WASHINGTON — After sunset on a warm summer’s evening in Sterling, Va., hungry fasters lean against cars under the parking lot lights of All Dulles Area Muslim Society, eating a simple meal of rice and stew out of plastic containers. As is customary during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, it’s the first meal they’ve had since daybreak, and they are not concerned with sitting down while they devour it.
Even as the furor over whether an Islamic center should be built near ground zero in New York City continues, and as a Florida church’s pledges to burn Qurans on the anniversary of 9/11, this Ramadan, thousands of American converts to Islam will experience the first taste of food after a daylong fast.
The holy month may well be a time when more Americans decide to become Muslim than any other time of the year.
“Usually during the month of Ramadan, and around the month of Ramadan, we see an increase in conversions,” said Sabeel Ahmed, the director of Gain Peace, a Chicago-headquartered organization that helps facilitate conversions.
During Ramadan, Muslims across the world fast from sunup to sundown: It’s abstinence with the aim of helping them focus on spiritual reflection and becoming personally closer with God.
It’s also a time of greater community, as followers come together for prayers and meals. With the large gatherings, more vocal Imams, and increase in religious activities, the messages of the religion are more likely to reach beyond the walls of mosques.
Gain Peace, run by the Islamic Circle of North America, is an organization that provides services for new converts and provides free information services about Islam, in the hope of countering misconception and fear about the religion. The staffers of its toll-free hotline can answer general questions about the religion, recommend speakers for functions, and provide free Qurans and educational materials.
Monthly, Ahmed said the center receives about 200 calls, with an uptick to about 300 or 400 during Ramadan.
According to a Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted in 2007, 40 percent of American Muslims were previously affiliated with a different religious tradition, meaning they converted. There are currently about 2.5 million Muslims living in the U.S., and Muslims make up almost a quarter of the population on the planet, according to another 2009 Pew survey.
This is Donelle Bergeson’s first Ramadan. Fasting has been easier than she expected, because it’s done in community with other Muslims, she said. She’s even developing an affinity for dates, which she had never tried before. Dates are the traditional food used to break fast, and reportedly the prophet Muhammad ate them.
“It’s really been an incredible experience,” said Bergeson, who converted in February. “Spiritually, I found, for me, Ramadan is about god-consciousness.”
The factors of someone’s decision to convert are usually deeply personal, but Ahmed thinks the physical and mental discipline of Ramadan can appeal to some.
“I would say fasting could be one of those causes,” he said. “This time of year, hopefully, we are supposed to be conscious of dishonesty, breaking promises.”
But converting to Islam can be a difficult. New followers may be faced with a new language, in addition to prayers five times a day, and a plethora of regulations that guide daily life. On top of this, a month of fasting at the height of summer is not necessarily an easy beginning.
“It’s a big change in life,” said Khalid Iqbal, deputy director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society center and facilitator of the new Muslims support group that meets weekly there.
It’s the reception that they receive from their family, friends, bosses, and co-workers that can be the greatest struggle after converting, he said, not the hunger pains of fasting.
“Most of the problems come from the family members,” he said. “Who outcast them from their social lives.”
The heightened sense of family within the Muslim community is something that many new Muslims look forward to during Ramadan. Often, the personal difficulties they experience only steel them further in their faith, and strengthen the bond among members of the support group he facilitates.
“New converts have a great network,” he said. “My hat’s off to them.”
Bergeson, who lives in Chicago, was in divinity school when she first started learning about Islam, and found herself drawn to its teachings. In converting, she left school, her apartment, and the approval of her family behind.
“My life is basically starting over,” she said. “There was a point at which I was, essentially, homeless.”
The actual process of conversion in Islam is simple: one need only recite the sentence, in Arabic, that there is no other god than God and that Muhammad is his prophet.
Gain Peace phone-line staffers can act as witnesses to conversion, if there is not a mosque nearby. But given the ease of converting, the phone-line staffers must be diligent in making sure the person understands the seriousness of the action and is emotionally prepared, Ahmed said.
Once they have recited the shahada, or conversion sentence, new Muslims are put in contact with a mentor within the community. The Dulles center has a similar practice, called adopt-a-friend.
The support group at the Virginia center was started about two years ago, when leaders noticed a need for a social and emotional support for the steady stream of converts at the center. Last year, Iqbal said the Dulles center received between 60 and 70 new members through conversion.
At a recent iftar the center was bustling, with volunteers cooking free meals and directing traffic and the prayer room full to capacity.
The support group is not advertised outside the community, though. Mostly people hear about it through word of mouth. Iqbal doesn’t want it to be misinterpreted as an evangelization tool.
“There is no compulsion in religion,” he said, quoting a famous passage from the Quran.
And for Bergeson, this Ramadan has been a rewarding part of a difficult spiritual journey.
“When you have an absence of something that you depend on so much, there is an awareness of what it is to be human,” she said.