The Future of Islam in America

    It has been almost a year since the world was turned upside down for Muslims and I consciously resisted writing about the whole September thing until now. The reasons for my delay revolve partially around some writing projects that I had to complete during the last nine months, but there was also a tinge of uncertainty in my feelings that kept me from expressing my thoughts on what happened to us. I didn’t want to just say or write something before I could sort things out in my mind. Trying to rise above the day-to-day grind that being a Muslim in America has become, I hereby offer some reflections that may prove useful in our conception about what’s going on and what we should do about it now and for the future.

    If you’re wondering why I wrote that September’s events were something that happened to us, as a Muslim community, it is because the non-Muslim world has virtually declared war on all Muslims and on the Islamic faith simply on account of one unexpected attack carried out by a tiny group of extremists who had political grievances. The overreaction of the non-Muslim world to all of us and our faith is so disproportionate and draconian as to defy belief. 

     The U.S. government didn’t declare war on Christianity because of Timothy McVeigh, even though he quoted the Bible left and right at his trial. The Jews didn’t declare war on the Christian world because of the Holocaust, nor did they publicly blame the religion of Christianity, even though the Nazis employed Christian propaganda against the Jews. So why because of 19 hijackers America has the need to find a "terrorist" under every kufi and hijab? Look, I’ve been watching nearly every Muslim and Muslim country in the world falling all over themselves for the last fourteen years to be the first to say they love American secular values, and now, because of a small clandestine group, suddenly our religion itself is under fire everyday and no Muslim is safe anywhere in the world! So much for being compliant with the kuffar!

    I mean imagine that! Before last September nobody gave half a peanut about Islam and suddenly after Al Qaeda’s dastardly strike, Islam, itself, which has nothing to do with choices made by individuals or groups, is talked about as "murderous", "violent", "wicked" and on and on. Even U.S. government officials are talking about Islam negatively and conversely praising Christianity. (So much for separation of church and state!) Many Americans are making some weird connection that "Islam" attacked America, just because people with Muslim names attacked her. They’re also saying, quite incredulously, that Muslims in America are "dangerous" and "should be expelled" or at the very least "monitored" and that Masjids should be "watched" just in case a crime might happen. Zealous media pundits are saying that Muslims in the West will eventually "undermine" the West’s pristine civilization and that Islam is "unsuited" to the modern world. If this kind of prejudice and misinformation were to be applied against Blacks, Jews, Asians or Catholics you would have riots in the streets. Instead we Muslims are doing hardly anything to protest all this discrimination and anti-Muslim rhetoric (in keeping with our meek and peaceful nature. Ironic, isn’t it?)

    Perhaps the final straw that really propelled me to write came this morning when a "Muslim" High School student being featured on NPR answered a caller who suggested that Islam was not worthy of being taught. This young man (with a very Muslim name) said that "those people (meaning Muslims) sit in the desert all day long and that’s why they follow their religion so strongly." He then went on to explain that "Islam is a harsh religion" and that the Iranians "took fifty hostages in 1979 because America was trying to improve Islam" and the backward Iranians didn’t like it. I really couldn’t believe my ears but the realization that had been building suddenly hit home: anti-Muslim propaganda has been so successful that some of our newest and most ill-informed critics will be people with Muslim names but no knowledge or practice. (Look at Fouad Ajami, Fareed Zakariya or Fatima Mernissi!) I felt I had to write now so Muslims everywhere could realize that as bad as things are right now for all of us, there are some things we can do to turn this travesty of logic into an opportunity for growth.

    The first thing we need to do is take a good, hard look at what we believe and how we are expressing it. Everyone all over the world is saying Islam and politics, Islam and social justice, Islam and the economic system, Islam and family values, etc… The list goes on and on. Our Shaykhs tell us to support this or that cause, our activists tell us to donate for this or that crisis and our books tell us about the struggles of Muslims all over the globe. But lost in all of this is the very essence of what Islam is all about. Islam touches on all aspects of life but the core, the foundation of Islam, is a spiritual message. "O you who believe, save yourselves and your families." The Qur’an says. Over and over we are exhorted to have faith in God and to lead a virtuous life. Islam, we can deduce, is primarily a message of salvation. How to lead a life of faith and get into heaven on account of it. There it is, pure and simple.

    The very life-example of our blessed Prophet was nothing except a walking call for each of us to save our soul, and to teach others how to get to heaven as well. We have been very negligent, each and every one of us, for letting Christians claim this kind of orientation and focus exclusively. Why has most of our da’wah failed? Why are our Masjids bereft of converts? Because every time someone comes to the Masjid to learn about Islam, we lecture them on dress, on politics, on Jihad, on dietary laws, on learning complicated ibadah procedures and on and on. Where is the "healing for your hearts, the guidance and the light wherein you can walk" as the Qur’an describes its message? I personally accepted Islam after I realized it had a better and more trustworthy salvation plan than Christianity, but I tell you, I have never read any book on Islam that presents Islam the way it is supposed to be presented except for books by Abu Hamid Muhammad Al Ghazali, Wahiduddin Khan, Fariduddin Attar, Maulana Maududi, Abdul Qadir Jilani, Jeffrey Lang and Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood. Every other book I’ve read has been a tirade of technical and dry information that would suck the juice out of a cactus if it were laid atop one.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the politics and struggles of Muslims overseas are fine to support, but we can’t keep presenting an image to the non-Muslim world (and to our own selves) that there is nothing more in Islam that endless struggles for justice in lands far away. This doesn’t solve the problems over there anyway and we lose the marrow of what our way of life seeks to instill in us. When our hearts are starved of nourishing faith and its satisfaction then our actions and ibadah become dry, stale rituals that even our own children try to avoid like the plague. Even though many Muslims are scared to death of things that build Eman, calling such practices innovations and such, there is something to be said for practicing those aspects of Islam that nearly every scholar from Abu Hanifa to Ibn Taymiyyah indulged in, things such as reading books on the philosophy of Islamic belief, engaging in group dhikr, taking excursions into the wilds of nature to contemplate Allah’s existence and, (this one is the most discouraged practice among Muslims today) actually discussing the meaning of Qur’anic verses in groups where everyone can participate. (As opposed to the static one-all-knowing-man-lectures-everyone format that we have followed for too long a while.)

    Look, Christianity has nothing on us as far as applicability, accessibility, satisfaction of the message and breadth of content is concerned. In fact, in many of those areas Islam comes out ahead, and I’m speaking as someone who used to be involved heavily in a church in my youth. But we’ve forgotten, for many, many centuries about this, the most important aspect of Islam. I personally have never witnessed a real Qur’an study group where everyone can talk and participate freely, nor have I heard many speeches that touched my heart nor have I seen much literature for us or for non-Muslims that gets the salvation message of Islam across. This is a travesty because Islam is 99% about saving your soul from hell. The other 1% is the politics, the Jihad and everything else.

    Christianity is spreading so successfully because they are doing a better job with less trustworthy material than we, who have the tightest, most logically based faith on the planet. All we can boast is that our religion is growing so fast because Muslims have a lot of babies. There is no qualitative growth because most of those Muslim kids will be raised as Muslims in name only who will never be Masjid-going, proactive believers. Then when some extremists come along and give the right song and dance, some of those young people will be duped, not realizing what the main message of Islam is. The rest of us then become scapegoated and have to endlessly defend our religion to ill-informed non-Muslims from the actions of those who don’t care how they carry out their "cause."

