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Title: More US Hispanics drawn to Islam
Source:
www.csmonitor.com
URL Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0928/p03s02-ussc.html?s=u2
Published: Sep 29, 2006
Author: By Amy Green
Post Date: 2006-09-29 15:18:35 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 312
Comments: 16
ORLANDO, FLA. – With her hijab and dark complexion, Catherine Garcia doesn't look like an Orlando native or a Disney tourist. When people ask where she's from, often they are surprised that it's not the Middle East but Colombia. That's because Ms. Garcia, a bookstore clerk who immigrated to the US seven years ago, is Hispanic and Muslim. On this balmy afternoon at the start of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, she is at her mosque dressed in long sleeves and a long skirt in keeping with the Islamic belief in modesty. "When I was in my country I never fit in the society. Here in Islam I feel like I fit with everything they believe," she says. Garcia is one of a growing number of Hispanics across the US who have found common ground in a faith and culture bearing surprising similarities to their own heritage. From professionals to students to homemakers, they are drawn to the Muslim faith through marriage, curiosity and a shared interest in issues such as immigration. The population of Hispanic Muslims has increased 30 percent to some 200,000 since 1999, estimates Ali Khan, national director of the American Muslim Council in Chicago. Many attribute the trend to a growing interest in Islam since the 2001 terrorist attacks and also to a collision between two burgeoning minority groups. They note that Muslims ruled Spain centuries ago, leaving an imprint on Spanish food, music, and language. "Many Hispanics ... who are becoming Muslim, would say they are embracing their heritage, a heritage that was denied to them in a sense," says Ihsan Bagby, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky. The trend has spawned Latino Islamic organizations such as the Latino American Dawah Organization, established in 1997 by Hispanic converts in New York City. Today the organization is nationwide. The growth in the Hispanic Muslim population is especially prevalent in New York, Florida, California, and Texas, where Hispanic communities are largest. In Orlando, the area's largest mosque, which serves some 700 worshipers each week, is located in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood. A few years ago it was rare to hear Spanish spoken at the mosque, says Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida. Today there is a growing demand for books in Spanish, including the Koran, and requests for appearances on Spanish-language radio stations, Mr. Musri says. The mosque offers a Spanish-language education program in Islam for women on Saturdays. "I could easily see in the next few years a mosque that will have Spanish services and a Hispanic imam who will be leading the service," he says. The two groups tend to be family-oriented, religious, and historically conservative politically, Dr. Bagby says. Many who convert are second- and third-generation Hispanic Americans. The two groups also share an interest in social issues such as immigration, poverty, and healthcare. Earlier this year Muslims joined Hispanics in marches nationwide protesting immigration-reform proposals they felt were unfair. In South Central Los Angeles, a group of Muslim UCLA students a decade ago established a medical clinic in this underserved area. Today the nonreligious University Muslim Medical Association Community Clinic treats some 16,000 patients, mostly Hispanic, who see it as a safe place to seek care without fear for their illegal status, says Mansur Khan, vice chairman of the board and one of the founders. Although the clinic doesn't seek Muslim converts, Dr. Khan sees Hispanics taking an interest in his faith because it focuses on family, he says. One volunteer nurse founded a Latino Islamic organization in the area. Another Hispanic woman told Khan she felt drawn to the faith because of the head covering Muslim women wear. It reminded her of the Virgin Mary. The trend is a sign that Islam is becoming more Americanized and more indigenous to the country, Bagby says. As Republican positions on issues such as immigration push Muslim Hispanics and blacks in a less conservative direction, Islam could move in the same direction. Muslim Hispanic and black involvement in American politics could demonstrate to Muslims worldwide the virtues of democracy, eventually softening fundamentalists. He believes the Osama bin Ladens of the world are a small minority, and that most fundamentalists are moving toward engagement with the West. "The more Hispanics and other Americans [who] become Muslim, the stronger and wider the bridge between the Muslim community and the general larger American community," Bagby says. "Their words and approach have some weight because they are a source of pride for Muslims throughout the world." Garcia left Colombia to study international business in the US. Always religious, she considered becoming a nun when she was younger. But her Catholic faith raised questions for her. She wondered about eating pork when the Bible forbids it, and about praying to Mary and the saints and not directly to God. In the US she befriended Muslims and eventually converted to Islam. Her family in Colombia was supportive. Today she says her prayers in English, Spanish, and Arabic, and she eats Halal food in keeping with Islamic beliefs. "It's the best thing that happened to me," says Garcia in soft, broken English. "I never expected to have so many blessings and be in peace like I am now."
