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Friday, March 4, 2011
Prospect of Marriage Can Lead Away from Interfaith Dating
Prospect of Marriage Can Lead Away from Interfaith Dating
By HELEN T. GRAY
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Sat, Jul. 20, 2002
Miri Hoch's Jewish parents never told her she had to date a Jew, but she knew they weren't thrilled when she started dating a Catholic.
"They respected my right to make my own choices," said Hoch, who lives in Prairie Village. "And they knew I would grow up and come around."
She did, and as she grew older, it became more important for her to date men within her faith. Now at age 25, Hoch is engaged to Jeffrey Spiegel, 31, of Overland Park, who also was committed to marrying someone Jewish.
Ann Pavlich, a devoted Catholic, tells a similar story. She had dated non-Catholics but always felt something important was missing -- a common faith.
"As you get older, you start thinking about what type of home life you want and how important it is to raise your children in the faith," said Pavlich, 30, of Mission.
Pavlich is now dating a practicing Catholic. Both come from large Catholic families, love the traditions and practices of their faith and attend Mass together.
In a society that emphasizes diversity and tolerance, many people from various faiths are saying no to interreligious dating. They love their faith and want to marry within it. To them, it makes sense to date members of their religion.
To Live On
For Jews, it's a matter survival, some say.
The leadership council of Judaism's Conservative movement has strongly condemned intermarriage and urged Jews to marry other Jews.
The majority of Jews who intermarry cease to practice Jewish traditions and often do not provide a Jewish education or experience to their children, said a 1995 statement from the leadership council. The result: "Over 70 percent of children of intermarried couples are not being raised as Jews, thus further diminishing the Jewish people."
"We must continue to articulate that it is important for Jews to marry other Jews to continue the ancient and historic mission of Judaism," the Conservative leadership said. "...Our young people and their families must comprehend the direct relationship between interdating and intermarriage."
Youth groups in all of the Jewish movements have programs that address interdating and intermarriage, said Rabbi Joel Meyers of New York, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly (of Conservative Rabbis).
"This is a serious concern, a serious problem," Meyers said.
Fifty-one percent of Jews intermarry, according to a 2000 national survey of Jewish identification, conducted through the graduate center of City University of New York. The figure has changed little from 52 percent in a 1990 survey.
Throughout American culture, studies show a decrease in ethnicity and an increase in personal choice, Meyers said. This has a bearing on interdating and intermarriage.
One factor that affects the intermarriage rate among Jews is the high rate of people living together outside marriage, said Egon Mayer, a sociology professor at City University's Brooklyn College, who headed the Jewish identification survey.
"Part of the reason we have not seen an increase in interfaith marriage is that it has been offset by people living together," Mayer said. "People who are in mixed relationships are less likely to marry.
"The big push since 1990 has been at increasing the opportunities for young Jews to meet and mate with other Jews. The emphasis has been in education about the religion. But the jury is still out as to whether that works because most people get educated in childhood but marry in adulthood."
The message apparently is making an impact on some young Jews, who are deciding early that they want to date and marry within their faith.
Ethan Pack, an 18-year-old who lives in Prairie Village, said he prefers to date Jewish girls. Pack has been influenced by his participation in Young Judaea, a Zionist youth movement sponsored by Hadassah, a women's Zionist organization. The movement provides a wide range of youth activities, including peer-led clubs and summer camps.
"Dating can present a tough challenge," Pack said. "If my feelings were to go in one place and my beliefs go in another, that would be a problem. If I dated someone who was not Jewish, it would have to be someone who is open-minded and be willing to convert."
According to Scripture
Many Christians who hold to a stricter biblical interpretation say God mandates marriage within the faith. They cite 2 Corinthians 6:14, which says: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"
Most of the 60 to 80 active members of the Plaza Heights Baptist Church youth group in Blue Springs date other believers, said Daniel Dorr, youth pastor.
"We deal with dating a lot," he said. "We tell them the Bible says they should not be bound with a nonbeliever and that God has a design for relationships.
"A dating relationship is more than just going out and having a good time. You want to find a mate, so you want to date someone who has a like faith and practices as you have."
Phil Dietz, associate pastor of students at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, tells his two sons, ages 16 and 18, the same thing he tells the young people at church:
"I discourage them from dating someone outside their faith," he said. "If you raise them right and sit down and talk to them and explain the reasons why, they really respond well."
Jonathan Kinyon, 34, of Kansas City said he has never dated anyone who was not a Christian. Kinyon is a member of Equally Yoked, a Christian singles organization, where he met the woman he is currently dating.
Kinyon believes dating another Christian provides compatibility in prayer time, fellowship and building a friendship.
"I have seen some so-called `missionary dating,' dating them until they get saved," he said. "But this is not successful very often."
Course of Conduct
Boys and girls of the Muslim faith do not date, and marriage within the faith is mandated for women and recommended for men.
Hamed Ghazali, principal of the Islamic School of Greater Kansas City, said the school emphasizes no dating and no physical contact between the sexes, not even shaking hands.
The Qur'an provides marriage guidelines for Muslims. One passage states: "He created for you spouses from yourselves that you might find peace in them" (30:21).
Sherita Mohammed, 15, of Kansas City, said she accepts the fact that she cannot date.
"If someone asks me out, I tell them in a nice way, `I can't go out with boys, and you can't call me,' " she said. "If they ask why, I say because I am a Muslim. When I wear the head covering, usually that's when boys come up to me."
Mohammed said she has met some boys she has liked who were not Muslim, but she knows she wouldn't be able to marry them.
Many young Muslims meet one another at annual Islamic conventions, such as the Muslim America Society convention, said Sherita's father, Imam Bilal Mohammed of the Al-Inshirah Islamic Center in Kansas City. Composed primarily of African-Americans, the convention includes a lot of seminars and activities for youth.
"The young people get a chance to interact in public places," he said. "They are chaperoned heavily by all of us, under our watchful eyes. Then they may keep in touch through writing or e-mail."
Intermarriage is not a problem among Muslims even though the United States is a pluralistic society, said Sayyid Syeed of Plainfield, Ind., general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America.
"Now that there are more Muslims in this country, there are even more choices, and most marry within the faith," Syeed said.
Many people of various religions believe the best way to carry their faith into the next generation is to marry within the faith and raise children in that faith. Usually this process starts with dating.
"I would get nervous if my son or daughter started dating people of other faiths," said Matthew Siegel of Leawood, who is Jewish. "I would not have a rule that they should not date outside their faith, but I would teach them the advantages of marrying within their faith.
"And I have the utmost respect for anyone, a Catholic, a Baptist, whoever, who would want their children to marry within their faith."
By HELEN T. GRAY
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Sat, Jul. 20, 2002
Miri Hoch's Jewish parents never told her she had to date a Jew, but she knew they weren't thrilled when she started dating a Catholic.
"They respected my right to make my own choices," said Hoch, who lives in Prairie Village. "And they knew I would grow up and come around."
She did, and as she grew older, it became more important for her to date men within her faith. Now at age 25, Hoch is engaged to Jeffrey Spiegel, 31, of Overland Park, who also was committed to marrying someone Jewish.
Ann Pavlich, a devoted Catholic, tells a similar story. She had dated non-Catholics but always felt something important was missing -- a common faith.
"As you get older, you start thinking about what type of home life you want and how important it is to raise your children in the faith," said Pavlich, 30, of Mission.
Pavlich is now dating a practicing Catholic. Both come from large Catholic families, love the traditions and practices of their faith and attend Mass together.
In a society that emphasizes diversity and tolerance, many people from various faiths are saying no to interreligious dating. They love their faith and want to marry within it. To them, it makes sense to date members of their religion.
To Live On
For Jews, it's a matter survival, some say.
The leadership council of Judaism's Conservative movement has strongly condemned intermarriage and urged Jews to marry other Jews.
The majority of Jews who intermarry cease to practice Jewish traditions and often do not provide a Jewish education or experience to their children, said a 1995 statement from the leadership council. The result: "Over 70 percent of children of intermarried couples are not being raised as Jews, thus further diminishing the Jewish people."
"We must continue to articulate that it is important for Jews to marry other Jews to continue the ancient and historic mission of Judaism," the Conservative leadership said. "...Our young people and their families must comprehend the direct relationship between interdating and intermarriage."
Youth groups in all of the Jewish movements have programs that address interdating and intermarriage, said Rabbi Joel Meyers of New York, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly (of Conservative Rabbis).
"This is a serious concern, a serious problem," Meyers said.
Fifty-one percent of Jews intermarry, according to a 2000 national survey of Jewish identification, conducted through the graduate center of City University of New York. The figure has changed little from 52 percent in a 1990 survey.