    What I propose is that every individual must start a personal program designed to bring home the real beauty of Eman to their hearts. This can be accomplished with three relatively easy steps. The first is to get acquainted with the literature on the subject of spirituality and Islam. Muslims have discussed Eman and how to lead a life filled with faith and virtue all throughout the classical and modern periods of Islam and we can learn from their research. Three books to start that I recommend are: "The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife" by Abu Hamid Muhammad Al Ghazali. "Islam As it Is" by Wahiduddin Khan. Finally, "Let Us Be Muslims" by Syed Abul A’la Maududi. A fourth selection is "The Conference of Birds" whose message, if properly digested, will change your life. "The Alchemy of Happiness" by Al Ghazali is good also.

    Along with this reading program, it would be best to join with a few friends and start a "Book Club" where each of you will read the selected book in a specified time period and then you’ll meet one afternoon and discuss the meaning, your favorite passages, what you’ve learned, how you relate to it, etc… The second aspect of this reading program is to get correct, organized information on Islam and the life of the Prophet. I wrote three books to help Muslims and non-Muslims in this regard and they are: "What Islam is All About", "The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam", and "Muhammad". Qur’an reading must be done with translation always and the morning is the best time. For hadith I recommend: "110 Hadith Qudsi", "An Islamic Treasury of Virtues" and "Mishkat ul Masabih".

    That’s all fine and good, you say, but after I’ve read these books, then what? Now it’s time to plunge yourself into the world that Allah has created so you can learn the lessons that life has to teach. No, I’m not suggesting working more hours or having more dinner parties. What I mean is to go out in nature to let your heart be flooded with the beauty of both sunshine and forest; to let the simple opening of a flower or caterpillar walking on a leaf stun and amaze you. In short, you must make regularly scheduled times where you seek out natural settings whether it be in a park, a forest, a field or wherever. You have to do this part of the process or the program won’t work. Haven’t you noticed it? So many Surahs begin with Allah mentioning some beautiful aspect of nature by way of signs for "people who reflect."

    Nature builds Eman. It’s that simple. So many of us live artificial lives surrounded by steel, stone and manicured streets that we are cut off from the greatest lessen-giver Allah provided for us. But don’t just walk out into a field or forest and say, "All right, I’ve seen it, now it’s time to go." No, you have to spend some real time, several hours, at least once a week in a totally natural setting. Sunrise or sunset is the best, as the Qur’an mentions. Take a look, take notice of what goes on around you, even if it is a tiny creature, then the lessons of what you read of the Qur’an and other books will sink in.

    Finally, learn to do good deeds consistently and purposefully. Start out small: smile more often. From there you can build up to offering to hold doors for people, picking up litter, helping children, cooling your anger and seeing what people need around you that would make their lives so much better. I have to tell you, the truest form of good deed, the point when you know you are on the right path to enlightenment, is when you become so concerned with the welfare of others that you don’t want to step on a bug, nor would you ever pass any living creature that is in distress without automatically wanting to help it. Even the suffering of a worm, drying out in the sun will move you to pity and action.

    Why have I given this three step program when I could have talked about registering to vote, giving in charity, marching in the streets, etc? Because all of that is meaningless if our Eman is not growing, if our message is not reaching the hearts of non-Muslims who desperately need salvation and Muslims who need to finally discover the right path once and for all. Look, who will be there to march after you’re dead and buried seeing how many of our children will not be Muslim after us, equating Islam with nothing more than a set of hard rules and boring practices? From love all things spring, and those who learn to love Allah and the paradise He promised, truly any do’s and don’t’s will become easy. The trouble is we all too often put the cart before the donkey. We stress rules and regulations without getting the allegiance of people first. That is, not coincidentally, why the so-called Islamic movements in every land fail at every turn. They don’t capture the hearts of the people for Allah first. You can establish the khilafat tomorrow but I guarantee you it won’t survive until the next day and it will be people with Muslim sounding names who will tear it down because they don’t know what it all means.

    Taking hold of Islam the way it should be done is the beginning of our long road back to self-respect and advancement. When more Muslims tap into the essential core message of Islam: salvation and a virtuous life that leads you there, then we can reach out more effectively to those around us and the stereotyping will end. Look, Judaism is a really, really backward religion, if anyone’s religion is. The few things the non-Muslims beat us over the head with are a thousand times worse in Judaism. Women have virtually no rights in it, people are to be executed for all kinds of ludicrous reasons and the whole focus is racist in orientation, but Jews have successfully promoted the image that their religion is gentle and kind. We are the ones with the gentle religion yet we are the ones who are being called terrorists and violent! That is precisely because we haven’t gotten our real message across. When more of us view Islam with our hearts and not our anger then we can attain to the legitimate positive image that our way of life deserves.

    So, my bothers and sisters, the opportunity for the future lies in the reawakening of what our religion stands for and our growth within the framework of salvation. Before September we were content to view Islam as nothing more than a political, social, communal, or revolutionary movement. Now we have the chance to put our Eman first and to teach each other that the purpose of our lives is to believe in Allah and to do what is right in all spheres of our life- starting with our personal actions and integrity. This is how we can establish our presence in safety in the West and, insha’llah, make it into heaven.

Ten Things Every Muslim should Do

    I've often been confronted with people who are really motivated to do something for Islam, but who were aimless. You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes we are so filled with feelings of wanting to help but we don't really know where to begin.

    Doesn't it seem like there's just too much that needs to be done? Muslims are starving in war zones all over the world, kings and dictators rape our lands, misinformation about Islam is rampant, our children are succumbing to the non-Muslim way of life, maybe half our family members don't practice Islam, even if they say they're Muslim, the Masjid needs funds, Muslims need to be taught the difference between what's Islam and what's cultural, etc...

    I'm sure many of you could add endlessly to this list. Have you ever felt like the problems are just too great to solve? Have you ever blocked it out of your mind because if you really thought about it you would become depressed? If so, then you're not alone. I've met tons of believers, real sincere people, who lament that they don't know what to do or how they can really help.

    Of course, there are some people who will make one specific issue their focus and they'll work to help in that direction. For example, someone might make the support of the local Masjid their cause. Another person may support whole-heartedly an Islamic school or the activities of a relief agency, etc... But most of us don't have time to do justice to those types of goals like we should.

    But the alternative, sitting at home and watching TV is hardly worth our time when there are real Muslims out there who need us, and a cause that we must support. So in view of all the variables that affect most of our lives in the modern world, I've come up with a list of ten easy things that every Muslim family should do so that they can contribute to the betterment of Muslims and the establishment of Islam in the West.

    Anyone can do these ten things and I've selected activities that are not overly time-consuming, nor expensive. I expect that you'll agree and will tape a print out of these ten "to do's" to your refrigerator door. (Before grabbing that snack you can be reminded about what is more important than filling your belly!)


    #1 Sponsor an Orphan. Before anything else, there are hungry Muslim children everywhere who have needs right now. There are several reputable relief agencies who offer orphan sponsorship programs that only cost from $20-$40 a month. You and I know that's nothing expensive on your part - so do it. Some agencies even offer automated withdrawal so you can send a letter once with a voided check and never have to fill anything out again. Doing this can make you close to the Prophet in Paradise.

    #2 Subscribe to at least three Muslim magazines. This is practically the only way you can keep abreast of issues important to the Muslims in the West. It also supports the budding Muslim media. Even if you don't intend to read the magazines, subscribe anyway. Someone around you will read or you can leave them with others. Make it at least three and try to subscribe for 2-3 years at a time.

