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Converts to Islam among those who will fast during month of Ramadan

By Brenda Gazzar, Los Angeles Daily News

When Henry Aldrete converted to Islam six years ago, his parents initially treated it as just a phase.

Aldrete, a Latino raised Catholic but in a largely nonpracticing home, started reading about Islam after taking an online religion course through a community college in which the teacher never got around to tackling that faith. After dreaming that Jesus told him he was a prophet and not the son of God, he made the decision to convert. He was also touched by a verse in the Quran that stated that God created people into nations and tribes so they can know one another, something he felt indicated inclusivity.

“To me, it made me feel like I could still embrace my own culture and my own background and still have this connection to God and to the greater community,” the 24-year-old Cal State Northridge student said.

Aldrete is one of thousands of Muslim converts in the Greater Los Angeles area who are expected, along with other community members, to abstain from food, water, sex and other worldly pleasures during daylight hours of the Islamic month of Ramadan, which starts Wednesday night. For some converts, it will be the first or second time for them to fast. Others say they have been doing it for years not just because it is considered a religious duty but because they feel this month of contemplation, reflection and self-restraint makes them better people.

“You’re not just fasting from food or drink; you’re also fasting from being mean to people, using profanity and you have to swallow your anger during that month — and because you’re not eating or drinking, it’s more difficult,” Aldrete said, noting these virtuous habits get easier with time.

Elissa Kerhulas, 61, of Sherman Oaks who was raised a Christian, found Islam more than three years ago after living a number of other traditions and spiritual practices, including Buddhism, yoga and Kabbalah, she said. Being a Muslim, she said, has allowed her to find “unity in all” these paths, she said.

When Kerhulas, a yoga and pilates trainer who also does healing work, fasted for Ramadan for the first time last year, it allowed her to feel more empathy for those who do it out of necessity because they are poor, she said. It also taught her to lean more on God.

“I had things I really wanted to change,” she said. “I had to get out of my head and rely on Allah. It was a very powerful teaching for me.”

This Ramadan, she said, she will be focusing on getting closer to God and to one of her daughters as well as finding a mate, she said.

“Whenever I get weak and I think I can’t do this another day, I remember my goals,” said Kerhulas, who still works with clients while fasting. “I pray, the light comes in and I’m in a beautiful state. I feel very loved and very much in the flow of God’s beauty and power and grace.”

A significant percentage of American Muslims in the country — 20 percent — are converts to Islam, according to a 2011 survey by the Pew Research Center. In Southern California, mosques averaged about 11.5 converts in a 12-month period, which is below the national average of 15.3 converts per mosque, according to the 2011 Comprehensive Survey of Southern California Mosques sponsored by the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. This is partly due to a lag in the conversion rate of African-Americans compared with elsewhere, the survey found.

While 64 percent of all converts nationally are African-American, in Southern California the share is only 41 percent, according to the same survey. In addition, Latino converts make up a very high percentage in Southern California — 31 percent compared with 12 percent nationally, the survey found.

People have been converting to Islam here since the beginning of U.S. history and particularly in the 20th century, when the U.S. was the only Western country to witness mass conversion to Islam, said Zareena Grewal, a visiting lecturer at the Bayan Claremont Islamic graduate school and an associate professor in religious and American studies at Yale University. This mass conversion was predominantly spurred by African-Americans who came to see Islam as their original religion or that of their ancestors before it had been taken from them through slavery and forceful conversion to Christianity during the period of U.S. slavery, Grewal said.

Similarly, some Latinos in Latin America — where there are growing numbers of converts — as well as in the U.S. see themselves connected to Islam because of its centuries-long history in Moorish Spain, she said.

But the percentage of converts has shrunk significantly. Converts made up the majority of mosque worshippers in the U.S. about 50 years ago, but that changed with the reversal of prohibitive immigration laws starting in 1965 that brought waves of Muslim and other immigrants from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa to settle the country, Grewal said.

Immigrants “really changed the religious discourse of the U.S. mosque — there were tensions that emerged between converts and their children and the new immigrants,” said Grewal, author of the book “Islam Is a Foreign Country.” “They didn’t have the same priorities and same political investments. It was a real struggle for defining the authoritative voice of Islam in America and who speaks for Islam in America.”

Kerhulas’ son, Daniel Colman, converted to Islam from Buddhism five years ago and introduced his mother to the Islamic faith.

Fasting for the first time was initially difficult but valuable in that it stretched the limits of what he believed he was capable of, he said. For Colman, Ramadan is a time of return to his connection to God.

“After Ramadan, I feel very good,” the 28-year-old said. “The first time you can have a cold glass of water on a hot summer day, you’re so appreciative and appreciation makes everything taste better. It resets our gratitude, the amazing abundance that we have.”

Gina Baines, a 48-year-old African-American convert from Los Angeles, said she became Muslim about a year ago and found that observing Ramadan allowed her to express her love for God and her willingness to be his servant.

“When you fast, he’s the only one that knows your heart,” she said. “He sees you.”

http://www.dailynews.com/lifestyle/20150616/converts-to-islam-among-those-who-will-fast-during-month-of-ramadan