Throughout American culture, studies show a decrease in ethnicity and an increase in personal choice, Meyers said. This has a bearing on interdating and intermarriage.
One factor that affects the intermarriage rate among Jews is the high rate of people living together outside marriage, said Egon Mayer, a sociology professor at City University's Brooklyn College, who headed the Jewish identification survey.
"Part of the reason we have not seen an increase in interfaith marriage is that it has been offset by people living together," Mayer said. "People who are in mixed relationships are less likely to marry.
"The big push since 1990 has been at increasing the opportunities for young Jews to meet and mate with other Jews. The emphasis has been in education about the religion. But the jury is still out as to whether that works because most people get educated in childhood but marry in adulthood."
The message apparently is making an impact on some young Jews, who are deciding early that they want to date and marry within their faith.
Ethan Pack, an 18-year-old who lives in Prairie Village, said he prefers to date Jewish girls. Pack has been influenced by his participation in Young Judaea, a Zionist youth movement sponsored by Hadassah, a women's Zionist organization. The movement provides a wide range of youth activities, including peer-led clubs and summer camps.
"Dating can present a tough challenge," Pack said. "If my feelings were to go in one place and my beliefs go in another, that would be a problem. If I dated someone who was not Jewish, it would have to be someone who is open-minded and be willing to convert."
According to Scripture
Many Christians who hold to a stricter biblical interpretation say God mandates marriage within the faith. They cite 2 Corinthians 6:14, which says: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"
Most of the 60 to 80 active members of the Plaza Heights Baptist Church youth group in Blue Springs date other believers, said Daniel Dorr, youth pastor.
"We deal with dating a lot," he said. "We tell them the Bible says they should not be bound with a nonbeliever and that God has a design for relationships.
"A dating relationship is more than just going out and having a good time. You want to find a mate, so you want to date someone who has a like faith and practices as you have."
Phil Dietz, associate pastor of students at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, tells his two sons, ages 16 and 18, the same thing he tells the young people at church:
"I discourage them from dating someone outside their faith," he said. "If you raise them right and sit down and talk to them and explain the reasons why, they really respond well."
Jonathan Kinyon, 34, of Kansas City said he has never dated anyone who was not a Christian. Kinyon is a member of Equally Yoked, a Christian singles organization, where he met the woman he is currently dating.
Kinyon believes dating another Christian provides compatibility in prayer time, fellowship and building a friendship.
"I have seen some so-called `missionary dating,' dating them until they get saved," he said. "But this is not successful very often."
Course of Conduct
Boys and girls of the Muslim faith do not date, and marriage within the faith is mandated for women and recommended for men.
Hamed Ghazali, principal of the Islamic School of Greater Kansas City, said the school emphasizes no dating and no physical contact between the sexes, not even shaking hands.
The Qur'an provides marriage guidelines for Muslims. One passage states: "He created for you spouses from yourselves that you might find peace in them" (30:21).
Sherita Mohammed, 15, of Kansas City, said she accepts the fact that she cannot date.
"If someone asks me out, I tell them in a nice way, `I can't go out with boys, and you can't call me,' " she said. "If they ask why, I say because I am a Muslim. When I wear the head covering, usually that's when boys come up to me."
Mohammed said she has met some boys she has liked who were not Muslim, but she knows she wouldn't be able to marry them.
Many young Muslims meet one another at annual Islamic conventions, such as the Muslim America Society convention, said Sherita's father, Imam Bilal Mohammed of the Al-Inshirah Islamic Center in Kansas City. Composed primarily of African-Americans, the convention includes a lot of seminars and activities for youth.
"The young people get a chance to interact in public places," he said. "They are chaperoned heavily by all of us, under our watchful eyes. Then they may keep in touch through writing or e-mail."
Intermarriage is not a problem among Muslims even though the United States is a pluralistic society, said Sayyid Syeed of Plainfield, Ind., general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America.
"Now that there are more Muslims in this country, there are even more choices, and most marry within the faith," Syeed said.
Many people of various religions believe the best way to carry their faith into the next generation is to marry within the faith and raise children in that faith. Usually this process starts with dating.
"I would get nervous if my son or daughter started dating people of other faiths," said Matthew Siegel of Leawood, who is Jewish. "I would not have a rule that they should not date outside their faith, but I would teach them the advantages of marrying within their faith.
"And I have the utmost respect for anyone, a Catholic, a Baptist, whoever, who would want their children to marry within their faith."
Speaking for Islam
Speaking for Islam
SCHOOLS HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT MUSLIMS, AND BAY AREA VOLUNTEERS HAVE ANSWERS
By Richard Scheinin, San Jose Mercury News
Ameena Jandali, co-founder of the Islamic Networks Group, talks with Lorraine al-Rawi
Standing next to an overhead projector, Maha ElGenaidi reviews a list of Islam's basic tenets with 22 students at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. Dressed modestly in ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved blouse, her head covered in accordance with Muslim custom, she tells the world history honors students about salat, the practice of praying five times a day.
``Now this is seven days a week, guys,'' ElGenaidi says. ``Weekends included.''
ElGenaidi, 41, is co-founder of the Islamic Networks Group (ING), which has trained and sent speakers into Bay Area middle and high schools for nearly a decade. The idea is to counter stereotypes by helping social studies teachers supplement and put a human face on their annual, required textbook unit on Islam. Increasingly busy in the post-Sept. 11 era, San Jose-based ING has 15 volunteer speakers who made about 750 classroom presentations about Islam last year. They also spoke at dozens of churches, senior centers, corporations and forums for law enforcement officers and healthcare workers.
ElGenaidi and co-founder Ameena Jandali are ING's engine and soul, running it as a passion without pay and turning it into a national model for teaching about religion in the public square.
In California, it has been almost 15 years since educational reforms set academic instruction about religion firmly into the world history and social sciences curricula, so that children will understand how major faiths have shaped history and civilization. Many non-public schools also observe these guidelines.
``The state made it a requirement to teach about religion,'' ElGenaidi says. ``But they haven't given teachers adequate resources to do that. Nor have they taught teachers how to teach about religion, which makes them reluctant to approach the subject. Some skip it or skim it, because they're afraid about the separation between church and state. What they don't understand is that, while they cannot promote religion, they can teach about it. That's where we come in.''
Since the reforms were made, ING has become a success story: Two Muslim women in Silicon Valley have built a one-of-a-kind educational group, spinning off a network of 18 affiliated, Islamic speakers bureaus in 12 states, from Arizona to Nebraska and New York, as well as two in Canada.
With so many affiliated bureaus cropping up during the past two years, ING has become a prototype: It doesn't proselytize, it describes the faith, and it emphasizes the commonalities among Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Speakers are trained according to secular guidelines, developed by the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom Forum and its First Amendment Center, for teaching religion in schools. Each bureau, though operating independently, receives training from ING and commits itself to the vision of teaching about Islam, never preaching.
``There's a sensitivity issue,'' ElGenaidi explains. ``If these were Muslim kids and you had a Christian or Hindu speaker coming into the classroom, how would Muslim parents want that handled? That's our standard. Faith is between the kids and their parents. I don't give students our office number or e-mail. I don't even give them our Web site. If a kid asks for a copy of the Koran, we always say, `Ask the teacher about it.' ''
Demand for information about Islam is growing nationally, and the new start-up bureaus are struggling to keep up with demand. The Phoenix bureau has half a dozen speakers. The one in San Diego has 10. In Boston, where plans for a formal bureau are on hold, 70 people showed up for training as speakers in October. Ten were selected.
In Minneapolis, bureau director Zafar Siddiqui had eight trained speakers available when Sept. 11 happened. ``We were a nascent group, just getting established,'' he says, ``and suddenly we found ourselves deluged with tons of requests for presentations on Islam from schools, churches, colleges, universities, book clubs, coffee shops, law enforcement agencies and hospitals.'' He now has 25 speakers working for him.
At a time of increasing ethnic and religious diversity in classrooms around the state and nation, demystifying religion is an essential, ElGenaidi figures. ``Because of changing demographics,'' she says, ``people and professional groups are interested in cultural competency.''
And at a time when Islam is held in suspicion by some people -- and when teaching about Islam in schools is being challenged by some conservatives -- ElGenaidi knows what a tightrope she and her colleagues are walking.
``Since Sept. 11, the presentations feel really different to me,'' she says. ``I feel that I have to begin by condemning terrorism, by disassociating myself from Osama bin Laden, and being clear that the hijackers are not martyrs.''
But walking into the classroom at Mitty, she deals with more mundane matters. She tells the students that she is married to a software engineer. She explains that Islam is the source not only of her religious belief, but of her cultural identity, her diet and style of dress. Born in Cairo, she is Egyptian, Arab, and, for more than 30 years, American. ``I'm not a woman living under the Taliban,'' she quips.