    #3 Go to the Masjid at least once a week for Salah.  In the West today, nearly all of us have a Masjid within driving distance. Even if you don't go to the local Masjid for Jumu'ah because of your job, then go for at least one Maghrib a week or for Zuhr on Sunday. Whatever, just go at least once a week- WITH YOUR FAMILY. It's the only way that you and your family will consider the Masjid to be your place.

    #4 If your children go to public school, and there is no Islamic school nearby, then make sure they either get into some Sunday school program, or, if the local Masjid doesn't run it right, then pool together with some like-minded families and run your own program at somebody's house every Saturday or Sunday and conduct it the way you think it should be done. This is the minimum requirement for not losing your children to secular Christianity.

    #5 Buy at least one book, audio or video produced by a Muslim company or author per month. Have you ever wished that there were better items for you and your family's pleasure? Unfortunately, Muslims don't support their own writers and artists very well. No one can make even a decent living if they want to write or produce for the Muslim market. That must change if you want to see wonderful products for you and your children. Just buy one thing per month. Either out of a catalog or from your local Muslim bookstore. For you it's only $5-$10 bucks, but collectively, it can encourage our creative and talented brothers and sisters to do more.

    #6 If you see any new Muslims at your Masjid, then partially "adopt" them into your family. The convert experience is basically one of isolation and loneliness. You'd be surprised to know that most converts are outright ignored by the people in the Masjid. Beyond a few pleasantries and handshakes, they are usually never made to feel welcome or accepted. They are often cut off from their non-Muslim friends and relatives so they are doubly vulnerable. A new convert should be invited into various peoples home for dinner a minimum of six times a month. Get together with others and make sure you all put the new convert on your guest list for any sort of gathering.

    #7 Keep three extra Qur'an translations and some literature in your home at all times. You never know when you'll find someone interested who wants to know more. Besides, your children read only and understand only English. (You wouldn't believe how many Muslim families don't have an English Qur'an translation in their homes! How will the child read it if they don't understand Arabic, and they never understand Arabic, even if their parents are Arabic speaking!)

    #8 Go to one convention a year. Even if you have given up on them, you have to go. It's the only way your children will feel a part of a greater community of believers. Think about it and realize that you don't just go to a convention for your personal enrichment. It's about Muslim solidarity. Go to at least one every year. Couple it with your vacation plans or something. Just go.

    #9 Eat only Halal or Kosher Food. Besides all the religious aspects I could mention, which are the most important, by the way, there is another advantage. You solidify your identity and introduce to your family the concept that animals should not die cruelly (like they do in all American slaughterhouses) and that Muslims eat cleaner food. If there are no Halal meat stores nearby, you'll probably find a Kosher store. At least many of the Jews are not shy about Allah's commandment there and have established kosher markets everywhere.

    #10 Lastly, make sure you and your family have cultural-type items in your home in abundance that are associated with Islam or Islamic culture. Everyone in your home should have prayer beads, prayer rugs, kufis, Hijabs, (even if they're worn only for prayer), gowns, posters, wall plaques, stickers, logo-shirts, Islamic screen-savers on the computer, and on and on. You want to establish an identity in your home. Everything outside is totally un-Islamic. At least let the Islamic flavor be present inside.

    Originally, there were only ten things on this list, but then a very important item came to mind but I just couldn't bring myself to delete any of the preceding items. But in the interest of simplicity, I'll keep the upper ten intact and mention this item as a separate issue because it's something that you don't really need to list with the other things.

    This is extremely crucial: Resolve to raise your family as Muslims. Don't be passive. Don't sit around and watch your spouse and children drift further and further away into disbelief and kufr. Would any of you like to be on their deathbed and then realize that they only left non-Muslims behind them? Imagine entering the great sleep with that realization on your heart!

    These ten things can be done, with minimal trouble and fuss, by each and every Muslim family.  Through these ten points nearly every purpose of Islam is served and you can finally feel that you're doing something in an organized fashion to help promote your healthy way of life and also to fulfill your responsibility to your Creator.  Give it a try and see how easy these things really are. Then stick with it. You have no excuses for inaction anymore.

The Irony of Ironies

  How little we fear the beast within all of us. What separates a good man from a bad one? What is the dividing line over which a "normal" human being becomes a tyrannical monster? I often ask myself this question when I see news reports on television about the "evil" Saddam Hussein or the "evil" rebels in country X, Y or Z. What makes one person do the unspeakable as easy as spreading butter on bread?

    If you read the biographies of some of the world's most infamous killers, you often find they had relatively normal lives, with perhaps a few tragedies, but by far nothing so outrageous as to make one a monster. Hitler didn't have a bad childhood, Saddam Hussein's upbringing was no different than that of thousands of other orphans in the Middle East and even Cortes, the butcher of the Aztec empire, had a relatively normal upbringing and life. What happened?

I remember soon after accepting Islam a small hadith book that I happened across. It had a saying of the Blessed Prophet which still remains with me today. Basically, the Prophet said that Allah keeps some people in poverty, not out of punishment, but as a mercy, because if they were wealthy, they would become arrogant and lead a shameful and rebellious way of life. This saying often consoles poor Muslims like myself, but how many of us look beyond the material import of this hadith?

Is there a wider connotation and application here? I believe so. Do you remember that age-old question you were asked when you were a kid? "What would you do if you were king of the world?" Such a thought filled our heads with wonder. "Everything I want for free!" We would shout. Visions of world order, (our version of it), and endless delights flooded our vision. Ah, the days of care-free dreamers!

But what if you were made king of the world? You know, you are the king. If not the whole world, because that might be a little unrealistic right now, how about being the absolute ruler of a country- any country? What would you do? How would you run things? Would you listen to people who disagreed with you? What would you do with people you felt were against you? You are the king, after all, so you could do whatever you want to whoever you want. Sounds awesome doesn't it?

If you're like me, you like to consider yourself as a pretty nice and fair person. You're not mean, cruel or sadistic. You like to help people and you like civilized, friendly interaction with people. Are the current kings and dictators of the world created from a different species? No. So why do they do such horrible things when they're in power? Perhaps having the childhood dream come true can actually become our worst nightmare.

From my reading of both ancient and current history, there has never been a kind and compassionate dictator. Although there were a few, a very few, nice kings, the vast majority of them have been bad also. Look at this: if a king seems nice, but then busies himself with squandering wealth in the mindless pursuit of pleasure palaces and "fun", then even most nice kings would really come in as crooks as well.

Let me pose an interesting question: If for some reason, some fluke of fate, Saddam Hussein never became the dictator of Iraq, and instead happened to immigrate to suburban America in his mid-twenties, would he still be the same person with the same capacities for good or evil? Of course, because the mind-set of the person is fixed to a great degree, barring any life-shattering experiences.

Let's go further in our question and say that Saddam Hussein opened a grocery store or gas station and entered the life of a businessman. He might frequent the local Arab Masjid for ethnic affiliation purposes and might even pray. (He's always shown on Iraqi TV praying all the time now as it is.) He might be considered an upstanding member of the local immigrant community and his kids would be playing basketball in the driveway as opposed to directing hit-squads now.

For all practical purposes, everyone would see him as a nice guy who's trying to get his slice of the American dream. Maybe, since his personality is on the aggressive side, he might beat his wife or be rough with people who owe him money, but those qualities are hardly looked down upon in the ethnic community he is a part of even as most Americans don't consider it a pressing issue.

