AMERICAN BY BIRTH, MUSLIM BY CHOICE - Two female converts explain why they feel liberated by Islam

AMERICAN BY BIRTH
MUSLIM BY CHOICE

Two female converts explain why they feel liberated by Islam

By Katherine Millett. Katherine Millett is an Elmhurst lawyer and free-lance writer who wrote about identity theft in the Aug. 19 Magazine
Published December 2, 2001

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, struggling to understand mysteries of Muslim culture that had suddenly become frightening and dark, I picked up the phone and called Seema Imam, an American woman who had converted to Islam. She had made a strong impression on me two years earlier, when I listened to her tell a civil rights conference about the discrimination she felt after she left her family farm in central Illinois, became a Muslim and married a man from Pakistan. She wears hijab, the head scarf and robe that cover all but the face and hands. People who see her in the street sometimes yell, "Go back home." The day after the terrorist attacks, a man spat at her in her neighborhood. Recently, she has been pinning an American flag on her clothes.

She agreed to explain to me why a woman born in America, free to choose the way she wants to live, would convert to Islam, a religion that appears to treat women as inferior to men. Even if Muslim women in America lead less oppressive lives than they could in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, where a woman may be thrashed for letting her veil slip in public, or for walking to the drugstore at night without a male escort, they live by a far more strict set of rules than most of their neighbors. Why would they choose to limit their choices in dress and marriage, never again to socialize with men, run on the beach or drink a beer?

Imam's surprising answer, echoed by Elizabeth Martin, a convert who grew up Catholic in the Beverly neighborhood, is that Islam is a religion that makes sense to her and a social system that actually "liberates" her from what she experienced as sexism in mainstream culture.

"Family and religion are very strong in Islam," says Imam, 48. "Women are valued for who they are, for what they contribute, not just their physical attributes. I look at American women's clothes, and the advertising that exploits them, and I think mainstream culture is very hard on women."

Adds Martin: "Western women don't realize how deep misogyny goes in their culture. The whole dating system needs a revolution. Men here have it made. They get fun and games, and if a woman gets pregnant, they tell her to get an abortion or raise the baby herself. As a Muslim woman, I have dignity and freedom. The Koran says very clearly that men and women are spiritually equal, and that they fulfill each other as partners."

Imam and Martin, 39, are among a growing number of women converts to Islam, according to the Institute of Islamic Information and Education in Chicago. Mary Ali, the institute's co-director and herself a convert who grew up in Iowa, says she does not know exact numbers for the Chicago area, but estimates that between 50,000 and 60,000 of local Muslim converts are African-American, and that Caucasians and Hispanics are converting at an increasing rate. The institute says there are about 350,000 to 400,000 Muslims in the Chicago area.

Imam began life as Martha Crandall, one of five children in a family that raised soybeans in Cerro Gordo, a farming town of about 1,500 people east of Decatur. When I saw her two years ago addressing the civil rights conference about anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S., her appearance struck me as incongruous. Her healthy, farm-girl face, round and friendly, seemed constrained by the scarf wrapped tightly around her head and fastened under her chin with a silver pin. She wore glasses and a long, somber dress, decorated with a little embroidery. It loosely covered her, all the way to her ankles and wrists.

Yet wearing hijab could not disguise her obvious intelligence or her confident personality--two resources that she drew on heavily the morning of Sept. 11. At 10 a.m., she had to walk into a classroom at National-Louis University in Wheaton, face the three professors on her doctoral committee, and present the topic she had been studying for three years to earn her PhD in education: discrimination against Muslims in American society and public schools.

She later described the experience as "surreal." Hijacked airplanes had just crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and media reports were naming Muslim militants as suspects. As the towers collapsed and the Pentagon burned, Imam stuck to her thesis--that negative attitudes among teachers are fed by a "terrorist icon" in American culture, and that it unfairly brands all Muslims as terrorists. Teachers should respect the cultural and religious differences of their Muslim students, she said. They should help Muslim girls feel comfortable wearing hijab in the classroom, and should tell their classes about the Islamic fast of Ramadan and the winter holiday of Eid, just as they teach about Christmas and Hanukkah.