But, she adds, ``I wear my Islam. To understand my identity, you have to know about my religious beliefs and practices.''
ElGenaidi is visiting Mitty, a Catholic school, at the invitation of world history teacher Nick Bridger. Every year, in accordance with the California state framework for social studies instruction, Bridger's 10th-graders learn about the history of Islam.
This year's group, which is heavily Roman Catholic, already knows some of the basics: that Islam is a monotheistic faith; that it traces its origins to Abraham; that it holds up Muhammad as its principal prophet, though not its only one.
The students want to know whether Islam has a rite analogous to baptism -- it does not -- and whether Muslims are allowed to marry people of other faiths. Only men are allowed, ElGenaidi says. As ``primary provider'' at home, the man generally exercises more authority. And since Islam recognizes the prophets of Judaism and Christianity, a Muslim man who marries a non-Muslim woman would allow her to practice her faith freely. ``In fact,'' ElGenaidi tells the students, ``he is required to do so by Islamic law.''
Also, Islam is a patrilineal faith: Children follow the religion of the father. Even if he marries outside the religion, the family's Muslim lineage will continue.
ElGenaidi explains that most of the world's more than 1 billion Muslims are Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi -- fewer than one in five is Arab. She shows them a page of Arabic and explains that it is read from right to left, like Hebrew. She adds that Moses is a prophet in the Islamic tradition, as is Jesus, though he is not considered to be the son of God.
Her presentation was ``so good,'' Bridger said later. ``Textbooks are kind of flat, and kids are inundated with media. But hearing this in person, they were able to toss ideas at her and see how she can be a very contemporary person and still practice this ancient religion. She had a good impact.''
ElGenaidi, whose father was a psychiatrist, grew up in a largely secular home, first in Cairo and then on the East Coast. Jandali grew up in an observant Muslim home in Fort Collins, Colo., the daughter of a Pakistani-born college professor and a convert mother.
As young women, both ElGenaidi and Jandali, now 41, were profoundly aware of negative depictions of Muslims in movies, on television, and in other parts of U.S. culture. Jandali remembers a family friend whose daughter complained of inaccuracies about Islam in textbooks: `` `Muslims pray by hitting their heads on the sand,' that kind of thing.''
The friend, it turns out, was Shabbir Mansuri, the founder and director of the Council on Islamic Education in Orange County. In 1989, Mansuri became aware of the new California state framework for teaching about religion in the schools.
That framework is for a social studies curriculum in which students in the seventh grade -- and again in the ninth or 10th grade -- learn about the rise and growth of Islam as a religion and civilization. In the past month, conservative writers have charged that the state framework overplays Islam, and a San Luis Obispo mother filed a complaint, saying that her seventh-grader's textbook was biased toward Islam. The study of Judaism and Christianity is part of the sixth-grade state curriculum and is woven into portions of middle and high school study.
Mansuri came up with the idea of establishing a bureau of Muslim speakers to go into the schools and talk about Islam. Working with the Freedom Forum, which advocates church-state separation as it lobbies for religious freedom, he began to train Stanford students as speakers in California middle and high schools. Always, Mansuri says, the speakers ``were to be there with the permission of the teacher, to make the presentation and leave. They were not there to proselytize or promote a religion.
``I am very, very strict about this,'' Mansuri says. His efforts served as the ``incubator'' for ING, he says. Mansuri continues to mentor ElGenaidi and Jandali and remains involved with the training of speakers and new bureau directors around the country.
``I go in there and make sure,'' he says, ``that we are very, very careful and within the First Amendment principles that give us a place at the table in America. We should never abuse our place at the table by proselytizing.''
It is imperative that speakers -- from any religion -- ``not take advantage of a captive audience in a state-sponsored institution,'' says Marcia Beauchamp, until recently the religious freedom programs coordinator for the First Amendment Center, an independent program of the Freedom Forum. ``I'd love to see other religious communities doing what ING does and training speakers in the same way.''
ElGenaidi and Jandali met a decade ago while raising funds for Bosnian relief. The Muslim community already had its political and civil rights advocacy groups. Education was the missing piece. In 1993, they established Bay Area Media Watch, which attempted to monitor -- and educate -- local media about coverage of Muslims and Islam. After three months, they changed the name to Islamic Networks Group and began to focus on education in schools.
ElGenaidi, who has a background in marketing, sent mailings to well over 1,000 social studies teachers and educators. She had a 17 percent response rate, and ING made 300 school presentations in its first year.
In the mid-'90s, the group put an emphasis on meeting with police. ElGenaidi recalls counseling officers that, when responding to a domestic dispute in a Muslim home, the wife ``may jump if you touch her. She may not want to be alone with you. They may not want you to step inside with your shoes on, so you might want to ask them to step outside. And you need to accept all of this as American. Muslims are now part of the social fabric of the American society that you need to learn about.''
Now, nearly six months after the September attacks, churches have become ``the new door'' through which ING reaches out to non-Muslims, Jandali said. Also, corporations concerned about employee discrimination lawsuits are starting to phone the ING office for advice about cultural sensitivity.
Even with the help of assistants, the two founders work 60-hour weeks, and still haven't been paid a penny -- by choice. However, they would like to see their staff grow.
ING has a $400,000 budget, but has never been able to raise more than $200,000 in a year. It recently hired a managing director, Dian Alyan, a former brand manager for Procter & Gamble, who is looking into foundation grants.
The organization is growing in stature. ElGenaidi and Jandali have become familiar faces on the podium at national Islamic conferences. On a recent afternoon at the ING office, ElGenaidi answered the phone, offered a few suggestions to the caller, then hung up, saying, ``Time magazine. They're doing something on Afghan women.''
After nearly a decade of hard work, Jandali is encouraged: ``For a lot of people, when we walk in the room, it's the first time they've met an American Muslim. Just humanizing this very mysterious religion for them, it's a positive thing. It's a pleasant surprise for them that Islam is not just this horrible, violent religion that oppresses people.
``They go, `Wow, I didn't know you guys believe in the prophets. I didn't know you believe that Jesus is a prophet. Wow, I can relate to this. It's not that different from what I believe in my own religion.' ''
SCHOOLS HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT MUSLIMS, AND BAY AREA VOLUNTEERS HAVE ANSWERS
By Richard Scheinin, San Jose Mercury News
Ameena Jandali, co-founder of the Islamic Networks Group, talks with Lorraine al-Rawi
Standing next to an overhead projector, Maha ElGenaidi reviews a list of Islam's basic tenets with 22 students at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. Dressed modestly in ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved blouse, her head covered in accordance with Muslim custom, she tells the world history honors students about salat, the practice of praying five times a day.
``Now this is seven days a week, guys,'' ElGenaidi says. ``Weekends included.''
ElGenaidi, 41, is co-founder of the Islamic Networks Group (ING), which has trained and sent speakers into Bay Area middle and high schools for nearly a decade. The idea is to counter stereotypes by helping social studies teachers supplement and put a human face on their annual, required textbook unit on Islam. Increasingly busy in the post-Sept. 11 era, San Jose-based ING has 15 volunteer speakers who made about 750 classroom presentations about Islam last year. They also spoke at dozens of churches, senior centers, corporations and forums for law enforcement officers and healthcare workers.
ElGenaidi and co-founder Ameena Jandali are ING's engine and soul, running it as a passion without pay and turning it into a national model for teaching about religion in the public square.
In California, it has been almost 15 years since educational reforms set academic instruction about religion firmly into the world history and social sciences curricula, so that children will understand how major faiths have shaped history and civilization. Many non-public schools also observe these guidelines.
``The state made it a requirement to teach about religion,'' ElGenaidi says. ``But they haven't given teachers adequate resources to do that. Nor have they taught teachers how to teach about religion, which makes them reluctant to approach the subject. Some skip it or skim it, because they're afraid about the separation between church and state. What they don't understand is that, while they cannot promote religion, they can teach about it. That's where we come in.''
Since the reforms were made, ING has become a success story: Two Muslim women in Silicon Valley have built a one-of-a-kind educational group, spinning off a network of 18 affiliated, Islamic speakers bureaus in 12 states, from Arizona to Nebraska and New York, as well as two in Canada.
With so many affiliated bureaus cropping up during the past two years, ING has become a prototype: It doesn't proselytize, it describes the faith, and it emphasizes the commonalities among Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Speakers are trained according to secular guidelines, developed by the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom Forum and its First Amendment Center, for teaching religion in schools. Each bureau, though operating independently, receives training from ING and commits itself to the vision of teaching about Islam, never preaching.