But Saddam Hussein's fate didn't go that way. Instead he clawed his way to the top of a military in a wealthy nation and became master of everyone and everything around him. Ever since then there has been nothing but wars, murders, wealth-squandering, fear and violence. I remember when I first saw images of the Kurds who were gassed to death many years ago by the Iraqi military. Then the invasion of Iran and the murder of countless prisoners of war. Then the brutal invasion of Kuwait and the crushing of the Shi'a Muslims in the south of Iraq. Stories of torture, murder and mayhem and then the final straw, his preferring to be in power over the welfare of his people being relieved from crushing sanctions- all these things paint a picture of a brutal, evil man.

But what would you do in his place? What if you grew up in a country and a time in which the opportunity for total power presented itself to you? What if you made it to the top and were always fearful of someone trying to assassinate you? You might be brutal too. After all, to get to the top, you always make people angry and jealous along the way. And the very crucible of power being related to Kibr (love of greatness) being related to Kufr (disbelief) means that if you sought power, you weren't a Muslim anyway.

(The Blessed Prophet once said that whoever has a bit of the love of greatness in their heart will not enter Paradise. He also mentioned that Allah will grasp the earth and declare, "I am the King. Where are the kings of the earth?" Did you know that the love of being a show-off and admired by people is classified as minor shirk?)

But how can the claim be made that some of us "nice" people would also become bad if we had absolute power? Think about it. Some men only have power over their wives and children. Isn't it true that many, many men beat and abuse their wives and children? Many of these men are publicly and socially considered to be "nice" members of the community. What if they had power over millions of people?

Isn't it true that many people try to "get around" the law whenever possible? Maybe they cheat on their taxes, steal something small or just go over the speed limit. What if such a person was in charge of making the laws? Would they suddenly become conscious of the law? I doubt it. They would just get around the laws they made a little easier.

I have a lot of friends who come from Muslim countries. Every last one of them has described their country as a place of corruption and double-dealing. Even the traffic cop has to be bribed. If it's that bad, then it must mean that most people in the society are morally corrupt on one level or another. That's not to say America or Western Europe is the land of honesty now. It's well known that most Americans are chronic liars and hypocrites. But because I want to focus on making Muslims think, I'm focusing on our community more.

Everyone cries about Suharto in Indonesia and his financial corruption. But would another Indonesian leader suddenly behave honestly? Because of the way the very government and society itself are structured, whoever makes it through the "system" will also have to be corrupt.

Not to get anybody mad at me, but do you know what the biggest complaint converted Muslims talk about when they gather is? The hypocrisy and dishonesty of immigrant Muslims. Somebody had to say it. No, don't write a letter to me saying I'm immigrant-bashing or that you are the model Muslim and therefore all Muslims are models of piety and virtue as well. Because there are very few genuine believers among the Muslim population of the world and if you can't recognize that then you need to open your eyes.

Again, I don't want anyone to think I'm subtly saying America is better or even that Muslims from the West are better, because I'm not. Americans take religion as an utter joke; picking and choosing whatever they please. I just feel bad when I see many Muslims doing the same. Do you know how many praying and fasting Muslims are involved in Riba? Most are. Do you know how many gossip, back-bite, swindle and everything else? A lot do. Americans, Frenchmen and the English do all these things as well, perhaps to a greater degree, because they are all basically secular agnostics if you really think about it, but there is just no excuse for a Muslim to do these things.

The ability to abuse what you have power over is tremendous. The desire to feel powerful, to feel great is overwhelming. I remember reading a line from the autobiography of Imam Abu Hamid al Ghazali where he said that there came a point in his life when he noticed that he began to love hearing his voice while giving lectures. He began to love the attention from eager students and seekers of knowledge. That could have destroyed him.

But when he realized the dangerous situation he was in, he basically ran away from the public spotlight and became a wandering hermit for a while. How many of us realize the danger when we spin around town and feel "awesome" in our flashy sports cars and clothes. Yes, the hypocrisy of many immigrants, who otherwise pray and fast, is appalling. When Khalifa Umar ibn al Khattab found out Mu'awiyah and his friends were living the high life in Syria, he rode there forthwith and confronted them in their mansions. He hit them with his riding stick and confiscated all their ill-gotten wealth and put it back in the government treasury. A lot of affluent Muslims in the world today need to be hit with a stick!

I have met brothers who love to be praised. You see their faces glow as if in response to the flowery words being showered upon them by their adoring fans. I have met brothers who work in "Islamic" organizations who act like little dictators- ordering people around and bullying them. I have met brothers who work in national "Islamic" organizations who are so into nepotism and cronyism that I fail to see the difference between them and whatever Suharto of Indonesia has been accused of.

Even in little "Islamic" schools and Masjids, I have seen unqualified people being hired for no other reason than that they're either friends or are related to one of the Board members or financial backers. Does all this kind of corruption go on in "Christian" America? Of course. But Muslims have the uncorrupted word of Allah while non-Muslims don't. Muslims have no excuses.

What would happen if some of those "Muslims" were suddenly in charge of a country with no limits on their authority? I suspect there would be as much suppression and mayhem as there is now. What about those of us who consider ourselves to be "nice" and true believers? Well, maybe Allah is being merciful to us because if we had power, we might become immoral and corrupt as well.

If you ever knew something was wrong, but did it anyway, then beware the beast within and praise Allah if you are poor and powerless as it may be the best thing that has ever happened to you.

A Time to Speak

    I always knew there would come a day when I would finally succeed in getting almost everyone mad at me. This may be that day because I'm going to be unusually candid and open about a certain, often suppressed, issue. As one sister pointed out, people only get mad because the truth hurts. If that's true then there should be a lot of self-reflection from a lot of angry people.

    There are multitudes of thoughts floating around in my mind all the time. You know how it is: you'll see something and it will make you think for a moment. Perhaps you'll use that as an example one day, you say to yourself, and you hope you remember it during an opportune time. But have you ever reached the point where so many little thoughts piled up inside your head that you felt you had better dump them out on the table before they crush your mind under their weight? I've reached that point and it's time to unload.

    A strange paradox: When you read about how the Blessed Prophet and the Sahaba treated poor people, what image do you get? Basically, poor people were the majority in the Masjids all over early Islamic Arabia. Poor Muslim converts used to even sleep in the Prophet's own Masjid at night because they had nowhere else to go. (Hence the nick-name "Bayt as Saff.")

    So many Qur'anic verses and Hadiths extol the virtue of the poor and the feeding and welcoming of the poor. The less-fortunate were welcomed and encouraged by the community of believers. Almost all the Muhajireen experienced bitter poverty in the early Medinan period. But the Ansar came to the rescue, as they were able, and shared half their wealth with the refugees from Mecca. It was just a great time of caring and inclusion.

    Fast forward to today: I'm walking to one of those "culturally-oriented" Masjids in a major American city. The majority of the people who attend there are from a country I will not name. Standing in front of the gates to the large, spacious Masjid is a young woman on crutches; her feet are gnarled and it's obvious that one leg is skinnier than the other. She's a cripple. She stands there, holding a cup in her hand and pathetically tries to keep her Hijab, (which is white though a little stained,) from blowing across her face. She begs for money in a soft, weak voice, from the Muslim men as they enter the Masjid for Jumu'ah Salah. As I near the front of the building myself, I notice that the throngs are entering without even looking at her or hearing her say, "Salam" in her lilting, low voice.

