Mona Safiedine says she was the typical American girl, indistinguishable from thousands of others in southeastern Michigan. Smart and sociable, she wore the latest fashions and did not give it a second thought.
“I was a normal teenager, you know?” Safiedine says. “Going out, dressing was never an issue.”
Now 24, Safiedine this year began wearing the veil and long, obscuring robes that, for many, are integral to Muslim beliefs about piety and acceptance of the faith. Her decision is part of her personal development and the spiritual journey of a young life.
And it is an increasingly well-traveled path.
Among Muslims in Michigan, and in other states with large Muslim populations, more young adults are committing to Islam in a way that their parents did not.
The younger generation is picking up what, in many cases, their immigrant parents were comfortable leaving behind. Spurred by their spiritual yearning and feeling increasingly comfortable in places like Dearborn, Los Angeles and Chicago, observers say young adults are in the vanguard as Islam extends roots firmly into the United States.
“Islam has been around for centuries, of course, but only in large numbers in America in the last 30 years because of the immigration reforms of the 1960s,” said Amir Hussain, a professor of religious studies at California State University. “What you are seeing now, is the second generation really getting involved.”
Experts and clerics say that little has been done to survey the trend. But there is clear anecdotal evidence.
At the Islamic Center of America, in Dearborn and Detroit, a group of six or seven teenagers and young adults began meeting with Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini in 1997. The Young Muslim Association now has 700 members.
Annual surveys by the Council on American-Islamic Relations revealed that the number of Muslims who say they attend a mosque less than once a week declined from 35 percent of respondents in 2003 to 29 percent in 2004.
In Dearborn, Muslims say, more young women are wearing the hijab — the veil — even though their mothers often did not.
Experts say the trend has far less to do with any reaction to September 11 than a particularly American pattern of immigrant communities establishing their faiths.
“There is an old saying, The second generation will try to remember what the first generation tried to forget,’” said Hamid Dabish, a sociologist and chairman of the Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Culture at Columbia University. “Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish, they have all done the same before.”
No one in Mona Safiedine’s family ever “covered,” as Muslims call it. She did not consider wearing a veil and robes until her faith intensified. At 21, she married and divorced. The marriage lasted only 10 months, and the decision to divorce was traumatic.
“I sat on a carpet and I prayed to God, and I was, like, I’ll do anything you want me to do! Just show me the right path!’ ” she said.
Safiedine is convinced that God — Allah — answered her. Last year, she attended lectures every night during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and worship.
“It opened up my heart, and I started fearing death,” she said. “And I was like, How am I going to to meet God if I am not covered properly like Mary, like holy people in the Abrahamic religions are all covered?’
“And I thought, you know what? I’m going to have to do this. I feel like this is my duty.”
Safiedine says “covering” is a spiritually liberating exercise, and she objects to the view that it is a symbol of repression. When she is not studying for her master’s degree at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Safiedine teaches kick-boxing and pilates at a local gym. She is also active in the civil rights struggle of Arab-Americans, and not at all reticent.
“This misunderstanding is something we have in America,” she said of a notion that the Muslim style of dress represents repression. “We need to get over that.”
Some Muslims say their rededication to the faith is part of an ecumenical trend.
“Especially since September 11, I think everyone’s trying to rediscover themselves,” said Dan Mekled, a senior adviser to the Young Muslim Association, who says his own faith has been rekindled. “Whether they be Muslim, or Christians, or Jews, I think it is across the board.”
Muslims of the older generation in southeastern Michigan describe the new dedication to Islam as a product of continuing immigration that is building “a critical mass” of adherents.
“I grew up in the Detroit area, and the community was smaller,” said Eid Alawan. “We did not have the community support system we have now, where you have educators, and imams, and people wanting do it.”
For Qazwini, the propagation of Islam in the United States is a lifelong goal.
“Muslims throughout the world, in general, are going through a religious, Islamic revival,” he said. “Locally, it has to do with restructuring our priorities at the Islamic Center.
“When I came here seven years ago, I didn’t see any youth movement, anything that was related to them,” the imam said. “I thought there was something wrong here. Why are the youth not coming?”
Qazwini made English the official language of the mosque, and he modernized the style of services.
“We Muslims, if all we do is present an accurate image about Islam and teach the right way, we can attract many people,” Qazwini said. “We have a good opportunity to propagate for Islam, to teach about Islam.”