``There's a sensitivity issue,'' ElGenaidi explains. ``If these were Muslim kids and you had a Christian or Hindu speaker coming into the classroom, how would Muslim parents want that handled? That's our standard. Faith is between the kids and their parents. I don't give students our office number or e-mail. I don't even give them our Web site. If a kid asks for a copy of the Koran, we always say, `Ask the teacher about it.' ''
Demand for information about Islam is growing nationally, and the new start-up bureaus are struggling to keep up with demand. The Phoenix bureau has half a dozen speakers. The one in San Diego has 10. In Boston, where plans for a formal bureau are on hold, 70 people showed up for training as speakers in October. Ten were selected.
In Minneapolis, bureau director Zafar Siddiqui had eight trained speakers available when Sept. 11 happened. ``We were a nascent group, just getting established,'' he says, ``and suddenly we found ourselves deluged with tons of requests for presentations on Islam from schools, churches, colleges, universities, book clubs, coffee shops, law enforcement agencies and hospitals.'' He now has 25 speakers working for him.
At a time of increasing ethnic and religious diversity in classrooms around the state and nation, demystifying religion is an essential, ElGenaidi figures. ``Because of changing demographics,'' she says, ``people and professional groups are interested in cultural competency.''
And at a time when Islam is held in suspicion by some people -- and when teaching about Islam in schools is being challenged by some conservatives -- ElGenaidi knows what a tightrope she and her colleagues are walking.
``Since Sept. 11, the presentations feel really different to me,'' she says. ``I feel that I have to begin by condemning terrorism, by disassociating myself from Osama bin Laden, and being clear that the hijackers are not martyrs.''
But walking into the classroom at Mitty, she deals with more mundane matters. She tells the students that she is married to a software engineer. She explains that Islam is the source not only of her religious belief, but of her cultural identity, her diet and style of dress. Born in Cairo, she is Egyptian, Arab, and, for more than 30 years, American. ``I'm not a woman living under the Taliban,'' she quips.
But, she adds, ``I wear my Islam. To understand my identity, you have to know about my religious beliefs and practices.''
ElGenaidi is visiting Mitty, a Catholic school, at the invitation of world history teacher Nick Bridger. Every year, in accordance with the California state framework for social studies instruction, Bridger's 10th-graders learn about the history of Islam.
This year's group, which is heavily Roman Catholic, already knows some of the basics: that Islam is a monotheistic faith; that it traces its origins to Abraham; that it holds up Muhammad as its principal prophet, though not its only one.
The students want to know whether Islam has a rite analogous to baptism -- it does not -- and whether Muslims are allowed to marry people of other faiths. Only men are allowed, ElGenaidi says. As ``primary provider'' at home, the man generally exercises more authority. And since Islam recognizes the prophets of Judaism and Christianity, a Muslim man who marries a non-Muslim woman would allow her to practice her faith freely. ``In fact,'' ElGenaidi tells the students, ``he is required to do so by Islamic law.''
Also, Islam is a patrilineal faith: Children follow the religion of the father. Even if he marries outside the religion, the family's Muslim lineage will continue.
ElGenaidi explains that most of the world's more than 1 billion Muslims are Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi -- fewer than one in five is Arab. She shows them a page of Arabic and explains that it is read from right to left, like Hebrew. She adds that Moses is a prophet in the Islamic tradition, as is Jesus, though he is not considered to be the son of God.
Her presentation was ``so good,'' Bridger said later. ``Textbooks are kind of flat, and kids are inundated with media. But hearing this in person, they were able to toss ideas at her and see how she can be a very contemporary person and still practice this ancient religion. She had a good impact.''
ElGenaidi, whose father was a psychiatrist, grew up in a largely secular home, first in Cairo and then on the East Coast. Jandali grew up in an observant Muslim home in Fort Collins, Colo., the daughter of a Pakistani-born college professor and a convert mother.
As young women, both ElGenaidi and Jandali, now 41, were profoundly aware of negative depictions of Muslims in movies, on television, and in other parts of U.S. culture. Jandali remembers a family friend whose daughter complained of inaccuracies about Islam in textbooks: `` `Muslims pray by hitting their heads on the sand,' that kind of thing.''
The friend, it turns out, was Shabbir Mansuri, the founder and director of the Council on Islamic Education in Orange County. In 1989, Mansuri became aware of the new California state framework for teaching about religion in the schools.
That framework is for a social studies curriculum in which students in the seventh grade -- and again in the ninth or 10th grade -- learn about the rise and growth of Islam as a religion and civilization. In the past month, conservative writers have charged that the state framework overplays Islam, and a San Luis Obispo mother filed a complaint, saying that her seventh-grader's textbook was biased toward Islam. The study of Judaism and Christianity is part of the sixth-grade state curriculum and is woven into portions of middle and high school study.
Mansuri came up with the idea of establishing a bureau of Muslim speakers to go into the schools and talk about Islam. Working with the Freedom Forum, which advocates church-state separation as it lobbies for religious freedom, he began to train Stanford students as speakers in California middle and high schools. Always, Mansuri says, the speakers ``were to be there with the permission of the teacher, to make the presentation and leave. They were not there to proselytize or promote a religion.
``I am very, very strict about this,'' Mansuri says. His efforts served as the ``incubator'' for ING, he says. Mansuri continues to mentor ElGenaidi and Jandali and remains involved with the training of speakers and new bureau directors around the country.
``I go in there and make sure,'' he says, ``that we are very, very careful and within the First Amendment principles that give us a place at the table in America. We should never abuse our place at the table by proselytizing.''
It is imperative that speakers -- from any religion -- ``not take advantage of a captive audience in a state-sponsored institution,'' says Marcia Beauchamp, until recently the religious freedom programs coordinator for the First Amendment Center, an independent program of the Freedom Forum. ``I'd love to see other religious communities doing what ING does and training speakers in the same way.''
ElGenaidi and Jandali met a decade ago while raising funds for Bosnian relief. The Muslim community already had its political and civil rights advocacy groups. Education was the missing piece. In 1993, they established Bay Area Media Watch, which attempted to monitor -- and educate -- local media about coverage of Muslims and Islam. After three months, they changed the name to Islamic Networks Group and began to focus on education in schools.
ElGenaidi, who has a background in marketing, sent mailings to well over 1,000 social studies teachers and educators. She had a 17 percent response rate, and ING made 300 school presentations in its first year.
In the mid-'90s, the group put an emphasis on meeting with police. ElGenaidi recalls counseling officers that, when responding to a domestic dispute in a Muslim home, the wife ``may jump if you touch her. She may not want to be alone with you. They may not want you to step inside with your shoes on, so you might want to ask them to step outside. And you need to accept all of this as American. Muslims are now part of the social fabric of the American society that you need to learn about.''
Now, nearly six months after the September attacks, churches have become ``the new door'' through which ING reaches out to non-Muslims, Jandali said. Also, corporations concerned about employee discrimination lawsuits are starting to phone the ING office for advice about cultural sensitivity.
Even with the help of assistants, the two founders work 60-hour weeks, and still haven't been paid a penny -- by choice. However, they would like to see their staff grow.
ING has a $400,000 budget, but has never been able to raise more than $200,000 in a year. It recently hired a managing director, Dian Alyan, a former brand manager for Procter & Gamble, who is looking into foundation grants.
The organization is growing in stature. ElGenaidi and Jandali have become familiar faces on the podium at national Islamic conferences. On a recent afternoon at the ING office, ElGenaidi answered the phone, offered a few suggestions to the caller, then hung up, saying, ``Time magazine. They're doing something on Afghan women.''
After nearly a decade of hard work, Jandali is encouraged: ``For a lot of people, when we walk in the room, it's the first time they've met an American Muslim. Just humanizing this very mysterious religion for them, it's a positive thing. It's a pleasant surprise for them that Islam is not just this horrible, violent religion that oppresses people.
``They go, `Wow, I didn't know you guys believe in the prophets. I didn't know you believe that Jesus is a prophet. Wow, I can relate to this. It's not that different from what I believe in my own religion.' ''
Muslim Women in Spain Denounce Stereotypes
Muslim Women in Spain Denounce Stereotypes
Source: BBC News online, Monday, 4 March, 2002, 03:13 GMT
By the BBC's Flora Botsford in Cordoba, Spain
A world conference on women and Islam has ended in the Spanish city of Cordoba with calls for western society to change its negative image of the Muslim religion.
Delegates said that Islam's image had worsened since 11 September and the US-led war on terrorism but that much of the criticism stemmed from misconceptions.
Earlier, security guards removed a group of Muslim delegates who gathered to pray in the city's former mosque - now a Catholic cathedral.
The conference's final statement was a summary of all the topics the speakers had touched on during two days of meetings in Cordoba, the historic capital of the western Islamic empire.
More than 200 delegates heard that Muslim women faced many difficulties, whether they were immigrants living in a western society or recent converts, mainly because of a high level of ignorance of Islamic customs.
