Sharing cultural roots between Spain and Arabs, an increasing number of Latinos are reverting to Islam because of its support for a healthier lifestyle and closer family connections.

“Islam does not make you lose your culture,” Chris Cruz, who was born and raised Roman Catholic but converted to Islam, told Tucson Sentinel.

“There’s a lot more to life than what we used to do. I grew up partying.”

Same as Cruz, Sobida Espinoza said she was raised catholic and reverted to Islam to find truth.

“If you’re Hispanic it’s almost as if you are forced to be Catholic,” Espinoza, a member of the Islamic Community Center of Tucson, said.

“People are converting to Islam because they find the reality that isn’t defined in other religions.”

Cruz and Espinoza aren’t alone.

Ahmad Shqeirat, the center’s imam, confirmed that over the past years, most of the converts at his mosque have come from the Latino community.

“It seems they are digging for their heritage,” he said.

Finding similarities between Islam and their culture was one of main reasons driving many Latinos to Islam.

For example, Spanish is filled with Arabic vocabulary, Shqeirat noted.

Cruz said both Islam and Catholicism promote having large families, but he said his new religion offers more guidance on the family structure.

That led his mother-in-law, who is also Hispanic, to convert, he said.

“She noticed a big change in how we conducted ourselves and how our relationship had really grown,” Cruz said.

“We don’t drink and we don’t have the big parties.”

Better Lifestyle

Aspiring for a better life with no drugs or alcohol, Hispanics were reverting to Islam because they aren’t happy with their lifestyles.

“They are looking to fulfill a void that nothing else can fulfill,” Nahela Morales, national Hispanic outreach coordinator for WhyIslam, an online resource about Islam and Muslims, said.

Morales said she believes many Hispanics don’t feel accepted in the United States because of illegal immigration and other issues.

Finding Islam, they become a part of a larger minority who share same values and ethics.

“It’s still something very appealing,” she said.

“They find that family that they lack.”

With increasing problems of drugs in the Latino community, new mosques were being opened in Hermosillo, Sonora and Mexico.

“It’s getting kind of weak, the family structure,” Imam Didmar Faja of the Albanian American Islamic Center of Arizona in Peoria said.

“They are looking for other options to keep these rooted traditions with them.”

Abandoned by her family after reverting to Islam, Espinoza, who is single, said Islam became her new family and changed her life for the better.

“I sometimes feel sad, but that also makes me stronger in the religion,” she said.

Though there are no official figures, the United States is believed to be home to nearly seven million Muslims.

According to the Pew Research Center, 6 percent of American Muslims are Hispanic.

Further, one of 10 American-born converts is Hispanic, and that figure is growing.

The American Muslim Council puts the number of Latino Muslims in the US at about 200,000 in 2006.

The largest communities of Latino Muslims exist in areas with the highest concentrations of Latinos, such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami.

Yet, California is the state with the most Latino Muslims.

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/465747-culture-connects-latinos-with-islam.html

http://islamstory.com/en/artical/15942/more-latinos-islam