Posted on 02/27/2006 12:28:11 PM PST by Coleus
Last year, Gaby Gonzalez wore black nail polish and black eye shadow. She had a messy room, standoffs with mom and occasional drinks. Today, the Honduran-born 20-year-old is known as Sister Gaby. She proudly wears her jade-green hijab, which forms a nearly perfect frame around her delicate features and large brown eyes. She prays several times a day and does not wear makeup, eat pork or even utter the phrase "happy hour" – that is all haram, she said, or prohibited in Arabic.
"In my past, I focused on myself. I didn't think about other people, about my parents, just myself and my circle of friends," she said. "Now, every day I strive to be better, to do good, to help others. I stopped being selfish and arrogant." Gonzalez, who majors in anthropology at Montclair State University, is one of thousands of Latinos who have converted to Islam. So many Latinos have thronged to Islam in recent years that many mosques, including some in North Jersey, have set up special "Latino Muslim" groups within their congregations. And many now offer simultaneous Spanish translations as part of their religious services. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, mosque leaders saw the fear and anger mushrooming against Muslims and decided to reach out to non-Muslim organizations and community groups to demystify Islam and to condemn terrorism.
"When we reached out, we weren't even thinking of Hispanics; we didn't know much about Hispanics," said Mohammed Al-Hayek, the imam at the Islamic Educational Center of North Hudson, in Union City. "But they were the ones who responded. That's when we realized that our outreach focus had to be specifically Hispanics." Al-Hayek brought in the head of a mosque in Ecuador and asked him to go out into the immigrant enclaves of Hudson County and talk about Islam. For four months, the Ecuadorean went out into the crowded streets of Union City and the surrounding towns, and encouraged people to ask questions about Islam and Muslims. He also visited homes and spoke to local organizations. "Here was a Latino, someone the people in the Hispanic community could relate to, speaking to them in their own language about Islam," said Al-Hayek, a thin man with a friendly face and wide smile. "It wasn't Arabs speaking to them, and at the beginning especially, that made a big difference."
The mosque's efforts have paid off. Since Al-Hayek began the outreach program five years ago, some 500 Hispanics have visited the mosque, sitting in prayer sessions as guests and attending seminars on Islam. Many converted, usually from Catholicism. Now, Al-Hayek said, of the approximately 1,000 people who regularly worship at the mosque, nearly 200 are Hispanic converts. Mohamed El-Filali, the outreach director for the Islamic Center of Passaic County, held an "open house" for Hispanics last summer. "Many of the Latinos who accept Islam are looking for what many people are searching for when they turn to religion in general, which is a way out of one kind of life and a means by which to reach divine acceptance."
Hispanics and Muslims note that their communities have much in common – tight-knit families, reverence for their elders and a tendency to dote on children. They also note that Islam is a core part of the history of Spain, where Muslim Moors ruled for about 800 years. And many Spanish words, they say, come from Arabic. "They're coming back to their roots," Al-Hayek said. The sound of Spanish now fills the air at many mosques. On Wednesday night at the mosque in Union City, a group of Hispanic converts spoke Spanish among themselves, with the more veteran ones teaching the newest mosque members how to put on a hijab.
"I don't understand a word they're saying," said Mariam Abbassi, an Oradell business owner, whose eyes darted back and forth as she strained to figure out the conversations. "I'm trying to learn. But it's a pleasure having them here. They're very enthusiastic, very warm; we Muslims feel very strongly about seeing others in our religion as Muslims, not Egyptians or Colombians or Puerto Ricans or Saudis." Like many Hispanics who embrace Islam, Gonzalez came from a family of devout Catholics. Back in Honduras, her grandmother insisted that Gonzalez strictly adhere to the religion.
"My grandmother whipped me if I didn't go to church, if I didn't read the Bible," she said. "It wasn't something for me that was allowed to develop naturally." Here, she discovered punk rock music and the punk lifestyle, and for a sheltered Honduran in her teenage years, it was alluring and liberating. "Punk girls wore tight pants, things that showed their figure," she said. "My hair was uncombed." She was marching to her own beat, but she was still unhappy, she said. "I was always stressed out, doing things I shouldn't do," Gonzalez said. "I prayed to be led to the right path." During a college course that looked at different religions, Gonzalez became intrigued by Islam.
"I read more and more about Islam," she said. "I wanted to know what it was that led so many people to submit entirely to this religion. When I read the Quran, I found the truth. It spoke about serving others, putting others first."
Islam made her feel anchored.
But Gonzalez learned that becoming Muslim comes at a price. Some Hispanic converts say they encounter objections from relatives, some of whom have disowned their newly Muslim daughters, sons and grandkids. They find themselves defending their new lifestyles against taunts and warnings by fellow Hispanics about getting recruited into terrorist organizations and losing their freedom to cult-like pressures. "Most of my family is bigoted against Muslims," said Vincent Gallardo, a student at William Paterson University who converted to Islam two years ago. "A close friend stopped speaking to me," he said. "My mother was very hurt. A Latino co-worker always called out to me: 'Hey Taliban, how's it going?' " Gonzalez's conversion stunned her friends; some stopped speaking to her. Her parents objected, and she stayed at a friend's home for a while. Even when she found acceptance among some relatives and friends, she said, people disapproved of her veil – a common point of contention, for it is a very tangible, very public expression of devotion to Islam. Gonzalez's family has come to accept her conversion, she said, and appreciate the positive changes that have occurred in her.