    As a Muslim, and a person who tries to feel sympathy with others, I give her some money. She smiles with the grateful smile of a person who received something that will affect her life in a much bigger way than it would ever affect mine. Then I go inside. Every week it continues like that. Then one day the leader in the Masjid makes an announcement. He tells the hundreds of Muslims present that we had better not give money to any "beggars" who hang out in front of the Masjid. He warns that if we do that then we'll have "beggars all over the place" like "we" do "back home."

    A little thought came to my mind: Why not invite the beggars in and show them Islam? Why not help them and thereby increase the size of our "community." (After all, these Masjid-going immigrants were losing their children to kufr at an alarming rate and the Masjid might be deserted after these righteous parents died!) Why not help that poor, crippled woman in and treat her with kindness and give her good instruction and support? I, of course, could not obey the order of this hired "leader" because giving in charity to the poor, whether Muslim or not is an Islamic duty, highly recommended by Allah and His Messenger.

    A few months later, a group of sisters wanted to hold a conference in that Masjid. Because this city is a rough place they wanted to hire some Muslim brothers to act as security guards to protect the Masjid from outside intruders while their conference was going on. When the leadership of the Masjid found out that the brothers in question were from a different ethnic group, the leadership refused to endorse the idea and forbade the presence of such "dangerous, low class" people.

    Because of a change in my job situation, I had to switch Masjids for Friday prayer. This new Masjid was established by another immigrant group from a different country that I will not name. Let me tell you, until you get around you really can't appreciate how much ignorance there is in the world. All the backward things you can ever imagine exist in this place and I sit there watching everything and getting more frustrated. If you put all the good intentions aside, there are some really ignorant Muslims running around; people who know nothing about Islam- or anything else for that matter!

    Back to the story. A few weeks after I began attending this new Masjid, a lone, old woman in Hijab began coming to beg from the worshippers before they entered the Masjid for Jumu'ah. There was no room for any women in this "Masjid," so she couldn't come in for prayers even if she wanted to. I remember walking to that Masjid on one bitterly cold day- a day in which my skin felt like it was turning to brittle paper- and I saw her there, with no gloves and a thin jacket on.

    I, of course, gave what I could and was about to enter when I realized I was hurrying to get inside because I was very cold. The thought hit me that she couldn't come inside because there was no provision for women in there and the leadership there would probably throw her out anyway. I sat there feeling guilty the entire Jumu'ah service. When I left she was still out there, begging for a quarter or a dollar here and there from the departing "worshippers." When I was almost back in the office the thought hit me that I could've given her my gloves. I felt guilty the rest of the day for not doing it.

    Every Friday I would see her there, sitting on the stone steps and begging, with obvious sorrow on her face. The Masjid leaders must have seen her sitting on "their" steps one day because when I arrived to the Masjid a few weeks later, the old woman in the Hijab was sitting on the cold dirt on the other side of the sidewalk in front of the Masjid.

    As I sat in that crowded, yet barren-seeming building, I listened to one of the leaders exhorting the worshippers to put money in the box being passed around so they could pay off the bank loan on the Masjid. I again felt weird inside. As the box got closer to me and I saw people dropping ones, tens and twenties into it, I thought about the shame I would feel when the box came to me and everyone would see me pass it along without depositing anything in it.

    I imagined someone whispering to me, "Brother, you should donate for the sake of Allah." I had a response planned for that: "I gave everything I had to that old woman out in the cold for the sake of Allah!" I felt the righteous anger prepare itself for a leap. But no one said anything. No one even looked at me. Hey, what did I expect? After going to that Masjid for over five months, not a single person there has ever said, "Salam" to me, or returned one when I offered it- even the "Imam" refused to say "Salam" to me when I said it to him one day. (I also gained the good lesson that I shouldn't care what others see me do as only Allah knows what's in our hearts.)

    A few weeks later the big 'Eid was coming up: 'Eid ul Adha. One of the Masjid leaders stood up and began to tell the people the significance of the "Qurbani" or sacrifice of animals and how the meat would be given to the poor to eat. I kid you not, the image of that sister outside smiling at me as I gave her something was frozen in my mind as the leader said that there weren't really any poor people here in America so everyone should bring their meat to the Masjid so it could be sent to a cannery and sent overseas. It was that impetus that caused me to write this article two hours later. That was the thought that made my cup overflow in a flood!

    What is it with us? Do you remember when the Mississippi river flooded a few years ago, causing wide-spread damage and homelessness in middle America? ICNA Relief did a really heroic thing by suggesting that some funds should be set aside and used to help the people affected by the floods. If you'll also remember, donations to the Red Cross were in the untold millions, other relief groups also were distributing supplies and money to the grateful people as well.

    Well, here was a Muslim group that wanted to step in and put in it's small, but sincere contribution. Let me tell you something that made my blood boil! You wouldn't believe how many ICNA members opposed this plan. They said that America was being punished by Allah and that we shouldn't help the "bad" American people. They said America was getting what it deserved and we should instead send our donations to Pakistan to help the "Movement" there. (The thought came into my mind: "Why Pakistan in particular? Why not Los Angeles or Chicago or elsewhere?")

    Do you think that this is how the Blessed and noble Prophet Muhammad would think? Is this the attitude that Islam teaches us to have: "We can live off the Kuffar but not help one of them when he's in abject need." I don't think so! The Blessed Prophet used charity towards non-Muslims to show them the mercy of Islam. I could list dozens of examples where he helped non-Muslims before they accepted Islam. What was the result? They often became Muslims themselves!

    Why would the Prophet visit the evil Umm Jamil, the wife of Abu Lahab, who used to curse him and throw thorns in his path, when she was sick? She wasn't a Muslim. She was even an enemy to him. He could have said, "Oh, Allah is punishing her." But he didn't. He went to her and offered his condolences on her sickness. Even Allah says in the Qur'an that "...you don't have to put them on the right path before you help them (the needy unbelievers)."

    I'm proud of ICNA for going ahead and setting up it's small distribution table during that time of crisis in this country- despite the internal opposition. The contribution was minuscule in the grand scheme of things but the symbolism was weighty. Islam teaches us to have compassion on the poor, needy and distraught and those people who discourage the feeding of the poor and needy from among the Muslim community (see Surah 107) might find themselves in big trouble on Judgment day.

    What the heck do we fast in Ramadan for? What lessons are we supposed to learn? Let me publicly state that this past Ramadan is the first Ramadan in which I fully internalized the true importance of compassion towards the poor. I'm a guy who makes barely more than the poverty level each year but my faith moves me to give until it hurts. How many of us have seen the Muslims driving by in their BMW's and Lexus's and just shook our heads in bewilderment? (You know the old joke: it's most often the wealthy Muslims who give the least to Islamic causes, percentage-wise.)

    The Prophet could have had mansions and palaces built for himself but he slept in a small room made of bricks. He could have ridden on chariots or wagons pulled by the finest white stallions but he rode donkeys or camels. His rightly guided successors, Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman and Ali all followed the tradition of simple living. Even if they ever amassed a lot of money, due to good business practices, they would reserve the bulk of the money for charitable purposes and just give it away. None of them lived in mansions or ate fine food or wore the most expensive clothes.

    Today our "community" competes with each other in wealth and status. The "pillars of our community" live mostly in costly mansions, drive the finest motor cars and wear the most expensive clothes. They append their names with the titles of respect of the non-Muslim world such as "Dr." or "M.D" or "Barrister" and go to great lengths to get other people to use those honorific titles when their glorified and sanctified names are mentioned. Let the worms eat the value of those titles.

