Ramadan challenging for converted Muslim

Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.

Giving up food and water was easy.

At least compared with controlling her temper after not eating or drinking all day.

For recent Muslim convert Alexis Aminah Amberg, the mental requirements of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan were far more challenging than the physical requirements of fasting from dawn till dusk each day.

Losing one's temper, swearing and becoming angry or frustrated are all taboo during a spiritual fast, Amberg said, and as a single mom working to support and raise a 7-year-old son she sometimes slipped in the past month.

"The bottom line is that it's been really tough, but I'm still hanging in there," Amberg said Friday afternoon, only hours away from the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al Fitr, what is typically a three-day celebration breaking the fast.

It was the first Ramadan for the former cocktail-waitress-turned-real estate agent, who said she converted to Islam in October after years of searching for something that would fill the emptiness and unhappiness she felt. Amberg also said she was drawn to Islam for its conservatism and discipline as a way to instill morals in her son, Parker.

It is Parker, however, who has taken to the faith quickly while Amberg said she is still struggling to learn Islamic practices and wrestling with remnants from her 30 years as a Christian.

She is now one of the estimated 10,000 Muslims who call Las Vegas home, according to the Islamic Society of Las Vegas.

For Amberg, whose mother is Catholic and whose aunt is a minister for a local evangelical church, "it's a challenge.

"I'm the only one in my family here who is Muslim," she said, explaining that her father converted to Islam five years ago, but he is in the Philippines.

"I'm doing it more for my son," Amberg, a UNLV business major, said. "Being here for 16 years, I know what kind of place Las Vegas is. I want him to have strong morals and to grow up and respect women."

Too young to fast, Parker has been practicing the discipline by going without food between breakfast and lunch, Amberg said. He loves to attend the mosque to play with his new friends, pray and attend classes, and is quickly picking up the ability to recite Suras from the Qu'ran in Arabic.

"He was teaching her a Sura actually," Mohammad Omar Sharif, a friend of Amberg, said of Parker.

Amberg said most of her struggles are minor things such as adapting to Islamic dress or following the prayers. She said she often feels "out of place" at the Jame Masjid mosque she attends among the more conservative women wearing ethnic clothing from Arab countries or most often India, and also feels awkward as one of the few Asian women in attendance.

Amberg also said she finds herself listening to a Christian radio station from time to time and unconsciously adding the words "in Jesus' name I pray" to the end of her own prayers because that is what she was taught from childhood. She said she plans to get a Christmas tree this December because all of her relatives in Las Vegas are Christians.

Wrapping her mind around the Islamic conception of Jesus has been the most difficult part of her conversion, Amberg said. She grew up with the Christian notion of the Trinity that God, the father; Jesus, the son; and the Holy Spirit were all one and the same -- that Jesus was God in human flesh.

To Muslims, however, that math makes little sense, Amberg said.

Jesus is a respected prophet who brought the word of God to earth, but he is not viewed to be God or to be the son of God, Aslam Abdullah, director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, said. Muslims believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and that he performed miracles, but they do not believe he was crucified or resurrected.

"It really took a lot for me to go from him being God to him just being a prophet," Amberg said. "I'm still trying to find proof he is just a prophet."

The role of women in Islam was also an issue for her, Amberg said, mostly because of the stereotypes that persist about how women are treated in the Middle East.

Abdullah said that many of the people he sees convert to Islam have to deal with those stereotypes, and have to learn how to separate what "Islam says and what Muslim cultures do."

"Islam has universal values and universal principles, but the application of those universal values are within the culture of people and sometimes cultures are so dominant that it takes over some of the religious values," Abdullah said.

In contrast, Amberg said she feels more respected and protected in Islam, and said she loves the modesty of the clothing after five years as a cocktail waitress.

The negative perceptions and stereotypes of Muslims as terrorists that have persisted since 9-11 and now the war in Iraq did not deter her from converting, Amberg said, because she said she knew they were misconceptions or untruths about Islam.

She has had some friends question her decision, and her minister aunt tried to tell her son not to become a Muslim because Muslims are "not good people," Amberg said.

But despite her own self-consciousness about what to wear and how to act, Amberg said she has been welcomed into the mosque community and she and her son have found nothing but good people.

And Allah, slowly but surely, is helping her calm her temper, Amberg said.

"It's a refuge for me ... I feel better just to be around the mosque."