"We didn't talk about what was happening until we finished discussing the dissertation," says Imam, who recently was granted her degree. "It was so horrible. While I was at home, getting ready to leave for my meeting, I saw the second plane crash, live on television. First I thought of all those innocent people dying, and their families. Then I thought of what this would do to us as Muslims. I knew we'd be blamed, just as we were at first for the Oklahoma City bombing."

For several days after the Sept. 11 attacks, many of the Muslim women she knows stayed inside, afraid to be seen in public. Far more easily recognized as Muslims than men, they feared insults and violence and did not want to risk exposure by standing at bus stops or taking public transportation. When they finally left their houses, they traveled in pairs.

Near the mosque Imam attends on West 93rd Street in Bridgeview, which serves a predominantly Arab population of Muslim families in the southwest suburbs, hundreds of non-Muslim demonstrators had gathered several nights in a row to stage demonstrations she describes as "ominous, with squealing tires and lots of commotion."

About a week later, Imam invited me to visit her at home in Hickory Hills, to talk about what she calls "the joys of being free and Islamic," and to introduce me to Elizabeth Martin, who also attends the Bridgeview mosque.

American flags waved conspicuously from three out of every four front porches in her neighborhood of split-level houses and trim lawns. She greeted me at the door and smiled tactfully when I walked in and stepped on her prayer rug. She quietly rolled it up and moved it to a safer place, then showed me into her comfortable living room where framed verses of the Koran, rendered in elegant calligraphy, hung on the walls.

As we sat down, I asked her whether she ever took off her hijab, either to fend off negative reactions after the attacks or simply to relax in her old way of life.

"No! No way!" she said adamantly. "I make a daily choice to wear hijab, and really, I have never regretted it. I think many Muslim women feel as I do, that a woman's power is in her modesty."

Yet she acknowledges that looking different from virtually all the people she works and transacts business with can be painful. She considers the challenge especially great for young women, who feel pressures to fit in socially at school. "It's hard on anyone, unless your faith is strong."

When Imam first encountered Islam, 30 years ago, "it attracted me like a magnet," she says. She had started college at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, and for the first time in her life, she met people from the larger world. In Cerro Gordo, she had never known African-Americans, Jews or even Catholics, let alone Muslims. She had been brought up devoutly in the Methodist Church. She played the organ on Sundays and went to Sunday school and vacation Bible school. But when she got to college and met students from foreign countries, especially Muslim students, everything changed.

"It was Ramadan, and I saw how disciplined and structured the religion was. The Muslim students were fasting every day, so the international student club met after dark, when they could all eat together. That impressed me." For the first five months of her freshman year, she studied the Koran on her own. At the end of the year, she converted to Islam.

The next year, she married a Muslim man, who she says was concerned about breaking custom by not marrying a woman chosen by his parents. Muslims often marry without ever having talked to each other, although both partners must agree to the arrangement. Imam's first marriage ended in divorce after her husband returned to Pakistan due to illness, and she has since remarried.

Attracted to the theology of Islam, she also welcomed its discipline as an antidote to some of the things that had disillusioned her as a teenager in Cerro Gordo. "This was the same God I had grown up with in the cornfields of Illinois, but in Islam it was much more than a Sunday God. I liked the daily practice of prayer.

"I also liked the dedication Muslims have to their religion as a way of life. In the town where I grew up, the grownups told us we should respect other people, but if a black person came to town, they would not let him stay overnight."

Imam also recalls her shock when she saw one of her teachers, a man Imam particularly admired, snuggling at a shopping mall food court with a girl less than half his age. "I knew his wife and kids, and I knew what he was doing was wrong."

She practiced the religion privately for several years and continued to appear in public as a typical college student and young wife. Inwardly, she says, she felt tremendous relief, a sense of having escaped the self-conscious turmoil of her high school years. She had hated her timid forays into the dating scene.