    Since when is a person judged by his titles? Since when are titles allowed in Islam! Sure, in man-made religions and cultures you have a caste system and social structure based on the accident of one's birth. But due to their weakness towards the pleasures and values of this world, and not finding any support for classism in Islam, some Muslims feel they have to go about and either adopt a caste system or invent one. In former times, arrogant Muslims would go around and herald their name with titles such as "Pasha," "Effendi," "Bey," "Sultan" or "Khan" but in the Western dominated world, their compatriots in arrogance use the titles that denote superiority from the European tradition.

    Then the poor, title-less Muslims become as subhuman and unworthy as the untouchables in India. We can pass by them and avoid eye-contact. We can shun them from our Masjids, homes and parties. ("They would probably only soil the carpet anyway with their filth.") All those Muslims- all that wealth- all that arrogance and false pride in the illusory world they have built for themselves. "But when the earth is ground to powder...then they will know the reality..." (Qur'an)

    The Blessed Prophet said he would be close to the poor people on the Day of Judgment. He said the poor will enter Paradise long before the rich. He said save yourself from the fire even with only half a date given in charity. Who knows the examples of Abu Dharr or Umar?

    The Blessed Prophet once remarked that he was afraid for the future of the Ummah on account of all the wealth that would come in its possession.

    Someone asked him if it were possible for something good (wealth) to really be bad. The Prophet replied that he was afraid that so much wealth would come to Muslims that they would begin to love the world too much, even as former civilizations worshipped worldly-wealth. Then he said he was afraid that love of the world would destroy Muslims even as it destroyed earlier civilizations.

    Here I am, I accepted Islam and have given up my love for wealth, status and honors. But all I see are Muslims racing with each other, not towards goodness, but towards what I saw as false. In their mad chase after wealth, they fail to realize that holding riches is like holding water. It will slip through your fingers until you come on Judgment Day holding nothing. Good deeds and charity are much better to pursue in this world.

    What do you feel towards the poor? Do you feel better than another human being just because of a few possessions that you can't take with you when you die? The next time you see a poor person, try your best to gauge what your initial reaction is towards them. If you feel even the least bit of disgust inside then you may have a seed of hypocrisy in you waiting to destroy you.

    I know it's a lot to ask of our "community," given the shabby and disorganized state we're in right now, but until you banish all distaste for the unfortunate, needy and hungry, you will never make real progress in yourself, your family or your movement.

    Consider well and remember the ironies you see everyday. Today's action will determine tomorrow's reaction. Live with the attitude of a real believer, and don't be just a "Muslim." Because believers go to Paradise, while people with just Muslim sounding names are on their own, even as they care for no one.

Learning to Breath

    The conversion experience is one of the most unique feelings that any person can have. When a person's heart and mind have opened up to something that they never knew was possible, the exhilaration, the passion can be tremendous. If you ask someone who recently underwent some type of religious conversion, the responses will range anywhere from elated to having come into true reality.

    Many people base the truth of their beliefs on how intense their experience was in accepting them. Many Christians undergo extremely emotional conversions which are often accompanied by singing, dancing, clapping, crying and such. Buddhists report a quiet sense of "calmness" entering their soul as they give up all love and desire for anything and everything in the world, while people who convert to Judaism (the few) often speak about how they are impressed with the rituals, tradition and history associated with their new-found faith. The experiences here range from the emotional to the vague ethereal.

    I haven't been privy to very much data on the experiences of people who convert to Hinduism, other than seeing white American college students with bald heads, yellow and red robes and incense, beating drums and singing about Krishna on campuses and in airports. Invariably, most of them don't remain Hindus and eventually give it up and enter corporate America.

    But what about the experience of converting to Islam? Does it have any defining characteristic which one can use as a generalization? It would be wrong to automatically assume that the experience I had in converting would necessarily be the general rule, so one must look for empirical data and common threads in the experiences of many converts to try and identify a singularly focused trend.

    This task is not very difficult as we have the records of converts to Islam which span almost 1500 years. The experiences of the first converts, the Sahaba, were recorded with startling detail and such "records" continue to be compiled even into our own time with new anthologies of convert experiences being published all the time. (I'm consciously avoiding the use of the term revert here because most people are not as familiar with the import of this term, although I recognize it is better to use than the word convert.)

    Conversion to Islam, as any cursory glance at the lives of the Sahaba will show, was almost never emotionally based. It could be said that part of the reason why Islam was so attacked in its early days by the dominant powers in Arabian society at that time is precisely because of the fact that Islam was not based on superstition, emotionalism, or any factor that the common unprincipled person would be attracted to.

    Think about it. The Arab idol-worshippers were confirmed drunks, heathens, cheats and especially uncouth and uncivilized, even by the standards of the day. The law of the jungle prevailed in Arabia, as it did in many other places, and the only control over a man was his tribal leaders and perhaps the limits of his own individual conscience.

    Islam didn't come offering a party-like atmosphere and an absolution of any guilt or personal responsibility. Nor did it offer a new man-god or other idol-like fetish that simple barbarians could understand and latch on to.

    Instead, Islam offered an abstract-seeming God, a detailed set of rituals and teachings and a lifestyle which forbade most of the vices that were prevalent (and popular) in society. To the average wine-swilling Arab, it probably sounded pretty dull.

    When we read about such primary personalities as Abu Bakr, Khadija and Ali, we find that their conversion was influenced as much by their absolute trust in the integrity of Muhammad as it was of the strength of his message. He never lied to them and was never false. If he said something was true, those who knew him best could believe it. They accepted it willingly and calmly with full conviction.

    A second, wider circle of individuals such as Rumaiysa, Abu Dharr and Abu Hurairah, were more discerning individuals who wanted to find out what this man named Muhammad was teaching. They listened to the Prophet and made an intellectual decision that what they were hearing made sense. They compared the beliefs and traditions of their society, which were brazenly unjust and demeaning, to what they were now hearing, and they accepted Islam as the only alternative that could be believed rationally, even though their conversion might get them into trouble. But so deep was their conviction that they often were subjected to torture, harassment and even death for their beliefs. This second group describes nearly all the first converts in the Meccan and early Medinan period. Conversion to Islam was based on an intellectual choice, requiring one to compare the merits of Islam with whatever else was current in society.

    A third group of converts could be termed the tentative people. These are the people whose conversion to Islam was based on factors such as the apparent success of Islam, following the crowd, not wanting to be left out, etc... Such converts, whose hearts were fickle, often made it difficult for the true Muslims to move forward. They represent a large number of converts in the later Medinan period and further on. (There are many verses in the Qur'an which address these types. Hypocrisy was rife among them.)

    When you read the stories and autobiographies of the first two types of converts, one can't help but notice the common thread running through the accounts of these people who chose Islam when it was unpopular to be a Muslim. They were people who knew what society was about and then learned Islamic teachings and compared. People in Arabia knew something about idol-worship, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and gnosticism; but few if any ever converted to those things.

    But when Islam came, it had a fire to it, a compelling call that drew people's attention. It couldn't be ignored in the mosaic of religions which was Arabia. The intelligent and discerning studied it and accepted it after much thought and reasoning. The corrupt and arrogant drew anger from their souls and inflicted the most horrible torture in their fight against Islam.

    If you fast forward to our own present era, we live in a world that in many ways resembles pre-Islamic Arabia. The idol-worship of choice today is basically atheism colored with a belief in personal invincibility. The worst behavior is committed by most people on a daily basis. Even in America, "the land of prosperity and goodness," poll after poll shows that the average person thinks lying is okay. Wife beating and child abuse are just as high here, if not higher, than anywhere else in the world and all the worst vices from alcohol, pornography and smoking to drugs are readily available on every street corner.