AT PRAYER: Melissa Matos, of the Council on American Islamic Relations, is one of a growing number of Hispanic Muslims. The population has grown 30 percent since 1999. CANDACE BARBOT/MIAMI HERALD/AP
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 14.
#7. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Well, this perfectly illustrates the major logistics problem of aaron and his ilk's theory of "kill them all, bombs away on Arab countries"( apart from the obvious moral ethical issues)... "They", "the enemy," keeps getting larger and larger as we speak, either through birth rates or through religious conversions. In the not too distant future, it will be the USA/Israel tied at the hip with their meglomaniac scorched earth policies facing a humongous number of pretty pissed off Muslims in the world and being out-numbered by 10,000 to 1. And oceans will no longer separate "us" from "them."
Conversion is not going to do anything to the population of Moslems in the long run in this country. Moslems in Europe and America quickly lose their breeding habits and religious conviction becomes little more than nominal within two generations. The "youths" in France throwing bottles and rocks a few months back came from much smaller families already than their contemporaries in Algeria have and they seem to adopt the "values" of welfare- gangsterism and crime - not "Jihadism". I doubt many "Moslems" in Europe have, like their "Christian" hosts, ever been inside a religious house of worship in their lives.
Conversion to Islam may not have cause ill-effects in this country since secularism is preached so much in public schools. But the trend of Hispanics in the USA to "discover" Islam is also mirrored in Latin American countries, where there is already an abiding anti-American sentiment in the masses. Couple that with converts to Islam and the end result may not be pretty in years to come, especially if we continue to keep our southern borders wide open and we continue to have a policy of "bombs away" in ME countries. Growing empathy with the plight of ME countries in Latin American countries is not in our best interests. I read that the fastest growing new religion in Mexico is Islam. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp? ARTICLE_ID=44636 "Islam on march south of border: Mexico agrees to monitor foreign groups as Muslim recruitment rate skyrockets" June 7, 2005 "Islam is on the move in Mexico and throughout Latin America, making dramatic gains in converting the native population, increasing immigration, establishing businesses and charities and attracting attention from U.S. government officials who have asked their neighbors to the south to keep an eye on foreign Muslim groups...The recruitment of new followers is especially active in southern Mexico and among the indigenous Mayans who are converting by the hundreds, according to a report in Der Spiegel. The Mexican government, the report says, is concerned about a culture clash in its own back yard...According to U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro, almost every extremist terror group is now represented in Latin America...In the so-called Muslim triangle, where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet, a growing number of Arab-owned businesses are being forced to identify with the Palestinian cause. In the business town of Punte Arnes, the home of many Palestinians in touch with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, stores carry names of Palestinian communities and are decorated with the colors of the Palestinian flag. Bus companies owned by Islamic militants are also painting vehicles with the colors of Palestine, giving the vehicles Arabic names, which leave no doubt as to their ownership. It's all an indication of the growing power and spread of Islamist ideology in Latin America... Do a Google search of Islam Latin America or Mexico and you'll be surprised at the results.
Frankly- I worry more about rapture nutterism spreading among Hispancis than I do about Islam spreading among them.
#16. To: Burkeman1 (#14)
I do not think Hispanics are stooopid - rank stupidity is an essential quality that any potential convert to rapture nutterism must possess. Btw, I hope you have not misunderstood me. I don't think that conversion rates to Islam in Latin American constitute the base problem for us. It's our aaron Likud "bombs away, kill them all" foreign policies in the ME that are the causative factors in growing animosity to America from Muslim communities everywhere. Unfortunately that animosity also applies to growing Islamic populations in ( Latin American) countries in our back yards.
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#8. To: scrapper2 (#7)
#11. To: Burkeman1 (#8)
Conversion is not going to do anything to the population of Moslems in the long run in this country.
#14. To: scrapper2 (#11)
Replies to Comment # 14. Frankly- I worry more about rapture nutterism spreading among Hispancis than I do about Islam spreading among them.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 14.