"There is a certain 'petiteness' that is required," she says, her blue eyes laughing behind her wire-rimmed glasses, "that is very hard on a lot of girls. They have to be thin, they have to dress in such a way that they can give themselves--to whom, for what? One of the things I felt when I converted was relief that I would never again have to shop for a strapless dress or a swimsuit.

"Besides," she adds, "I haven't had a bad hair day since I started wearing hijab."

Though it may have certain advantages, the veiling of women is one of the things about Islam that non-Muslim American women generally find hardest to accept, according to Jane Crosthwaite, head of the department of religion at Mt. Holyoke College."Requiring women to be veiled is a way of erasing them from the landscape," says Crosthwaite. "The idea behind it seems to be that since men can't control themselves, they veil the thing they most desire."

Muslims observe a strict division between the sexes in the mosque, at school and in social settings. One of Muhammad's most-quoted sayings is, "When a man and woman are alone together, Satan is their third."

Islam is not the only religion that trembles at the power of sex, Crosthwaite notes. "All religious traditions organize gender relations. The American Shakers may have chosen the most extreme model by vowing to remain celibate, but many religions, including Judaism and Christianity, have separated the sexes for worship."

Dating is generally prohibited for all Muslim young people, even in the U.S. "We have marriage first, love later," explains Abdul Hadeem Dogar, director of the Islamic Foundation in Villa Park. "Marriage is an obligation in Islam for men and women. It is more important than in Christianity, perhaps because Jesus did not marry." Muhammad, whose life is considered exemplary, had nine wives at various times during his 62 years.

Once married, Dogar says, a Muslim woman generally is expected to have children, take care of them and not work outside the home. Exceptions are made for women to become doctors and teachers so they can attend to other women, though these exceptions appear to be aimed at serving the community--and perpetuating gender segregation--more than at fulfilling the desire of any particular woman to develop herself professionally.

Western women who convert to Islam often consider this closely structured way of life more appealing than the kind of freedom they find in mainstream society, says Crosthwaite. "Some people get tired of having to negotiate for everything in life, for their space, their financial security and their sexual identity. Having these things settled for them by religious beliefs may free them to do other things with their energies. But they should be aware that there are opportunities as well as dangers they are veiling. They are still part of the real world, with all its ambivalence."

Imam has directed her energies both inside and outside the home. She and her second husband, Syed Shahab Imam, have raised seven children. He works for the Illinois Department of Transportation; she teaches teachers at National-Louis University, supervises her student teachers in several public school systems, advocates for civil rights as a founding member of a local non-profit organization, Muslim Americans for Civil Rights and Legal Defense, and somehow finds time to home-school her youngest son, Ibrahim, a polite, energetic 2nd grader.

She readily concedes that Muslim women in America can do things--get an education, work outside the home, travel freely--prohibited for women in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, a point emphasized by others familiar with how Islam is practiced around the world.

"It is important to recognize that American converts live a particular expression of Islam," says Crosthwaite. "They may want to purify themselves from aspects of our society that bother them, but they still have the advantages of living in this society."

Imam interrupted our interview at noon and summoned Ibrahim to drive to the mosque for Friday prayer. Because of the recent attacks, Chicago police officers were directing traffic around the brick building, which is flanked by two Muslim schools. Imam was the first principal for Universal School, where girls and boys are educated together only until 4th grade; thereafter, classrooms are segregated.

At the front of the mosque, we waved goodbye to Ibrahim. He ran up a flight of concrete steps and disappeared into the main sanctuary, the men's prayer room. I followed Imam around a corner and down some stairs to the women's prayer room in the basement. It is a former school classroom with an orange carpet, fluorescent lights and lines of tape on the floor to orient the rows of women east toward Mecca.

There were dozens of women inside. I was the only one with an uncovered head. A few of the women greeted Imam and ignored me. Others smiled warmly at me but seemed surprised when I tried to shake hands. Their grasp felt timid, or at least unaccustomed. I later learned that Muslim women are permitted to shake hands with other women, but they seldom do. They are strictly forbidden to shake hands with men.