    The uneducated masses in third world nations see flashy American movies and think that it's the reality in America, and so, to be like their idols, they throw away any and every traditional value that has held their societies together and embrace every immorality (and it's often rewarded with wealth and abundance! Ah, the reward of Shaytan!)) Bribery, lying and cheating become institutionalized in the governments themselves. This is done on such a scale that two Muslim countries top the list for the most corrupt nations to do business in on earth.

    This modern religious atheism comes along with all its own idolatrous rituals and accessories. For contact with the supernatural, there are Tarot card and palm readers (big business), phone lines with psychic advisors (who charge a very spiritual fee), crystals, Zen rock gardens (for $39.95 you can achieve inner peace), Ouija boards, health clubs (where the scantily clad can worship each other's bodies) and artsy-secular, new age "interpretations" of Christianity or "spirituality" (such as Oprah's kind of Christianity.)

    (Oprah was once confronted on a show by a Christian activist who challenged her liberal stand on pre-marital and homosexual sex- pointing out that they were outlawed in the Bible. Oprah merely responded, to the great applause of the audience, that the "god" she worshipped was a loving god who didn't judge people. Talk about following your own lusts and whims!)

    So this is the modern, heathen world. There is a mosaic of religions everywhere and a prevailing style of atheist-centered "idol-worship." Christianity is relegated to the quaint cultural level of a minor factor in Christmas and Easter. It has no impact in people's daily lives, or in the world, other than to convert uneducated third worlders with offers of bread and Bibles. (Oh, the growth in gay-churches is tremendous.)

    Judaism is hardly followed, even in Israel. Buddhism is so compromised that someone as promiscuous and immoral as Richard Gere is being declared a "non-celibate" monk by no less than the Dalai Lama, who is as fruity as they come. Hinduism, well, what can you say there? It's pure Neanderthal in the spiritual evolution of humanity.

    What is happening with Islam and why are so many diverse people accepting it? And this, even though Islam is the most vilified ideology/religion in the world. Interestingly enough, the same factors which influenced the first two categories of converts from the Prophet's time are still in operation today.

    It must be pointed out that in the history of Muslim civilization, from about 650 to 1600, the issue about whether to be a Muslim or not wasn't there. The Islamic world considered itself superior to all other civilizations and there were no rivals. If you were a non-Muslim in the Muslim empire, you would be constantly impressed with the power and glory of it and Islamic teachings were readily available, as well as a practical model for organizing community life.

    With the decline of the Muslim world and the ascension of the secular West, the barbaric inclinations of human baseness rose to the surface. After all, to be accurate, Christians have been responsible for the cold blooded murder of more innocents than anyone else in history. The story of Islam is one of toleration and even modern Christians admit this, while the history of Christianity from Charlemagne until the Bosnian holocaust in 1992 has been written in repression and blood.

    As much as the idol-worshippers opposed Islam in Mecca, we find that, in turn, the atheist Westerners and their followers in the third world oppose Islam today. Vilifying and slandering it at every turn. But two types of people are accepting Islam in the world today which, as was mentioned before, closely correspond to the two types which accepted it in Mecca.

    People who become acquainted with the life, teachings and example of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad find him to be like no other as far as personal strengths and characteristics are concerned. He was truly honest, generous, compassionate and convinced of the worth of his cause. He can be taken as a hero or role model for anyone. Writers such as Martin Lings and Thomas Cleary were so impressed by his model that they eventually accepted Islam.

    The second type, which is much more numerous, are the vast millions in America, Europe and elsewhere who know what the beliefs and values of their society are. They're no fools. And when they hear about Islam somehow, they give it a fair hearing, never expecting to accept it. After they compare the facts and cross-reference and study deeply, they, too, accept Islam. This is demonstrated in such people as Jeffrey Lang, Aminah Assilmi and Hamza Yusuf.

    There is, in my research, no overly emotional outburst, no screaming, "Hallelujah" and fainting, no dancing and feeling giddiness in their head. Is it any wonder that most people who are "saved" in the churches revert to their former ways quickly, when the emotional outburst and feeling wears off. While those who accept Islam, even hard-core felons, tend more to stick with it.

    At the same time, there wasn't any hard to define "tranquility" or calmness which suddenly engulfed their soul in a fit of "realization." Instead, what research shows, (and anybody can talk to a convert and get similar results,) is that the conversion experience feels remarkably similar to the feeling one gets when they are returning to their family after a long and hard journey. A sense of belonging and place which resides deep within the psyche. The rational approach put to rest any and all objections and the absence of emotionalism ensures that the person knew exactly what they were doing when their mind and heart were in the position to see clearly. Satisfaction, certainty and contentment are hallmark feelings which accompany the new convert.

    To illustrate this further, in my own case, I underwent two emotional conversion experiences to Christianity when I was younger. The first was when I was about twelve. Church services are the ultimate theatrical production and they have the techniques of swaying a person mastered into a science. After an hour of beating us down with our guilt and sin, making us feel low and dirty, the preacher suddenly offers a way out. The church organ plays a well-rehearsed soft melody as the preacher reaches out to us from the pulpit and offers us absolution, forgiveness and the wonderful joy of having our "burden" lifted.

    Like the naive kid I was, I took the bait and walked to the front of the church so the pastor could pray for me and I accepted Jesus as "my personal Lord and Savior." Three hours later I felt as if nothing had changed, and not just because Christianity makes few real demands on a person's life. The second time came when I was in my first year at college. I was feeling disconnected and wanted spirituality in my life.

    I was easy prey for those Campus Crusade people and when my meeting with their preacher ended, I felt a huge rush inside, it felt so supernatural that I was convinced it was true. I broke away from them, however, after only a couple of weeks, when I saw them playing rock music and singing like idiots in their evening services. My heart and mind knew that that wasn't what obedience to God was about.

    When I came across Islam, it was through a friend who I knew all my life. He gave me a Qur'an and I took it back to college with me during my second year. I had already read so much of the Bible in my previous years that I was quite well versed in its contents.

    To my utter amazement, the Qur'an challenged my perceptions from the first day. Before I started reading it I thought it was going to be just another "spiritual" book of sayings or fables like those Zen or Taoist new age kind of books. Boy, was I in for something different.

    I literally felt that God was talking to me from the first page I read. You don't get that feeling reading the Bible or any other books. This book told the story of my life and asked me to compare what I knew to what it offered. Within just a few days I knew who was the winner. It was me. I found something that I could accept and know to be true.

    I still didn't accept Islam yet, though, because I didn't know how. I was learning. I raided the campus library for books on Islam and read books both pro and anti Islam. I found that the books written against Islam were based on hearsay, opinion and some very strange conclusions. (One book said that Khadija was an agent of the Pope sent to deceive Muhammad. Who could believe such idiocy?)

    Anyway, after several months, I came into contact with some Muslims from the Gulf states and was invited to dinner at one man's home. He started telling me that if I was "going to be" a Muslim that this and that would be a part of my life. I remember answering him back with, "But I'm already a Muslim!" It crept upon me without my even realizing it. The message of the Qur'an bonded so completely with my world-view, attitude and heart that it and I were one.

    Read the account of Muhammad Asad contained in "The Road to Mecca" or that of Jeffrey Lang in "Struggling to Surrender" or even further in Maryam Jameelah's "How I Came to Islam" and you'll see a similar conversion experience at work. Islam reaches the heart through the mind so imperceptibly that before a person knows it, they already feel as if they are Muslim, i.e. surrendered to Allah. That's the kind of conversion that has lasting power. That's the kind of life change that is motivated by the informed man or woman; not one orchestrated by some outside influence playing upon a person's emotions with church organs, drums, singing, dancing or whatever.