The conference concluded that it was up to western societies to change their views of Islam and to counteract negative images of Islam in the media.
Violence condemned
Delegates said they were tired of being portrayed as timid and downtrodden.
They said the decision to wear a veil or headscarf was often portrayed as their central preoccupation when in reality there were many other subjects of concern to them.
There was strong condemnation of domestic violence and of female genital mutilation and a call for women to fight discrimination in work, pay, health and education, regardless of race or religion.
Controversy came when a group of about 20 delegates, men and women, insisted on praying inside Cordoba's Great Mosque, which was converted to a Catholic cathedral in the 13th century.
As they bowed to Mecca, security guards moved in to break up the gathering, saying it was forbidden for Muslims to pray within the property of the Catholic Church.
Worshippers said they wanted to reclaim a part of their history.
Muslims tried to pray at Cordoba's Great Masjid
Emotional moment
Some said it had been 500 years since such an event had taken place in the Cordoba mosque.
While that may not be true, it was clearly an emotional moment, leaving some of the participants in tears.
Yusuf Fernandez, of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Groups, said it was part of an ongoing campaign to change the status of the former mosque.
Spain is coming to terms with the relatively new phenomenon of large-scale Muslim immigration and many speakers in Cordoba said it was all too common for Spaniards to confuse integration with the need to adopt Spanish customs.
Spain has experienced a large-scale immigration from North Africa
Source: BBC News online, Monday, 4 March, 2002, 03:13 GMT
By the BBC's Flora Botsford in Cordoba, Spain
A world conference on women and Islam has ended in the Spanish city of Cordoba with calls for western society to change its negative image of the Muslim religion.
Delegates said that Islam's image had worsened since 11 September and the US-led war on terrorism but that much of the criticism stemmed from misconceptions.
Earlier, security guards removed a group of Muslim delegates who gathered to pray in the city's former mosque - now a Catholic cathedral.
The conference's final statement was a summary of all the topics the speakers had touched on during two days of meetings in Cordoba, the historic capital of the western Islamic empire.
More than 200 delegates heard that Muslim women faced many difficulties, whether they were immigrants living in a western society or recent converts, mainly because of a high level of ignorance of Islamic customs.
The conference concluded that it was up to western societies to change their views of Islam and to counteract negative images of Islam in the media.
Violence condemned
Delegates said they were tired of being portrayed as timid and downtrodden.
They said the decision to wear a veil or headscarf was often portrayed as their central preoccupation when in reality there were many other subjects of concern to them.
There was strong condemnation of domestic violence and of female genital mutilation and a call for women to fight discrimination in work, pay, health and education, regardless of race or religion.
Controversy came when a group of about 20 delegates, men and women, insisted on praying inside Cordoba's Great Mosque, which was converted to a Catholic cathedral in the 13th century.
As they bowed to Mecca, security guards moved in to break up the gathering, saying it was forbidden for Muslims to pray within the property of the Catholic Church.
Worshippers said they wanted to reclaim a part of their history.
Muslims tried to pray at Cordoba's Great Masjid
Emotional moment
Some said it had been 500 years since such an event had taken place in the Cordoba mosque.
While that may not be true, it was clearly an emotional moment, leaving some of the participants in tears.
Yusuf Fernandez, of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Groups, said it was part of an ongoing campaign to change the status of the former mosque.
Spain is coming to terms with the relatively new phenomenon of large-scale Muslim immigration and many speakers in Cordoba said it was all too common for Spaniards to confuse integration with the need to adopt Spanish customs.
Spain has experienced a large-scale immigration from North Africa
A World Where Womanhood Reigns Supreme
A World Where Womanhood Reigns Supreme
Source: Article by Mary Walker, a non-muslim production coordinator on the BBC 2 series "Living Islam"
When I joined the team of "Living Islam" (the BBC series) two years ago, my perception of Islam was dominated by prejudice and ignorance, and I found its treatment of women abhorrent. To me the veil symbolised the oppression of women, making them invisible, anonymous and voiceless, and the cause of this oppression lay in the will to perpetuate the family and maintain a patriarchal framework - the very basis of an Islamic society. I thought women were entirely submerged by divine justification of their role as wife and mother.
"Living Islam" was filmed over two years in nineteen different countries and on location I was a lone female in an otherwise male team. I was aware that I especially should behave appropriately. In my mind, women were to be neither seen nor heard. My first trip took me to Mali - to an untypical Muslim community in the bush. Making sure to cover every bit of naked flesh while the men wandered around in short sleeves, I wondered what rooms I was permitted to enter and who I was permitted to talk to. But I also wondered whether my new-found meekness was not in part a reaction to the overpowering atmosphere of the patriarchal society I found myself in. Was this how Muslim women felt - resignation in the face of impossible odds?
The first Muslim woman I met in Mali was far removed from my preconception about the Muslim female. She was the wife of a Shaikh dedicated to converting pagan villagers to Islam. A sophisticated, well-educated woman, previously married to a diplomat, she had renounced a Western lifestyle for a life in purdah. In my eyes she had sentenced herself to life imprisonment.
But here was no prisoner, no poor downtrodden slave. A sharp, intelligent and influential woman stood before me, clearly the one who "wore the trousers" round here. Her seclusion gave her a status of honour and allowed her to exercise control from behind closed doors without confrontation. She was the bargainer, the head of the household, and the manager of her husband's affairs and schedule. The emancipated woman in the West faces the conflict between confirmation of her femininity and the privileges that she associates with it, and repudiation of the confines of her female role and all the limitations that men want her to assume. From where I stood, this woman had transformed those limitations into privileges.
On my next trip to northern Nigeria I met two more women who would alter my views even further. These were two women from the household of Shaikh Zakzaky, a fervent preacher of Jihad who urges his supporters to follow the example of Iran and replace the imperialistic western regime with an Islamic state. Zeenah Ibraheem, Zakzaky's wife and Fatima Yunus, her friend, had agreed to be interviewed about the role of women in Islam. They were in purdah and would only speak to another woman. The producer asked me to interview them. I was nervous apart from the fact that I had never interviewed anyone before. I was worried that my feminist sympathies would antagonise the women. But it was precisely these sympathies that Zeenah and Fatima themselves were questioning. Once again, the women were educated and articulate. And once again they had rejected the Western lifestyle which I considered so superior to Islam in its treatment of women. As I took my seat on a carpet in the courtyard, the invisible boundary between men and women was a welcome partition, and within this boundary womanhood reigned supreme. This was a sharp contrast with the feelings from the previous days in locations where my presence had been acceptable only as an "honorary man".
We had been filming the medieval theatrics of the 'Salla' celebrations that marked the end of Ramadhan. Men, men, men everywhere: 500,000 men gathered for prayer on the morning of the Salla, men pouring into the inner courtyard of the Emirof Kano's inner courtyard to pay homage - I was grateful to be allowed to witness these events but at what price? The complete annihilation of my female identity? But now I was taking the reins because of my sex. No more the feeling of inferiority and exclusion, as a novice in things Islamic surrounded by a team of experts, as a woman in a patriarchal society. Now the men were excluded. Apart from the cameraman and sound recordist, they were encouraged to stand well back. The cameraman covered his head and the camera with a black cloth - his very own veil. I was now in a world where the men had no voice. The women talked and in their answers I saw the seeds of my own re-evaluations. They argued that the veil signified their rejection of an unacceptable system of values which debased women while Islam elevated women to a position of honour and respect. "It is not liberation where you say women should go naked. It is just oppression, because men want to see them naked." Just as to us the veil represents Muslim oppression, to them miniskirts and plunging necklines represent oppression. They said that men are cheating women in the West. They let us believe we're liberated but enslave us to the male gaze. However much I insist on the right to choose what I wear, I cannot deny that the choice is often dictated by what will make my body more attractive to men. Women cannot separate their identity from their appearance and so we remain trapped in the traditional feminine world, where the rules are written by men.
By choosing to wear the veil, these women were making a conscious decision to define their role in society and their relationship with men. That relationship appeared to be based more on exchange and mutual respect (a respect that was often lacking in the personal relationships I saw in the West), than the master/servant scenario I had anticipated. The Veil to them signified visual confirmation of their religious commitment, in which men and women were united, and for Zeenah and Fatima an even stronger commitment to a political ideal. So were my notions of oppression in the form of the veil disqualified? If my definition of equality was free will then I could no longer define that oppression as a symptom of Islam. The women had all exercised their right to choose. To some extent, they were freer than me - I had less control over my destiny. I could no longer point at them and say they were oppressed and I was not. My life was influenced by male approval as theirs - but the element of choice had been taken out of mine. their situations and their arguments had, after all, served to highlight shortcomings in my view of my own liberty.
