Female converts embrace Islam, defy stereotypes

By Eileen E. Flynn* / Cox News Service

11-05-02

AUSTIN, Texas - Jessie Milazzo worried her co-workers when she tried fasting for a couple of days several weeks ago as a trial run for Ramadan, the month in which Muslims abstain from food and drink during daylight hours.

Milazzo was battling a bad cold and got no relief from a persistent cough.

Drink something, her colleagues urged. But in order to stick to the strict Islamic fasting laws, she refused. No water, not even a cough drop.

Instead, Milazzo appealed to Allah in prayer. The coughing, she said, subsided.

"Allah helps you," she said. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be."

This month, Milazzo, 27, will observe her first Ramadan, which begins Wednesday. From dawn to sundown, Muslims, in order to contemplate their faith and put aside everyday concerns, are forbidden to eat, drink, smoke or have sexual relations.

Milazzo joins roughly 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, including more than 7 million in the United States and about 5,000 in the Austin area.

A former Catholic who recently converted, Milazzo knows that Ramadan isn't the only challenge before her. She also senses the importance of showing her community what it means to follow Islam and that isn't at odds with her role as a modern woman.

The Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations estimates about 20,000 people -- most of them women -- convert to Islam in the United States each year.

The religion has come under harsh scrutiny since the Sept. 11 attacks, and Milazzo said many non-Muslims hold misconceptions about the rituals and beliefs she has adopted and her role as a woman in particular.

That she turns to prayer to solve a problem or peppers her conversation with phrases like "insha'Allah," meaning "God willing," since converting in September doesn't mean her independent personality has suddenly morphed into submissiveness, she said.

"I'm a very strong woman, and I believe that every woman should have a chance to be heard and seen," Milazzo said. "And in Islam I think they are. All the Muslim women I know are very outspoken and opinionated."

The Port Neches, Texas, native, who works as an accountant in North Austin, said she explored various Christian paths and gravitated toward Islam "because it was the first thing in my life that ever made sense."

Milazzo spent months researching the religion, questioning Muslim friends and praying before taking the shahada, or pledge to Islam.

Practicing Muslims -- especially women who wear a head scarf -- often outwardly express their faith by their style of dress, fasting during Ramadan and taking time out of the workday to pray.

Though Milazzo has not decided whether she will wear the scarf, she has become sensitive to people's assumptions about her decision to convert.

"They think you're married," she said. "Or they think you're going to get married and it's a requirement."

Milazzo is single.

It's important for people in the United States to witness Western women embracing Islam, said Hodan Hassan, a spokeswoman for the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Television images of oppressed women in Afghanistan do not represent the true face of Islam but rather reflect cultural practices that most Muslim women find unacceptable, Hassan said.

"I think women like those who've converted and who now take it upon themselves to teach the truth about Islam to their friends, to their neighbors and their coworkers . . . are our best ambassadors," she said. "They can break the stereotype that unfortunately is prevalent that Muslim women are subservient, are invisible, are abused by their husbands or brothers."

For Elva Hage-Mahmoud a Mexican-American raised in the Catholic faith who married a Palestinian American, the desire to become Muslim took hold after her first child was born.

Her conversion -- what Muslims call "reversion" -- 11 years ago did not steal her identity as a woman, she said, though other people seemed to associate her hijab, or traditional Islamic dress, with submission. Hage-Mahmoud said she encountered stereotypes as a University of Texas student last year.

"I think people in general think 'poor oppressed Muslim woman with a scarf on,' " she said. "I think a lot of the time I have to prove myself."

What non-Muslims may not understand, she said, is the joy Islam brings to her life. Making personal sacrifices -- whether wearing hijab or fasting during Ramadan -- she believes brings her closer to God.

"Ramadan is my favorite part of the year," she said. "It's just such a spiritual awakening that you just can't imagine."

*Eileen Flynn writes for the Austin American-Statesman.

Source: http://www.coxnews.com/newsservice/stories/2002/1105-RAMADAN.html