    The next time you're talking to someone or meeting someone who converted to something, ask them how it felt, and you'll get a good idea of how long their conversion will last and how much of an impact it will have on their life.

What Needs to be Done for the Future?

    The years pass by in a blur. I can't believe I've been a Muslim for ten years now. For that matter, I can't believe I'm nearing my thirtieth birthday, but that's another matter. The history of Islam in America is also nearing a significant age. No, I'm not referring to any specific anniversary or special date on the Christian calendar that we should commemorate or have community dinners over, but rather I'm calling our attention to an unsung milestone that is creeping up on us without our even being aware.

    Think about it: almost the entire Muslim infra-structure and movement in this country is less than twenty-five years old. In the sixties there were no Masjids to speak of. In the eighties Masjids were everywhere. In the eighties there were no Islamic schools to speak of. Now our own schools are everywhere. In the seventies, Muslim-American women didn't wear Hijab. Now you see Hijabs, beards and kufis all over.

    We went from having virtually no Islamic organizations in the sixties to having six major, national organizations today. There are zillions of Islamic-oriented books, magazines and social functions and some second-generation Muslims have actually remained as committed believers in Allah despite overwhelming odds. Truly we've begun to reach a pinnacle.

    That's precisely the issue I want to tackle in this article. Where do we go from here? We have the Masjids, we have the school, now what? What comes next? Being an ardent observer of trends, ideas and deficiencies, I've taken a look into the future, so to speak, and would like to bring to our minds several areas in which Muslims need to investigate and prepare themselves.

    The first issue, which I often write and talk about, is that of community building. The trend in modern societies all over the world is towards individualism. "Every man for himself!" This maxim is against all of the founding codes of human civilization throughout history. Unfortunately, most people prefer to think this way, and hence you have estrangement in modern society.

    In America, for example, it isn't unusual for a person to lose contact with all their relatives when they strike out on their own. Contrast this with societies that still have some traditional basis to them. In places such as India, Nigeria or Malaysia, all you see are relatives. Relatives living in your house, relatives living down the road, relatives getting you a job in the local government- relatives coming out your ears! The "Tyranny of the Relatives" is everywhere!

    For all the disadvantages, from the individualistic stand-point of having many prying eyes around you, the advantages of a large, extended family lie in security and dependability. If you need help, relatives are more likely to come to your aid than strangers.

    I have seen many immigrant parents trying to emulate this familiar pattern here in America. They pride themselves on saying that Islam promotes extended families and that they have "conservative" family values. But although they live in giant houses and have all their children and uncles with them, the sad reality is that the very system that would instill a sense of family values in their children is non-existent in America.

    A forty something immigrant parent may be filled with pride at having his or her children playing at their feet but in twenty or thirty years those same children are going to put them in nursing homes and forget them. This sad truth is what drives so many Americans to make ever more investments for their "retirement." They know they won't be able to count on their children to care for them so they want to have enough money to pay for professional care when they're frail and old.

    The children of the immigrants aren't growing up in a village where a person's ancestors have lived for centuries. They're not growing up in an Islamic society. They're not even growing up in a civil society. Have you looked at the vulgarity and valueless garbage that's on television these days?

    So after we made our fortunes, built our Masjids and made our schools, it's time to make our "villages" here in America. We need Muslims living communally so that each successive generation feels it has a center, a foci. There are no Muslim states in the world that can claim Islamic authority. There's no Khalifa, or Amir or even a figure-head that we can look to and say that that is our center. In much of Muslim America, most Muslims don't even live around each other. We need to make community a reality.

    How do we do that? What's the methodology. I'm not going to offer some pie-in-the-sky theory or difficult plan that won't be implemented. Neither am I going to ask you to make huge sacrifices in time and money. Since I'm not going to make it hard for you, then, you have to agree to what I propose. Fair enough? Good.

    What I'm proposing is that every Muslim must live within walking distance of a Masjid. There, that's it! If every Muslim in America made this their goal and completed it within a year or two, then a major obstacle to our future staying power would be solved. Now if the idea of walking more than three blocks daunts you, then you had better put down that plate of biryani and kabobs and start exercising. Walking distance is defined as about ten blocks away. There, now let's do it. I did it. So can you.

    The second main thing we need to do for the future involves proper funding for our Masjids, schools and da'wah organizations. Hello. Has anyone ever heard of the Waqf? I have literally lost my breath telling Muslims about this wonderful Islamic concept but have been met with silence and blank stares.

    A Waqf is a foundation or investment whose profits will go solely for the benefit of an Islamic organization. Let's face it: most of our institutions are forever cash-starved and in the red. How can you save the children, convert the non-Muslims or get a decent Imam if you have no real money? Every Muslim community and it's cherished organizations had better get together and develop some type of a Waqf.

    Buy a gas station, a hotel, a few rental homes- whatever. Get that permanent funding in place and expand it as the needs of the community require extra funding. Then we can stop seeing cheap cardboard donation boxes being passed around during the Jumuah Khutba and seeing broken things staying broken forever. Donations are the worst form of support for anyone and everything. How would you like to support your family and home by begging for donations from others? Think about it.

    The next issue we need to address is in our organizations. I'm sorry, but everyone is trying to be the leader and the followers are getting lost in the struggle. All the six major organizations make a claim to national leadership. None of them have the support of more than a few hundred. One of the six, which claims to be the "umbrella organization" exists mostly on paper and in theory. A phone call to them is more likely to net you an answering machine that anything else! But well-spent money and a lot of noise-making can make anything seem big.

    You see it every year. Organizations hold big conventions, critics decry the costs, supporters bask in glory and the participants get various experiences. I'm not against conventions. You really do need them for all the benefits they provide. I'm also not against there being organizations.

    What I am against is exclusivity. Each organization tries to act as if it were the sole representative of Allah on earth. Each one tries to implement strategies to help Muslims without realizing that the other organizations are doing the same thing. How many times are you going to re-invent the wheel?

    Some organizations are better at certain things than others. But cash is, alas, still elusive to them all so everyone winds up doing a half-way job that eventually peters out and flops. (Does anyone remember how ISNA disappeared for a while after the Gulf War when Saudi funding dried up?)

    Some people have suggested unifying the organizations and holding one "super-conference" every year. That's a bad idea. The current organizations will never be unified to begin with, and as far as one convention in America is concerned- who are you going to exclude? If it's held in one part of America, the Muslims of the rest of the country will be left out.

    Here's a novel solution: divide the country up into zones. Give each organization a few zones to administer, relative to their power base, and make each responsible for holding a regional convention there. For example, ICNA is strongest on the East coast. Make that the ICNA zone. ISNA is strong in the Mid-west so that will be it's zone. WD Muhammad and the National Community headed by Jamil Al Amin have power bases in the south and south east so divide those zones up there. Then give the AMC their golden baby of Washington DC, the ISCA will get Northern California and other areas and give other local powerhouses their due as well.

    Then, when everyone has their own sphere of influence, they can direct all their money and efforts towards a more manageable task. Everyone's mandate will be the same: promote Islam among non-Muslims, organize and educate Muslims, build Islamic institutions on a strong basis and hold a yearly convention in your zone.

    These are some thoughts for future action that can help, insha'llah, organize Muslim resources more efficiently.