Source: Article by Mary Walker, a non-muslim production coordinator on the BBC 2 series "Living Islam"
When I joined the team of "Living Islam" (the BBC series) two years ago, my perception of Islam was dominated by prejudice and ignorance, and I found its treatment of women abhorrent. To me the veil symbolised the oppression of women, making them invisible, anonymous and voiceless, and the cause of this oppression lay in the will to perpetuate the family and maintain a patriarchal framework - the very basis of an Islamic society. I thought women were entirely submerged by divine justification of their role as wife and mother.
"Living Islam" was filmed over two years in nineteen different countries and on location I was a lone female in an otherwise male team. I was aware that I especially should behave appropriately. In my mind, women were to be neither seen nor heard. My first trip took me to Mali - to an untypical Muslim community in the bush. Making sure to cover every bit of naked flesh while the men wandered around in short sleeves, I wondered what rooms I was permitted to enter and who I was permitted to talk to. But I also wondered whether my new-found meekness was not in part a reaction to the overpowering atmosphere of the patriarchal society I found myself in. Was this how Muslim women felt - resignation in the face of impossible odds?
The first Muslim woman I met in Mali was far removed from my preconception about the Muslim female. She was the wife of a Shaikh dedicated to converting pagan villagers to Islam. A sophisticated, well-educated woman, previously married to a diplomat, she had renounced a Western lifestyle for a life in purdah. In my eyes she had sentenced herself to life imprisonment.
But here was no prisoner, no poor downtrodden slave. A sharp, intelligent and influential woman stood before me, clearly the one who "wore the trousers" round here. Her seclusion gave her a status of honour and allowed her to exercise control from behind closed doors without confrontation. She was the bargainer, the head of the household, and the manager of her husband's affairs and schedule. The emancipated woman in the West faces the conflict between confirmation of her femininity and the privileges that she associates with it, and repudiation of the confines of her female role and all the limitations that men want her to assume. From where I stood, this woman had transformed those limitations into privileges.
On my next trip to northern Nigeria I met two more women who would alter my views even further. These were two women from the household of Shaikh Zakzaky, a fervent preacher of Jihad who urges his supporters to follow the example of Iran and replace the imperialistic western regime with an Islamic state. Zeenah Ibraheem, Zakzaky's wife and Fatima Yunus, her friend, had agreed to be interviewed about the role of women in Islam. They were in purdah and would only speak to another woman. The producer asked me to interview them. I was nervous apart from the fact that I had never interviewed anyone before. I was worried that my feminist sympathies would antagonise the women. But it was precisely these sympathies that Zeenah and Fatima themselves were questioning. Once again, the women were educated and articulate. And once again they had rejected the Western lifestyle which I considered so superior to Islam in its treatment of women. As I took my seat on a carpet in the courtyard, the invisible boundary between men and women was a welcome partition, and within this boundary womanhood reigned supreme. This was a sharp contrast with the feelings from the previous days in locations where my presence had been acceptable only as an "honorary man".
We had been filming the medieval theatrics of the 'Salla' celebrations that marked the end of Ramadhan. Men, men, men everywhere: 500,000 men gathered for prayer on the morning of the Salla, men pouring into the inner courtyard of the Emirof Kano's inner courtyard to pay homage - I was grateful to be allowed to witness these events but at what price? The complete annihilation of my female identity? But now I was taking the reins because of my sex. No more the feeling of inferiority and exclusion, as a novice in things Islamic surrounded by a team of experts, as a woman in a patriarchal society. Now the men were excluded. Apart from the cameraman and sound recordist, they were encouraged to stand well back. The cameraman covered his head and the camera with a black cloth - his very own veil. I was now in a world where the men had no voice. The women talked and in their answers I saw the seeds of my own re-evaluations. They argued that the veil signified their rejection of an unacceptable system of values which debased women while Islam elevated women to a position of honour and respect. "It is not liberation where you say women should go naked. It is just oppression, because men want to see them naked." Just as to us the veil represents Muslim oppression, to them miniskirts and plunging necklines represent oppression. They said that men are cheating women in the West. They let us believe we're liberated but enslave us to the male gaze. However much I insist on the right to choose what I wear, I cannot deny that the choice is often dictated by what will make my body more attractive to men. Women cannot separate their identity from their appearance and so we remain trapped in the traditional feminine world, where the rules are written by men.
By choosing to wear the veil, these women were making a conscious decision to define their role in society and their relationship with men. That relationship appeared to be based more on exchange and mutual respect (a respect that was often lacking in the personal relationships I saw in the West), than the master/servant scenario I had anticipated. The Veil to them signified visual confirmation of their religious commitment, in which men and women were united, and for Zeenah and Fatima an even stronger commitment to a political ideal. So were my notions of oppression in the form of the veil disqualified? If my definition of equality was free will then I could no longer define that oppression as a symptom of Islam. The women had all exercised their right to choose. To some extent, they were freer than me - I had less control over my destiny. I could no longer point at them and say they were oppressed and I was not. My life was influenced by male approval as theirs - but the element of choice had been taken out of mine. their situations and their arguments had, after all, served to highlight shortcomings in my view of my own liberty.
Muslim Women Say They're Equal in Islam
Muslim Women Say They're Equal in Islam
By Barbara Rodgers
Source: KPIX Channel 5 News, San Francisco
February 12, 2002
Muslim girls having lunch at school.
People Make Assumptions
The September 11th attacks have prompted many Americans to take a new look at Islam -- one of the fastest-growing religions in the U.S.
Muslim women, who wear a veil or a headscarf, are becoming a much more common sight, especially in the Bay Area.
If it were not for the hijab, or headscarf, people would probably make no assumptions about Ameena Jandali. But because of the way she dresses, they do.
"Just last week I was dropping someone off at the airport," she said. "I was waiting in the back seat because my baby was crying. You know the airports now -- you're not supposed to stay too long. So the security guard came and said, 'You really need to move,' and said, 'Can you drive?' I said, 'Yeah, I'm 40 years old and I can drive.'"
Jandali was born to Muslim parents in Colorado. She has a college degree, has been married for 23 years, and is the mother of five children. She was in high school when she decided to become a practicing Muslim.
"I made that conscious choice," she said. "I saw the benefits of practicing Islam. I saw the truth of Islam."
Christy Chase, an IT manager at the NASA-Ames Research Center in Mountain View, was not born a Muslim. She converted 19 years ago.
"As a Christian, I was always waiting to be saved," she said. "I heard these wonderful stories about the sunlight coming through the window. I kind of waited for my moment to have that great moment of being saved, and knowing I found the truth, and it wasn't anything that exciting."
Chase married an immigrant from Egypt with whom she has seven children -- six of them girls -- all being raised as Muslims.
Focusing on School
At the age of puberty, Muslim girls are required to begin covering their heads in public. It's a concept that for many non-Muslim women appears to fly in the face of women's equality. But Muslim women disagree. Jandali says the hijab is "for the purpose of raising a woman above her sexuality -- so that she is not viewed or judged or related to based on the way she looks -- and to get away from some of the tendencies in society to misuse women's bodies, to abuse women's bodies."
Muslims are not allowed to drink, smoke, or date casually. How does that sit with Chase's 16-year-old daughter?
"You know, I really don't miss out on dating. I don't date," she said. "I get a lot of 'Don't you really want to date?' No, from watching you, your boyfriend, not really. Men take too much time. I'm focusing on school."
Most teenage boys and girls do plan to marry someday, but the Muslim way of choosing a mate is generally motivated more by personal histories than hormones.
"They're starting the relationship with the basis of marriage in mind," Chase said. "Rather than, 'Let's date and have a good time and see where this goes,' the idea is you see if your goals are aligned, and then you find out if you're compatible, and attracted to each other, rather than the opposite."
And if you think a modestly-dressed Muslim woman wouldn't be interested in a red party dress, then you'd be wrong.
"Ideally, Islamicly, you're home, you're dressed nice. You do your hair, even makeup," Chase said.
Culture has a Strong Hold
Clearly, many American Muslim women feel they have plenty of freedom and independence, but are well aware that's not the case for Muslim women everywhere.
"In many of the Muslim countries around the world, the culture has a strong hold on the people," Jandali said. "Islam should not be forced down people's throat. Something as minor as showing a little bit of flesh should not be a reason for some of the reported abuses."
Muslim men are able to marry up to four wives. But the Qur'an says that the man must treat each wife fairly, and that means financially and emotionally. Because it is illegal in the U.S. to have more than one wife, many American Muslim scholars say a Muslim man here cannot marry more than one woman, because the other women would not be treated fairly under American law.
Overall, Muslim women say theirs is a religion that respects women and elevates them to a special place. In Islam, they say, they are equal to men, but different from them.
