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By Andrea Perera
March 22, 2001
NEW YORK -- Yahya Figueroa unlaced his brown leather
shoes and placed them alongside the boots and sneakers
covering the narrow hallway of the basement apartment
housing Alianza Islamica. He walked to the living room and
offered his sister, Safia Figueroa, the usual greeting,
"Salaam Allaikum."
From her seat on the navy blue carpet, Safia looked up,
smiling. "Allaikum Salaam," she said, turning back to the
television. She was watching a video of some Alianza leaders
lecturing on drug abuse at a Harlem street fair.
In 1975, her brother and five other Muslims, all of them
Puerto Rican, founded Alianza Islamica, New York City's only
Islamic center run by and for Latinos. In those early years,
the group met at each other's homes. Since then, they've
grown enough in membership, cash accounts and clout to rent
their own space. In 1992, they moved into an East Harlem
space and, since 1999, they've operated out of a South Bronx
brownstone.
"Islam does not belong to any one race, ethnicity or
people." -- Al- Haaj Ghazi Khankan, Islamic Center of Long
Island
From there, the group plans programs addressing issues
members believe are important to Latinos, such as domestic
violence, AIDS education and drug addiction. They also help
hundreds of Latinos who come to the center to convert from
Catholicism -- the dominant religion among Spanish speakers
-- to Islam. It has become one of the world's fastest
growing religions over the last decade, counting more than
1.5 billion adherents. More than 6 million of them live in
the United States, and, Muslim leaders estimate, at least
15,000 identify themselves as Latinos worshiping in such big
cities as Newark, Miami, Los Angeles and New York.
Yahya Figueroa, Alianza director, fled the Catholic
Church of his birth in 1970, after protesting against the
Vietnam War, and rallying for civil rights and Puerto Rican
independence. The church was rife with hypocrisy, he said,
its history one of conquering foreign lands and supporting
unjust wars.
"This was a peace-loving religion," he said. "Yet, the
pope was blessing bombs going to Vietnam. The Church wasn't
as innocent as it claimed to be." Figueroa, like the rest of
Alianza's ex-Catholic membership, was attracted to Islam's
strict discipline, based on the five pillars of its
philosophy. Muslims must profess commitment to the faith,
journey to Mecca at least once in their life, pray five
times a day, give to their neighbors and fast during the
holy days of Ramadan. Other converts were attracted to a
faith that championed economic and political issues,
especially those affecting the international Muslim
community.
Latinos' historical connections to Islam run deep. North
African Moors first invaded Spain, then Christian, in the
eighth century. From there, Islam spread to Latin America,
the Caribbean and South America. Muslim presence influenced
Spanish architecture, language and literature, said Neguin
Yavari, professor of medieval Islam at Columbia University.
Yet many people know little about this history. "It's not
one of the elements of the religion that's well-
publicized," said Yavari, a Muslim who emigrated from Iran.
Since Islam was often associated with the Arab and South
Asian worlds, many Latino converts didn't feel accepted by
other Muslims. "People would go to the mosque and get turned
away for speaking Spanish," Figueroa said. Even the Koran,
Islam's holy book, was available translated only into
formal, Castilian Spanish, not the more conversational
dialect of most Latinos living in this hemisphere.
No matter what the perception, Islam does not belong to
any one race or ethnic group, said Al-Haaj Ghazi Khankan,
director of interfaith affairs and communications at the
Islamic Center of Long Island. "God did not send a special
religion to this group and that group," he said.
Whether or not they always felt welcome, Latinos
converted anyway. Maryam Roman was 42 when she traded her
Puerto Rican family's Catholicism for Islam. She had watched
the traditions of the Catholic Church wane.
"In my day, you used to cover in church. You didn't eat
before Holy Communion," said Roman, now 55, her face framed
by a veil, which many Muslim women wear to show modesty and
faith. "But then people started buying new outfits to wear
on Christmas Eve and Easter." Christmas was all about gift
giving, not the birth of Jesus Christ.
Roman finally gave up on Catholicism while managing a
building on East 13th Street, in a neighborhood plagued by
prostitution, crime and drugs. After she complained about
local drug dealers, they threatened her life. She looked to
the church for solace, but found none. "I went to my church
as I knew it, and felt no comfort," Roman said.
Her first exposure to Islam came when she hired some
Muslim men to work as security guards in her building. Roman
watched them pray. She pored over the Koran they gave her.
She finally found the discipline she was looking for and
took her shahada, the simple declaration of Muslim
faith.
Safia Figueroa, 38, said she felt a similar disconnection
from Catholicism. Nine years ago she switched faiths,
following her older brother, Yahya, mother and sister. Her
father has also since converted.
Safia Figueroa liked the ritualism of Islamic prayer,
fasting during Ramadan and helping those who needed it. She
especially admired Muslim women who covered their hair with
a scarf, called hijab in Arabic. Over the years, she'd heard
too many catcalls -- things too offensive to repeat, she
said -- while walking the city streets. But nurturing her
new faith was hard. The hijab was suffocating in the
sweltering summertime. And, though she saw the veil as a
testament to her faith, others didn't see it that way. "My
friends, they freaked out," she said. "They couldn't believe
that I chose this."
Most of them drifted away. Still, Figueroa said, she
gained far more than she lost. "I found something that
filled me," she said. "This is what my heart feels and I'm
happy with it."
Even in cities sparsely populated by Muslims, Latinos
take the religious leap. Sumayyah Ikhil, whose mother is
Dominican American and father is Puerto Rican, lives in
Decatur, Ga. Ikhil was born into a Catholic household, but
she also dabbled in the Pentecostal and Baptist traditions.
She was nagged by questions about the Christian trinity --
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She wanted to know who God
was and where he came from. Five years ago, a family friend
explained that in Islam, there is one all-powerful God
called "Allah." Ikhil stopped searching.
"I had always thought he was a separate God," she said.
"Finally, the questions I had came in answer form." She
found answers to her own questions but, like Safia Figueroa,
lost friends. And her father, a Baptist minister, wasn't at
all pleased, she said. They still argue over her religion.
To her, though, Islam just makes sense. She liked that,
according to the Koran, Jesus was a prophet. She liked the
belief in a judgment day for all mankind. She liked the
belief that all obedient acts have rewards, and that all
disobedient acts have consequences. And she liked that
Islamic doctrine values faith above everything, even race.
"There's no black, white or Puerto Rican Muslim," she
said.
"We are all Muslim under one faith, one god."
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