like many other
Hispanic women interviewed, she was concerned about the role of women in
Islam and whether she would be forced to take a subservient position to her
husband, who is also Muslim, and other men. Her fears subsided as she learned
more about the Koran and its teachings and how some countries' Islamic
communities are less stringent about such requirements.
And, she adds, her mother, a lifelong Catholic, converted several months ago
after seeing her daughter's spiritual path.
"The sense of sisterhood I felt with others who wore hijab was something
that
I had never experienced," said Abu Ghannam, referring to the practice of
Muslim women covering their heads in public. She added that, like Martinez,
she is raising her children to speak all the languages of their upbringing:
Arabic, Spanish, English.
"I think what many [Hispanics] are finding in Islam is a community that
they
find more nurturing," said Nicole Ballivian, a Los Angeles documentary
filmmaker who is completing a movie about Latino Muslims called "Luces
Sobre
Islam" ("Islam in Focus").
She has traveled throughout South America and the Caribbean and visited many
Hispanic Muslim communities here. She said that many of the converts she has
talked with say the Catholic Church is large and impersonal.
These concerns about Catholicism mirror a trend that many officials in U.S.
dioceses have tracked for years: the defection of Hispanics. The Catholic
Almanac estimates that 100,000 Hispanics in the United States leave the
church each year, although some other experts put the number as high as
600,000. Most have moved to Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant faiths as
well as Mormonism, Islam and Buddhism. Converts appear to be both men and
women in equal numbers.
"The numbers of Latinos who convert to various religions is certainly
significant," said Alejandro Aguilera Titus, assistant director for the
Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs with the National Council of Catholic
Bishops in Washington. "We find that the conversion efforts of many faiths
have increased recently, which has led many Hispanics away from the Catholic
Church."
Many area Latinos who have converted say their attraction to Islam is
spiritual and pragmatic. And even as their community seems scattered -- with
members attending mosques in Manassas, Herndon, Falls Church, Langley Park
and College Park -- they have formed their own organizations and have
produced their own literature. Spanish translations of the Koran, for
instance, are popular at several Northern Virginia mosques..
The Association of Latin American Muslims, a group based in Takoma Park,
distributes a bilingual, bimonthly newspaper, "La Voz Del Islam"
("The Voice
of Islam") with members occasionally walking the streets to talk to
Latinos.
"Organizing here can be very difficult at times, because it is easy to
mistake Hispanics for other ethnicities," said group president R. Abdur
Rahman Campos, who converted in 1982 after coming here from Mexico. Campos,
48, said he left the Catholic Church frustrated by what he called its heavy
emphasis on saints, which he says distracted him from the word of God.
"But it is important to continue to spread the teachings to Hispanics and
non-Hispanics," he added. "To everyone."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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