By Barbara Rodgers
Source: KPIX Channel 5 News, San Francisco
February 12, 2002
Muslim girls having lunch at school.
People Make Assumptions
The September 11th attacks have prompted many Americans to take a new look at Islam -- one of the fastest-growing religions in the U.S.
Muslim women, who wear a veil or a headscarf, are becoming a much more common sight, especially in the Bay Area.
If it were not for the hijab, or headscarf, people would probably make no assumptions about Ameena Jandali. But because of the way she dresses, they do.
"Just last week I was dropping someone off at the airport," she said. "I was waiting in the back seat because my baby was crying. You know the airports now -- you're not supposed to stay too long. So the security guard came and said, 'You really need to move,' and said, 'Can you drive?' I said, 'Yeah, I'm 40 years old and I can drive.'"
Jandali was born to Muslim parents in Colorado. She has a college degree, has been married for 23 years, and is the mother of five children. She was in high school when she decided to become a practicing Muslim.
"I made that conscious choice," she said. "I saw the benefits of practicing Islam. I saw the truth of Islam."
Christy Chase, an IT manager at the NASA-Ames Research Center in Mountain View, was not born a Muslim. She converted 19 years ago.
"As a Christian, I was always waiting to be saved," she said. "I heard these wonderful stories about the sunlight coming through the window. I kind of waited for my moment to have that great moment of being saved, and knowing I found the truth, and it wasn't anything that exciting."
Chase married an immigrant from Egypt with whom she has seven children -- six of them girls -- all being raised as Muslims.
Focusing on School
At the age of puberty, Muslim girls are required to begin covering their heads in public. It's a concept that for many non-Muslim women appears to fly in the face of women's equality. But Muslim women disagree. Jandali says the hijab is "for the purpose of raising a woman above her sexuality -- so that she is not viewed or judged or related to based on the way she looks -- and to get away from some of the tendencies in society to misuse women's bodies, to abuse women's bodies."
Muslims are not allowed to drink, smoke, or date casually. How does that sit with Chase's 16-year-old daughter?
"You know, I really don't miss out on dating. I don't date," she said. "I get a lot of 'Don't you really want to date?' No, from watching you, your boyfriend, not really. Men take too much time. I'm focusing on school."
Most teenage boys and girls do plan to marry someday, but the Muslim way of choosing a mate is generally motivated more by personal histories than hormones.
"They're starting the relationship with the basis of marriage in mind," Chase said. "Rather than, 'Let's date and have a good time and see where this goes,' the idea is you see if your goals are aligned, and then you find out if you're compatible, and attracted to each other, rather than the opposite."
And if you think a modestly-dressed Muslim woman wouldn't be interested in a red party dress, then you'd be wrong.
"Ideally, Islamicly, you're home, you're dressed nice. You do your hair, even makeup," Chase said.
Culture has a Strong Hold
Clearly, many American Muslim women feel they have plenty of freedom and independence, but are well aware that's not the case for Muslim women everywhere.
"In many of the Muslim countries around the world, the culture has a strong hold on the people," Jandali said. "Islam should not be forced down people's throat. Something as minor as showing a little bit of flesh should not be a reason for some of the reported abuses."
Muslim men are able to marry up to four wives. But the Qur'an says that the man must treat each wife fairly, and that means financially and emotionally. Because it is illegal in the U.S. to have more than one wife, many American Muslim scholars say a Muslim man here cannot marry more than one woman, because the other women would not be treated fairly under American law.
Overall, Muslim women say theirs is a religion that respects women and elevates them to a special place. In Islam, they say, they are equal to men, but different from them.
Islam's Female Converts
Islam's Female Converts
By Priya Malhotra
Reprinted from Newsday.com
February 16, 2002
Amina Mohammed and Sunni Rumsey Amatullah exchange phone numbers Sunday after prayers. (Newsday/Bill Davis)
‘ALLAHU AKBAR [God is great], Allahu akbar!” called Muhammad Hannini as about 15 worshipers gathered Sunday in a mosque in the basement of a home in Richmond Hill, Queens. Instantly, they knelt and touched their heads to the floor, a gesture symbolizing submission to God in Islam.
The eight women bent in prayer a few feet behind the men were dressed in scarves and long dresses or ankle-length skirts. "You should see my humanity, my compassion, my devotion to God coming through the surface, not my body,” said Sunni Rumsey Amatullah, who became Muslim a quarter century ago.
The women say they consider the veil and modest dress symbols not of oppression but of liberation. They say the emphasis on the female body in the Western world, with all its manifestations in popular culture, has led to the sexual objectification of women. And, despite their own often problematic relationships with men, they say their religion treats each gender equally, though not identically.
Like Amatullah -- who was born Cheryl Rumsey in Jamaica, Queens, and raised Episcopalian -- these women are among the estimated 20,000 Americans a year who since the mid-'90s have adopted Islam, a religion that has been receiving much attention since the Sept.11 terrorist attacks.
Despite the persistent image of the oppressed Muslim woman, about 7,000 of those converts each year are women, according to the report of a study led by Ihsan Bagby, a professor of international studies at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. The study was financed in part by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington. About 14,000 of the total number of converts in 2000, the report found, were African-American, 4,000 were white and 1,200 were of Hispanic descent. (Members of the Nation of Islam were not included in the study.)
What is the religion's draw for women? "The .tightly structured way of life, the regular set of responsibilities, where you know what you believe and you know what you do, attracts some women,” said Jane I. Smith, professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and author of "Islam in America” (Columbia University Press).
With laws for almost every aspect of life, Islam represents a faith-based order that women may see as crucial to creating healthy families and communities, and correcting the damage done by the popular secular humanism of the past 30 or so years, several experts said. In addition, women from broken homes may be especially attracted to the religion because of the value it places on family, said Marcia Herman.sen, a professor of Islamic studies at Loyola Univer.sity in Chicago and an American who also converted to Islam.
Next Saturday, the women, along with Muslims around the world, will celebrate the festival of Eid ul-Adha marking the end of hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. They "don't see the structures as repressive,” Hermansen said. "They see them as comforting and supportive.”
Choosing Islam can also be a type of "cultural critique” of Western materialism, she said. "Islam represents the beautiful, traditional, grounded and .authentic.”
"It is Allah talking to you directly,” said Amatullah, 50, the director of an HIV prevention program at Iris House, a health-care organization in Harlem. She said she converted after leading a wildly hedonistic lifestyle for several years. "It's a spiritual awakening. What happens is you're in a fog and you don't know you are in a fog, and when it clears up you say, ‘Hey, I thought it was clear back there,'” she said. "My friend's husband gave me the Quran in my early 20s, because he thought I was too wild.”
At first, Amatullah said, she paid little attention, but she was profoundly affected when she .started delving into the book. Still, it took about five years and a great deal of contemplation, she said, before she became truly interested in Islam and came to believe the Quran was the divine truth. She said she also was impressed by the rights women had under Islam in .seventh-century Arabia, a time when women in most other cultures had virtually no power over their lives.
"Islamic law embodies a number of Quranic reforms that significantly enhanced the status of women,” according to John Esposito, a professor and director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University and author of "Islam: The Straight Path” (Oxford University Press). "Contrary to pre-Islamic Arab customs, the Quran recognized a woman's right to contract her own marriage.
"In addition, she, not her father or male relatives, as had been the custom, was to receive the dowry from her husband. She became a party to the contract rather than an object for sale,” Esposito wrote. "The right to keep and maintain her dowry was a source of self-esteem and wealth in an otherwise male-dominated society. Women's right to own and manage their own property was further enhanced and acknowledged by Quranic verses of inheritance which granted inheritance rights to wives, daughters, sisters and grandmothers of the deceased in a patriarchal society where all rights were tradition.ally vested solely in male heirs. Similar legal rights would not occur in the West until the 19th century.”
Esther Bourne, a 46-year-old accountant in Manhattan, was raised Catholic by her American mother after her British father died when she was 6. Spiritually inclined from a young age, she said she first read the Quran in her mid-20s, because her former husband, a Muslim, owned a copy. "I would go in and out of it,” she said.
By her mid-30s, after ending an abusive relationship and enduring the tragic death of a man she loved dearly, Bourne said she began a spiritual quest that included classes on Islam at a mosque on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "When the teachers would explain, my heart just accepted it,” she said. "The heart believed it.”
In 1992, at the age of 36, Bourne took her sha.hada, the profession of faith that is the first of the five pillars of Islam. "I don't have panic anymore, and if some misfortune happens, I just accept the decree from Allah,” Bourne said.
"You slowly adjust yourself to an Islamic way of life, thinking about God, doing good deeds,” Amatullah said. "Some days I do it better than others.”