"Islam means submission to God, not that you are chosen to go out and bomb a place – that is a specific group that is not practicing Islam the way it was intended," Gonzalez said. "We don't drink alcohol, we don't eat pork, we pray five times a day, and people look at that and call us fanatics."
Tamales and tequila is enough to keep me from becoming a muslim, though the whole smite the infidel thing is an added incentive.
There's no ditching Mohammed. And spreading her legs might just get her stoned.
Boy are you off base here. Who said anything about never playing video games, watching movies, read scientific literature, or going to public school? AFAIC those are all fine in moderation, I would however tell my kid when they are walking off the path they are putting their soul in danger, grieving the holy spirit is awful close to blaspheming it.
All I am saying is you cant be a Christian one or two days a week. Every day you need to be in the word and talking to God going to church on Sunday and tithing and living in the world the rest of the time is, to me, more dangerous a spiritual walk than being completely depraved.
Why, because IMO the story I just recited would be the AMERICAN way of doing things. Freedom.. free thought, free expression, freedom to THINK and ANALYSZ and work through your own thought process
This is why I am a Christan before I'm an American (though the two things are seldom if ever in conflict). God has risen and destroyed great nations just to prove his glory and power.
I don't think running a convent in your home to children who cannot possible fully comprehend the power of our lord and what it means to be christian is any better then Musloms doing it.
Response A: Nor does running a brothel in your home prepare your children to be discerning adults... (Hey if you can blow my position to the extreme yours is fair game)
Response B: I have a duty to teach my kids the truth and if they don't take it they will still get their butts in the seat to hear it. I will not allow filth in my home, I will not allow banality to overtake substance, and I will love my kids no matter what they do. As for the 'kids cant understand' thats utter BS:
Mat 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Mat 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
If you don't live a Christian life as an earthly father you make it harder for kids to identify with tehir heavenly father, and going to Church one day a week does not cut it..
Thank you!
Oddly enough I have heard Spurgen had a similar experience..
But you can eat ugly. :)
Seriously, it's been a generation since the "no meat on Friday", rule was rescinded, or whatever the Church calls such an action.
Wow throwing out a big net there arnt you? Maybe before you state what it is I believe that you cant agree with you might ask me what I believe! I was raised catholic and now attend a Baptist church. If you think you have a 'beat' on what all 'us Protestants' are thinking you're way off as we do not agree with each other on a good many issues.
because I can never agree with the principal that if a 5 year old shoplifts, it is because he is the devil and destined to be evil and has no chance of salvation.
I don't believe if a 5yo shoplifts he is the devil or beyond redemption. Heck, Charles Manson is no more or less deserving or redemption than I am.
This to me seems to connect to the fiercity of having a strict "Christian Household" because if someone so dear to you liek child acted out, then you would have to admit the inherent evil in someone you love so much
I think we are all, myself included, inherently evil and I ask you to find me scripture that contradicts that. Even after being redeemed I am still driven by flesh, hence the need to be before God daily. I meet with a small group of men weekly to share, pray, and support eathother because even the most Godly men fell. Even Peter himself was prone to need correction from time to time.
Yes, that biblical quote is nice, but as I said, I temper my dogma with hardcore reality (as most conservatives), and hardcore reality is that while it should be encouraged and fostered, a young child cannot appreciate the full merits and need for our Savior with so few life experience.
Lets put an age here to help: I would not let anyone under the age of 11-13 take communion, under any circumstances. I think you need to be an adult to fully appreciate the gift of salvation but that in no way excuses the father from laying the groundwork. A fathers role will not redeem the child but it is still his duty. Children can understand God and accept him far better than most adults but they do not understand their need for him.
If you honestly thing a 10 year old can fully comprehend our lord and everything in the bible
I never said they can Fully comprehend I showed you what the Bible said. We need to be as Children before God with nothing but the awe and wonder that they are so good at. having an attitude that you need to figure God out is not, imho, helpful and not laying the groundwork for your kids is even less so.
El Cid was a Spaniard, not Hispanic.
Interestingly, I never see articles about the rise of evangelical Protestantism in the Hispanic community, with glowing words about loving others and being brothers and sisters in Christ.
Only a complete retard would convert to Islam.
A turban is a sombrero, of a sort. Sombrero is just "hat" in Spanish. Besides which, the Ecuadorans don't wear anything like the typical Mexican "Sombrero". Of course neither do most Mexicans, they prefer something more like a straw cowboy hat, except on special occasions of course, or if they are in the "Musica del Norte" business.
But, yes, expect Hispanic homicide bombers. Jose Padilla is Hispanic, and was going to build a dirty bomb.
Couldn't she just have become a rock ribbed Baptist? That would have suitably PO'd her parents, and they don't require you to blow yourself up for Jesus.
No penalty or late charges for leaving other religions.
Leaving Islam carries the death penalty.
Both the Koran and Hadith are the foundations of Islam
From the Hadith:
. “Whoever changes his religion, execute him.” Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6524.
True. Guess I forgot that little tidbit.....
Well. This is incredibly smart on the part of muSlums. They understand how powerful hispanics-refusing-to-call-themselves-Americans are in this country (or, at least how important they are to our misrepresentatives). This news sounds really bad to me.
heck theres pork lard in everything hispanic! the refried beans ther tortillas....
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