OnIslam & News Agencies, 29 March 2013
 
TIJUANA, Mexico — Gathering from different countries at the sleepy beach of Tijuana, a growing number of the city’s population are becoming Muslims, finding Islamic values close to the country’s Catholic traditions.

“The Catholic emphasis on family and family values meshes a lot with Islam,” Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, a professor of Islamic and religious studies at San Diego State University, told KPBS network on Thursday, March 28.

“The difference, however, is that whereas many Catholics see the Roman Catholic values being eroded in the United States in particular, a lot of them are seeing in Islam a difference in that there are more Muslims trying to stick to the traditional Islamic values than leave them aside,” Mohammed added.

Though Tijuana was not the first choice for many immigrants, finding Islam was the greatest gift they have ever got.

Enjoying a welcoming atmosphere from Tijuana people, the Muslim population was growing steadily in the small city, with people coming from India, Costa Rica, the Middle East, Mexico and the United States.

At the city, Muslims have established a new Masjid al-Islam mosque to give the estimated 200 practicing Muslims in Baja California a place to worship.

This mosque is one of two new Islamic centers within a mile of one another, both of which have opened within the past three years.

“I never thought ‘I’m gonna live in Mexico,’ honestly,” Muhanna Jamaleddin, the imam (spiritual leader) and founder of Masjid al-Islam, said.

“So all these reasons come from God, and we thank Allah.”

According to WhyIslam’s 2012 annual report, 19 percent of the some 3,000 converts it assisted in 2011 were Latinos, and more than half of those (55 percent) were women.

The 2011 US Mosque Survey, which interviewed leaders at 524 mosques across the country, found the number of new female converts to Islam had increased 8 percent since 2000.

Of that number, Latinos accounted for 12 percent of all new converts in the United States in 2011.

Life Changing

Though Tijuana was not the first choice for many immigrants, finding Islam was the greatest gift they have ever got.

“It changed my life, you know,” Amir Carr, a native Californian, and a convert to Islam, told Fronteras Desk.
Carr, a tall man wearing glasses and a taqiyyah, or prayer cap, sits in a wheelchair across from his wife, Na’eema, who is wearing a loose blouse and a head scarf.

“I was a — a street kid, you know. I got put in this wheelchair for hanging out and hanging out with gangs and stuff like this, and I got shot.

When he got out of prison in California, his wife Na’eema, a Mexican national, was deported.

“They pulled us over for speeding, and they deported her within about an hour. It was so quick that you just couldn’t even believe it,” Carr says, shaking his head.

Coming to live in Playas, Tijuana, he was introduced for the first time to Islam, which changed his life for good.

“And for the first time I sat down in my life and listened, and when I listened to Islam, it actually changed my life,” Carr said.

Same as Carr, the life of Samuel Cortes, another convert, changed when he came to live in the sleepy beach city of Tijuana.

Growing up Glendale, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Cortes was a longtime gang member who was deported after spending time in prison for aggravated assault.

“I started gangbanging when I was 9. I stopped when I was 21. When I decided to put that aside, if it wasn’t other gang member from other neighborhoods who were trying to kill me, it was my own neighborhood that was trying to come after me because I wanted to change my life,” Cortes said.

Though Tijuana was not his first choice, he is happy with the turn his life has taken after getting married and receiving his first baby daughter.

“I left everything back there [in the United States] and that’s fine. I mean, hopefully, one day I’ll be able to get my visa and go back forth and just visit my family,” he said.

“But for the time being, I’m just mostly concentrated on my daughter, Islam, and work.”

Coming to Tijuana either by choice or no, many Muslims ended up staying in Mexico rather than trying to get back into the United States.

“When we open a masjid here they don’t even blink,” Carr said.

They look with curiosity and they ask, but for sure they don’t march. I mean, for sure nothing negative comes out of them.

“They just accept it as they would accept anybody else.”

Article Courtesy: OnIslam

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Trend for Rhinoplasty or “nose job” is on the rise in the entire world; however, its popularity in Iran is unmatched. According to a report by Etemad, Iran has the highest number of nose surgeries in the world, with as many as 200, 000 Iranians, mostly women opting for cosmetic surgery, to acquire pert upturned noses. Another study, conducted by Rhinology research society in Iran in cooperation with John Hopkins University, shows the rate of nose jobs per capita in Iran as seven times higher than that in USA.