Amina Mohammed, a 58-year-old dental assistant at the Veterans Administration hospital in St. Albans, has been a Muslim for more than 20 years. She was born Doris Gregory, the daughter of an American Indian .mother and a .Jamaican father, and was raised as a .Lutheran. She said she stopped going to church when she was 16.
Two years later, she began an active spiritual quest by reading about Buddhism, Hinduism and American Indian religions, but, she said, none of them was what she was looking for -- a way to pray to one God in one form. "I was so disappointed,” she said. "I knew that there was a correct religion, but I just hadn't found it. But I believed in God -- I was no atheist.”
In her mid-30s, after two failed marriages and two daughters -- who are now 27 and 33 -- she said she felt a desperate need for spiritual direction and coincidentally was exposed for the first time to Islam. "This is what I had always felt in my heart,” she said.
For about three years she studied the religion; she began to cut down on dating and to cover her head occasionally. Then she went to a mosque in Manhattan and "saw women from different countries and from different races praying together,” she said. "I thought this is how it should be on earth.”
Amatullah, who lives in St. Albans, has been married and divorced three times since she converted to Islam. Her first husband was from Sudan, the second was from Egypt and the third was Italian-American; all were Muslim. Allah gives both men and women the right to divorce, she said, and she ini.tiated each split.
Although the Quran does not prohibit women from gaining an education or having a career, the converts said, it is a woman's primary responsibility to take care of her children.
"Look at the Western society of today with the breakdown of family, the mother being out of the home and the children being alone,” said Bourne, who is single and has a 28-year-old son. "I had problems because I practically had to raise my son alone.”
Their faith, the three converts said, has not been shaken by the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by men who said they were acting as Muslims. The distortion of Islam by extremists and terrorists, the women stressed, should not lead to the condemnation of a great religion.
"To kill innocent lives,” Amatullah said, "is anti- Islamic.”
By Priya Malhotra
Reprinted from Newsday.com
February 16, 2002
Amina Mohammed and Sunni Rumsey Amatullah exchange phone numbers Sunday after prayers. (Newsday/Bill Davis)
‘ALLAHU AKBAR [God is great], Allahu akbar!” called Muhammad Hannini as about 15 worshipers gathered Sunday in a mosque in the basement of a home in Richmond Hill, Queens. Instantly, they knelt and touched their heads to the floor, a gesture symbolizing submission to God in Islam.
The eight women bent in prayer a few feet behind the men were dressed in scarves and long dresses or ankle-length skirts. "You should see my humanity, my compassion, my devotion to God coming through the surface, not my body,” said Sunni Rumsey Amatullah, who became Muslim a quarter century ago.
The women say they consider the veil and modest dress symbols not of oppression but of liberation. They say the emphasis on the female body in the Western world, with all its manifestations in popular culture, has led to the sexual objectification of women. And, despite their own often problematic relationships with men, they say their religion treats each gender equally, though not identically.
Like Amatullah -- who was born Cheryl Rumsey in Jamaica, Queens, and raised Episcopalian -- these women are among the estimated 20,000 Americans a year who since the mid-'90s have adopted Islam, a religion that has been receiving much attention since the Sept.11 terrorist attacks.
Despite the persistent image of the oppressed Muslim woman, about 7,000 of those converts each year are women, according to the report of a study led by Ihsan Bagby, a professor of international studies at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. The study was financed in part by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington. About 14,000 of the total number of converts in 2000, the report found, were African-American, 4,000 were white and 1,200 were of Hispanic descent. (Members of the Nation of Islam were not included in the study.)
What is the religion's draw for women? "The .tightly structured way of life, the regular set of responsibilities, where you know what you believe and you know what you do, attracts some women,” said Jane I. Smith, professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and author of "Islam in America” (Columbia University Press).
With laws for almost every aspect of life, Islam represents a faith-based order that women may see as crucial to creating healthy families and communities, and correcting the damage done by the popular secular humanism of the past 30 or so years, several experts said. In addition, women from broken homes may be especially attracted to the religion because of the value it places on family, said Marcia Herman.sen, a professor of Islamic studies at Loyola Univer.sity in Chicago and an American who also converted to Islam.
Next Saturday, the women, along with Muslims around the world, will celebrate the festival of Eid ul-Adha marking the end of hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. They "don't see the structures as repressive,” Hermansen said. "They see them as comforting and supportive.”
Choosing Islam can also be a type of "cultural critique” of Western materialism, she said. "Islam represents the beautiful, traditional, grounded and .authentic.”
"It is Allah talking to you directly,” said Amatullah, 50, the director of an HIV prevention program at Iris House, a health-care organization in Harlem. She said she converted after leading a wildly hedonistic lifestyle for several years. "It's a spiritual awakening. What happens is you're in a fog and you don't know you are in a fog, and when it clears up you say, ‘Hey, I thought it was clear back there,'” she said. "My friend's husband gave me the Quran in my early 20s, because he thought I was too wild.”
At first, Amatullah said, she paid little attention, but she was profoundly affected when she .started delving into the book. Still, it took about five years and a great deal of contemplation, she said, before she became truly interested in Islam and came to believe the Quran was the divine truth. She said she also was impressed by the rights women had under Islam in .seventh-century Arabia, a time when women in most other cultures had virtually no power over their lives.
"Islamic law embodies a number of Quranic reforms that significantly enhanced the status of women,” according to John Esposito, a professor and director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University and author of "Islam: The Straight Path” (Oxford University Press). "Contrary to pre-Islamic Arab customs, the Quran recognized a woman's right to contract her own marriage.
"In addition, she, not her father or male relatives, as had been the custom, was to receive the dowry from her husband. She became a party to the contract rather than an object for sale,” Esposito wrote. "The right to keep and maintain her dowry was a source of self-esteem and wealth in an otherwise male-dominated society. Women's right to own and manage their own property was further enhanced and acknowledged by Quranic verses of inheritance which granted inheritance rights to wives, daughters, sisters and grandmothers of the deceased in a patriarchal society where all rights were tradition.ally vested solely in male heirs. Similar legal rights would not occur in the West until the 19th century.”
Esther Bourne, a 46-year-old accountant in Manhattan, was raised Catholic by her American mother after her British father died when she was 6. Spiritually inclined from a young age, she said she first read the Quran in her mid-20s, because her former husband, a Muslim, owned a copy. "I would go in and out of it,” she said.
By her mid-30s, after ending an abusive relationship and enduring the tragic death of a man she loved dearly, Bourne said she began a spiritual quest that included classes on Islam at a mosque on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "When the teachers would explain, my heart just accepted it,” she said. "The heart believed it.”
In 1992, at the age of 36, Bourne took her sha.hada, the profession of faith that is the first of the five pillars of Islam. "I don't have panic anymore, and if some misfortune happens, I just accept the decree from Allah,” Bourne said.
"You slowly adjust yourself to an Islamic way of life, thinking about God, doing good deeds,” Amatullah said. "Some days I do it better than others.”
Amina Mohammed, a 58-year-old dental assistant at the Veterans Administration hospital in St. Albans, has been a Muslim for more than 20 years. She was born Doris Gregory, the daughter of an American Indian .mother and a .Jamaican father, and was raised as a .Lutheran. She said she stopped going to church when she was 16.
Two years later, she began an active spiritual quest by reading about Buddhism, Hinduism and American Indian religions, but, she said, none of them was what she was looking for -- a way to pray to one God in one form. "I was so disappointed,” she said. "I knew that there was a correct religion, but I just hadn't found it. But I believed in God -- I was no atheist.”
In her mid-30s, after two failed marriages and two daughters -- who are now 27 and 33 -- she said she felt a desperate need for spiritual direction and coincidentally was exposed for the first time to Islam. "This is what I had always felt in my heart,” she said.
For about three years she studied the religion; she began to cut down on dating and to cover her head occasionally. Then she went to a mosque in Manhattan and "saw women from different countries and from different races praying together,” she said. "I thought this is how it should be on earth.”
Amatullah, who lives in St. Albans, has been married and divorced three times since she converted to Islam. Her first husband was from Sudan, the second was from Egypt and the third was Italian-American; all were Muslim. Allah gives both men and women the right to divorce, she said, and she ini.tiated each split.
Although the Quran does not prohibit women from gaining an education or having a career, the converts said, it is a woman's primary responsibility to take care of her children.
"Look at the Western society of today with the breakdown of family, the mother being out of the home and the children being alone,” said Bourne, who is single and has a 28-year-old son. "I had problems because I practically had to raise my son alone.”
Their faith, the three converts said, has not been shaken by the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by men who said they were acting as Muslims. The distortion of Islam by extremists and terrorists, the women stressed, should not lead to the condemnation of a great religion.
"To kill innocent lives,” Amatullah said, "is anti- Islamic.”
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