The Bridgeview congregation has grown rapidly, and between 400 and 600 women pray together on an average Friday. The noon prayer has been split into two services, which the women follow by responding, unheard, to the image of their male leader on a television monitor. He is upstairs, leading the men.

Imam is untroubled by the segregation of the sexes, and says she often prefers it in social situations. When families entertain, the women and men get together in different parts of the house. Imam says the privacy of this arrangement makes women more open and confident than they feel in the company of men. "It's not that different from the way men and women split up for Monday night football," she says. Families often buy two-flats or rent adjoining apartments so that men and women can spend their days separately.

Her decision to convert has not been without cost. She was estranged from her parents as well as her four brothers and sisters for 14 years after she made her pilgrimage to Mecca in 1978 and started wearing hijab. Now she is reconciled with her family, but she knows that her decision hurt them initially, which was painful for her as well.

"It was something I needed to do," she says.

Upon meeting Elizabeth Martin, a vivacious and amusing woman who lives in Oak Lawn, I immediately feel old. She asks me if I remember the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment that almost became part of the U.S. Constitution in the 1970s and would have guaranteed equal rights for women.

"Well, I used to wear an ERA bracelet," she says, moving the sleeve of her long dress to reveal her wrist. "I was a feminist, and I still am." Martin, who kept her name when she married Amer Haleem, in accordance with Saudi Arabian custom, schools their eight children at home. Martin does not work outside the home, but she regularly encounters Muslim and non-Muslim men in the course of community work and business transactions.

"Dealing with men while wearing hijab is a real kick," she says. "I encourage all women to try it. When you're talking with a man and you give him, up front and in his face, the message that you are a modest and serious person, then he must deal with your thoughts, and not the wonders of his macho-ness.

"As for the 'liberated' American woman, do you mean some chick in a two-inch skirt, spine-deforming spike heels, a masked face and a coifed head that cost her oodles in money and more in precious time? If she wants to tell me I'm dressing for men--well, I would humbly disagree with the choices she has made.

"Let's face it," says Martin, "if a woman in mainstream society is not willing to sleep around with a series of guys--men who are obligated to demonstrate little, if any, concern for her self and her future--then she will have a hard time finding a husband. Islam really forces men to be responsible for and committed to the women in their lives. This is something some feminists may scoff at, but for me personally, it's been a great blessing."

She acknowledges that a Muslim man can divorce his wife merely by saying, "I divorce you" three times, and he is virtually guaranteed legal custody of the children because he is financially responsible for them under Islamic law. Martin cites this as a major problem for women, although she points out that because of the rule, Muslim men probably are less likely than others to shirk their duty to their children after divorce.

Islamic law also requires men to pay dowries to their wives. The first payment may take the form of a wedding gift--a valuable piece of jewelry, for example--but if the couple divorces, a second payment, agreed upon before the marriage, serves as "insurance" for the wife. Dowries of $100,000 are not uncommon among local professionals, says Martin, and $20,000 would be a typical dowry for a working-class couple.

Martin grew up Catholic in the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago, graduating from Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School. Martin's identity had always been tied to her parish and to the larger Catholic communities of Beverly and the Christian faithful worldwide. Yet within a few months of starting college, she left both Beverly and Rome. At Richard J. Daley Community College she fell under the spell of an evangelical Protestant group, the Campus Crusade for Christ.

"I knew that I wanted to be a worshiper," she says, "and what appealed to me was the personal commitment to God that I saw in these students. They had very immediate relationships with God. Catholicism seemed rigid and ritualistic in comparison. Pretty soon, I wanted to save everybody."

Martin became especially concerned about saving the soul of Amer Haleem, a Saudi man and an older student who had recently been discharged from the Navy. They met in a philosophy course. "We were talking about existentialism, and he and I were the two that ended up arguing for a religious point of view," Martin says. "Religion was extremely important to both of us, but he was Muslim and I was Christian. So I asked him if he had ever read the Bible, and he said, 'Have you ever read the Koran?' " She is now married to Haleem, with whom she has raised eight children.