Reasons cited by Iranians for such a trend are manifold; however, the basic motive behind all the reasons appears to be the human yearning for attention. In the hopes of attaining this dream, even at this very moment, thousands of Iranians are undergoing painful and expensive nip-tuck procedure.

Reza, who is a psychiatrist and family counselor, says these surgeries are a result of the unhealthy image people have of themselves with many thinking they are very ugly.

Some might say, this obsession with perfecting their facial beauty appears to be the case of Iranian ideals backfiring. All the times, in pursuance of Islamic ideals Iranian women are under compulsion to wear “hijab” (gown, veil or shawl) that covers their body from head to toe leaving the face as the only visible asset. Therefore, women resort to cosmetic surgery to best showcase their faces, since hijab won’t let them seek out attention with a beautiful figure, or flowing tresses. From their standpoint, they are just making use of a facility that progress in science and technology has availed them.

All this rush for nose jobs makes one think it must be very cheap, which is true if you compare costs of surgery in Iran to those incurred elsewhere. However they are exorbitant if you consider Iranian economy. At present cost of an average nose surgery in Iran is 50-100m Iranian rials which is about £1,100-5,000. Iranians are, however, so caught up in their quest for facial perfection that even such steep prices fail to deter them.

Hanieh, 35, an office worker raised 70m Iranian rials for cosmetic surgery by selling her leased car. She said, she was a little worried because it might take several months for the nose to take its final shape. Her concerns stem from post surgery difficulties among other patients whom she has spoken to, these difficulties include the nose being dented or malformed due to rolling around in sleep or a physical blow, respiratory problems, sinus pain and congestion, loss of the sense of smell and growth of extra tissue or bone.

Another woman who had surgery not long ago says that she doesn’t have to be ashamed of her big fat nose anymore, plus she now has a better social life. She says: she hasn’t had any particular problems save for the fact that when she gets a cold, she gets a fiercely runny nose.

In recent years, nose job fever has caught up with the men, as well. Mohammed, who works in a makeup and accessories store, in a busy area of Tehran, cited attracting more customers by looking nice and spiffy, as his main motivation for having a rhinoplasty.

Unfortunately with the demand for cosmetic surgery on the rise, the number of operation performed by unlicensed practitioners has also increased. 7000 quacks, as opposed to the 157 licensed cosmetic surgeons in the capital are performing these operations; this is according to the report recently issued by the pathology research group of the Arya Strategic Studies Center in Tehran. As a consequence, there has been a surge in botched operations with some patients sustaining irreparable damage.

Now the question comes to mind are they happy with the results of all that torture they undergo in the name of beauty? According to a poll, around 30% of people who have cosmetic surgery are not happy with the results.

Atefeh, who now possesses a small and perky nose, says she had a nose job five years ago, when she was 29, in order to land a man but, unfortunately, she is still on the market.

About the author

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Surprising statistics drawn by surveys in the West have shown that Islam is the fastest spreading religion in the West. A national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2003 reported that the number of Americans with a favorable view of Islam has become 34 percent in 2003. Moreover, the response rate to the question that Islam is a religion that encourages violence fell from 44 % in 2003 to 36 % in 2005.

As per “The Almanac Book of Facts”, within the last decade, the world population grew by 137%, Christianity increased by 46%, whilst Islam grew by 235%. Islam, the fastest spreading religion in America, is also the second largest religion over there. According to a recent poll in the United States, 100,000 people convert to Islam every year. The proportion of Male converts to females is 1:4.

According to a news headline on NTV News on June 24, 2004, “Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe”. The report was made by a French Domestic Intelligence Agency, which said that an increasing number of people were converting to Islam in the West, especially after the incident of September 11, 2001.

The basic reason behind creating all this drama was to defame Islam, to pose it as a demonic religion, and to label  Muslims as terrorists. For this very purpose, hundreds and thousands of publishers in the US started publishing books, leaflets and fliers showing Muslims holding weapons, blasting bombs to derogate the Muslims. Although they did succeed in achieving their motives largely, what they did not foresee the side effects of their actions.

