salam alaikum,
This is really an inspiring story. Many of you already know Dr. Ingrid Mattson. Recently she was elected as the president of Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim umbrella organization in North America.
It is extremely difficult to a convert female in USA (actually not easy being a Muslim female in many other parts of the world either!) Her story will surely inspire many of you I believe.
Fee Amanillah
Maqsud
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: "mpa_milwaukee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:52:19 -0000
Subject: [MPA_NEWS] A New Face for Islam in North America
A New Face for Islam in North America
9/22/2006
By: Stephanie Simon
Los Angeles Times
Ingrid Mattson had given up God. She had stopped saying her
rosaries, stopped taking Communion. She was an atheist, abroad
in Paris the summer before her senior year of college.
But she could not stop listening to the Koran.
"Forget it," she told herself. "This can't be happening to me."
Yet day after day, she popped the cassette into her Walkman,
mesmerized by the chanting and oddly moved by lines such as:
"The sun and the moon follow courses computed. And the herbs
and the trees both bow in adorationÉ It is he who has spread
out the earth for [his] creatures."
When she returned home to Canada after that summer of 1986,
Mattson signed up for the only Arabic class she could find.
It was full of 8-year-old immigrants, who soon came to resent
her for winning so many of the chocolates the teacher awarded
top students. Mattson wanted to enjoy hanging out in bars with
her brothers, the way she always had. Instead, she found herself
at her sewing machine, stitching head scarves. That spring, she
gathered several Muslim friends as witnesses and pledged herself
to Allah.
It was an unusual move for a white Canadian ex-Catholic. And it
set Mattson down a trailblazing path.
About 60,000 Muslims in the U.S. and Canada recently elected
Mattson, 43, president of the largest Muslim organization on
the continent, an educational and professional association
called the Islamic Society of North America. She is the first
woman, nonimmigrant or convert to Islam to become president
of the group.
Her election comes at a tumultuous time for the estimated
6 million Muslims in the U.S. Nearly 40% of Americans admit
prejudice against Muslims, according to a recent poll by USA
Today and Gallup. A similar percentage support mandatory
identification cards for Muslims. And one in five Americans
said they would not want a Muslim neighbor.
Many Muslims are hoping Mattson can soften this fear. She
does not speak with a foreign accent. She doesn't wear a
veil, though she does cover her head with a thick, dark scarf.
Soft-spoken and quick to smile, Mattson is a suburban soccer
mom; she cheers at her son's games, helps her daughter with
college applications, gardens, hikes, reads the New Yorker,
laughs at Paris Hilton's reality TV.
"Many Americans think we didn't arrive in this country until
9/11. She helps people know we're part of the American landscape,"
said Aneesah Nadir, the president of an Islamic social services
agency based in Phoenix.
Such comments were a frequent refrain at the Islamic society's
annual convention, which drew more than 32,000 Muslims to this
suburb of Chicago earlier this month. Mattson was mobbed by fans
wanting to take her picture. One father brought his five daughters
from South Carolina to meet her. "She's a visible refutation of
stereotypes," said Hasan Aijaz, a college student from Virginia.
Outside the organization, Muslims have greeted Mattson's election
more warily.
She's received angry letters from conservatives who resent having
a woman in charge. Such critics often cite an ancient hadith, or
narrative about the life of the prophet Muhammad, stating that no
good will come from entrusting leadership to a woman.
The Islamic left has questioned Mattson's credentials as well. A
traditionalist who dresses in modest ankle-length skirts and loose
blouses - and who prefers, whenever possible, to avoid shaking
men's hands - Mattson pushes women's rights only so far.
She has called for mosques to dismantle any barriers that block
women from seeing or clearly hearing the imam during prayer. But
she does not support the more radical, feminist notion that women
should pray alongside men - or even lead men in prayer. Many
Muslims argue that such an arrangement would distract men from
God or lead to immoral conduct. Mattson explains her objection
this way: The prophet would not have approved.
Mattson's journey to Islam began when she was a teenager in the
Canadian town of Kitchener, Ontario. As a girl, she had been the
most pious in her family of seven children, but when she entered
high school, she began to find bedrock concepts such as the Holy
Trinity illogical. The nuns and priests at her Catholic school
were unable to answer her questions. "Accept the mystery," they
told her. She couldn't.
Though she stayed on at St. Mary's High School, Mattson stopped
looking for God.
Years later, during her summer in Paris, Mattson became friendly
with several West African Muslims. They introduced her to Islam;
her spirit stirred. "What moved me most was the way the Koran
described the majesty and beauty of creation," she said.
One of her favorite passages tells of God's handiwork: "He has
let free the two bodies of flowing water, meeting together... Out
of them come pearls and coral... And his are the ships sailing
smoothly through the seas, lofty as mountains."
After graduating from the University of Waterloo, Mattson worked
in a refugee camp in Pakistan, where she met her husband, an
Egyptian engineer. He took care of their small children while
she earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from the University
of Chicago. Since 1998, she has been teaching about Islam at
Hartford Seminary, a nondenominational Christian institution in
Connecticut.
As president of the Islamic Society of North America - an
unpaid part-time post - Mattson will lead a diverse organization
that trains Muslim leaders, sets standards for hundreds of
mosques, helps immigrants adjust to American life and serves as
an umbrella uniting associations of Muslim engineers, doctors and
other professionals.
She will also be a very visible spokeswoman for the faith - a role
she relishes. In particular, she can't wait to refute the notion
that Islam is a religion solely "for brown and black people," she said.
"When African Americans make the move to Islam, it's considered
valid. When I do, it's considered cultural apostasy, as if somehow
I've abandoned my whiteness to become an 'other,' " Mattson said.
In the past, many Muslims - like evangelical Christians before
them - argued that they had to isolate themselves from American
politics and culture in order to keep their faith pure. In the
aftermath of Sept. 11, Mattson argues that Muslims no longer
have that luxury.
"We need to form an axis of good with our neighbors," she said.
"We're 2% of the American population. How are we going to be
effective unless we make alliances?"
Her push for interfaith partnerships got off to a shaky start
when the Islamic society invited former Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami to address the convention. Jay Tcath, vice
president of the Chicago Jewish Federation, accused the
organization of "a dereliction of civic responsibility" for
honoring Khatami despite his record of human rights abuses.
The Anti-Defamation League also takes issue with the Islamic
society for having provided a forum for anti-Semitic language
at several conferences over the years, said Deborah Lauter,
the group's national civil rights director. The organization's
leaders "have been in bed with extremist groups," Lauter said,
"[so] we go into these relationships with some serious concerns."
Mattson says her group does not invite speakers "known for
offensive statements," but offers "as broad a platform as
possible for legitimate views." At the convention's opening
seminar, Mattson urged her fellow Muslims to step proudly into
mainstream society, to engage their neighbors and promote their
good works until Americans stop associating Islam with terror.
"Islamic medical clinics... Islamic ethics. Islamic charity.
These are the terms that should come off the tips of tongues,
" she told a cheering crowd. "Islamic intellectuals. Islamic
peace movements. Islamic human rights... This is who we are!"
Stephanie Simon is Times Staff Writer and can be reached at
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{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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