Martin says she was drawn to Islam for several reasons. Its "rock-solid" theology made more sense to her than some Christian teachings. She says she "never really understood the Trinity" and wanted to worship one God. In addition, she was attracted to Islam's concept of individual accountability, which calls on Muslims to earn entrance to heaven by submitting to God's will on Earth. She contrasts this with the Christian idea that "Jesus died for your sins," which to her implies salvation through the act of another. Moreover, she notes that the Koran was written after the Bible, and thinks that to believe only the Bible is to ignore the final scriptural revelation from God.

Martin's theological reasons for converting to Islam are fairly typical of people coming from Christian backgrounds, according to Karen Armstrong, a former nun who has written extensively about Islam, Christianity and Judaism. As Armstrong noted in "The History of God," the divinity of Jesus is a problematic concept for many people, in part because it tends to encapsulate the "word of God" in his life and preclude the validity of the later Koran as scripture.

After she converted, Martin spent six painful years out of communication with her family in Beverly. "My sisters thought I was ruining my life when I converted," she says, "but now they think I made the right choice. They wonder how I managed to raise my kids the way I did. They say my children are polite and respectful, and I guess that isn't so common anymore."

Martin acknowledges, somewhat reluctantly, that Muslim family life is not perfect. For example, domestic violence is a major problem among Muslims here as well as abroad, she says.

"Muslims almost never completely live up to Islam," she says. "It runs the full gamut, from people who are dedicated to the religion to those who abuse its privileges. I see racism too. Muslims suffer from all the same diseases as the rest of society."

But Martin has no regrets about her decision to convert, and does not feel that being a Muslim woman is depriving her of a satisfying social life. She recently gave a party for her oldest child, a girl of 18, who was moving away from home. "I had a big group, about 60 women and girls. A lot of them wore elegant clothes, makeup and styled their hair. As long as men will not be present, we don't have to wear hijab.

"I can't tell you how pleased all the non-Muslim women in my family were. They said they had never had so much fun at a party. I can't say we miss anything by not partying with the guys. Frankly, I like not having the burden of making conversation with my husband's friends. Men tend to dominate social groups, and women act so differently when they're not around."

Islam and gender roles

Rules for living an Islamic life come from two sources: the Koran and the Sharia.

The Koran is believed to be the literal word of God, recited to the prophet Muhammad, recorded in a book about the length of the New Testament of the Bible. Many Muslims commit the Koran to memory. Sharia is the "common law" of Islam based on religious principles that derive from the life of Muhammad, the last messenger of God and a mortal filled with divine knowledge and an exemplary sense of morality. His words and actions were recorded by various people in a text known as the hadith. Some sources of hadith are considered more reliable than others.

Sharia interprets both the Koran and hadith. A kind of "common law," it fills shelves of books with a code of rules, analysis and commentary. Different governments may find support for their laws and policies in different provisions of sharia.

The Sharia includes these rules governing gender roles:

Muslim women should stay home as much as practicable, depending on their economic circumstances and the norms of their surrounding society.

The husband is the head of the household. He may consult his wife, but final decisions rest with him alone.

A husband must support his wife financially, even if she is a millionaire, in return for which she obeys him.

Men are obligated to support the unmarried women in their families.

To avoid tempting men beyond the limits of their self-control, which Islam sets at a lower threshold than mainstream American culture, women cover themselves in public. From the age of 10 or 12, they wear loose clothing and head scarves except when they are at home, in the exclusive company of immediate family.

Men and women do not mix in social or educational settings after age 10. They pray in different parts of the mosque and gather in different parts of private residences.

A Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman, but a Muslim woman cannot marry outside the faith.

Marriages can be quickly performed in the presence of witnesses. The man and woman need only declare publicly that they are husband and wife.

A man has the right to divorce his wife by saying, three times, not in anger, "I divorce you."

A woman can separate herself from her husband, but she must have the assistance of men in official positions to dissolve her marriage.

A woman receives a dowry from her husband when she marries, and she can keep it even if the marriage dissolves.

--K.M.

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