Due to popular propaganda against Muslims, more and more people started exploring the teachings of Islam. By reading the translation of the Qur’an, people in the west finally began to understand the logic behind the messages of Allah. An increasing number of people came to know that Islam was a religion that promoted peace and harmony, not only among Muslims but that it also propagated an attitude of tolerance and brotherhood towards non-Muslims. Hence, this way, the west came to know that terrorism and violence did not fall under the ambit of Islamic teachings, and whoever, indulged in such practices was not fit to be called a Muslim. Those who were involved in such practices and were calling themselves Muslims had misinterpreted Islam.

Thereby, after coming to know of the positives that Islam teaches, more and more people started entering the circle of Islam. These new converts to Islam in the western world are more familiar with Islamic teachings than people who are born into the religion. As a result, generally speaking, those who have converted to Islam are far better Muslims than other traditional Muslims in the east who as they take their religion for granted, and hardly follow its practices. The newly converts are generally fully aware of the positive message that Islam spreads, as it was that very message that compelled them to convert to it in the first place.

 

About the author

A meditator. An unorthodox person. Searching for the truth, knowing more about Islam and spreading its message has always been my passion and I plan to excel in it Insha Allah.

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Faced with a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment and a well-funded campaign to promote Islamophobia, a coalition of faith and religious freedom groups Thursday said it will circulate a new pamphlet on frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Islam and U.S. Muslims to elected officials across the United States.

The initiative, which coincides with the appearance in subway stations in New York City and Washington of pro-Israel ads equating the Jewish state with "civilised man" and "Jihad" with "savages", is designed to rebut the notion that Muslims pose a threat to U.S. values and way of life.

"Nothing gives weight to bigotry more than ignorance," said Rev. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who is president of the Interfaith Alliance, a grassroots organisation of leaders representing 75 faith traditions. "The FAQ enables people to be spared of an agenda-driven fear and to be done with a negative movement born of misinformation…"

Gaddy was joined by Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Project of the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center which co-sponsored the new 13-page pamphlet, entitled "What is the Truth About American Muslims?"

"In my view," Haynes said in reference to the so-called "Stop Islamisation of America" (SIOA) movement that, among other things, has sponsored the subway ads, "this campaign to spread hate and fear is the most significant threat to religious freedom in America today."

"Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the anti-Muslim narrative has migrated from the right-wing fringe into the mainstream political arena – and is now parroted by a growing number of political and religious leaders," he said.

Inter Press Service, 12 October 2012

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Grooming children for sex is a growing scourge that cuts across all communities, West Yorkshire's chief constable warned yesterday as he met Muslim community leaders at a summit to tackle the problem.

Sir Norman Bettison insisted the crime was not a racial or cultural issue. The type of exploitation seen in cases such as the recent Rochdale scandal, in which a gang of Asian men preyed on vulnerable young white girls, was just one of its many faces, he said.

"I believe there is a problem that is very widespread, not just in Yorkshire, not just within the Muslim or Asian community, but there are girls who are vulnerable and those vulnerabilities are more and more often these days exploited," he said. "What these cases have done is they have shone a light on this type of exploitation.

Sir Norman said young girls were also seen as "easy meat" by some young white men and insisted sexual exploitation was "not a faith or a race issue". "We witness that sort of approach and attitude any Saturday night in any of our towns and cities," he said.

He also warned children are as vulnerable to sexual exploitation online as they are on the street. "There's a growing trend of exploitation, predominantly of young girls, but also young boys, for sexual ends," he said.

"It's got lots of faces. It's got groups of men on the street who are identifying and picking up vulnerable girls, but it's also got people sitting in the comfort of their sitting rooms or bedrooms. Social media opens up a newer means of sexual exploitation."

He said the summit, attended by the Bradford Council of Mosques' president Rafiq Sehgal and secretary Zulfiqar Karim, had cemented a commitment to jointly tackle the issue.

"The powerful thing is the determination and willingness of the religious leadership to be involved in preventing exploitation in the future and sending a powerful message to Muslim communities that this is abhorrent behaviour that should be stamped upon," he said.

"The reassurance that we've been getting is that the communities themselves are very keen to be involved in sending out a powerful message of abhorrence and intolerance at this criminal behaviour."

He added conversations with community leaders and agencies in other parts of West Yorkshire would soon follow.

Yorkshire Post, 30 June 2012

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