March 9, 1999

In the Name of God the Most Beneficent the Most Merciful

We have been a Muslim for only a little more than two years. This year we
made Hajj with our daughter. Since we found Islam, our lives have changed
in ways that we would never have comprehended. We feel that we have finally
found the "truth" that we have been seeking our whole lives.

We are now in our fifties and raised three daughters in California. We are
college educated and widely traveled. We set up and operate our own
businesses.Trying to find a place where we could find God,we had
investigated many traditional religions, but had conciensiously avoided
Islam because we were afraid that women were not treated well amongst its'
members. We had kept my children away from organized spiritual practices
because we did not want them to confuse worship of God with fear, hatred
and shame.

Then we discovered a group of people who really did put God first. Through
contact with this group, we reluctantly proceeded to investigate Islam. We
were still put off by the many media stories of how poorly the Muslim
peoples behave. It was difficult to accept the new ways of  behaving and
the new disciplines that we were asked to adopt. But the respect shown to
us was hard to ignore.

We continued to look deeper. If  any of us had been made to feel guilty or
ashamed of whom we were, we would have been gone in a moment. But God was
good to us and had given us a model we could look up to. We begin to put
our trust in Islam. We have found our new home. It is a home, however, that
does not include judging others or imposing our beliefs on others. Again,
if we had seen that this was the "way" of our new religion, we would have
been gone immediately. In Islam we found a God that was all loving and all
forgiving. We found models of behavior that reflected this love.

It is with great sadness that we read the comments that you have made about
others, and about Shaykh Hisham Kabani, in particular, during these past
few days. Is there not room for differences of opinion without condemnation
and threats? This behavior is the kind of thing that turns most Americans
away from Islam. We do not believe that this is what God wants.

And it appears that you feel that you can speak for and represent all
American Muslims. When have you ever even tried to find out what we want?
Please do not speak for us until you know who we are and we give you
permission to do so.

We have never written a letter like this before and we hope that we will
not be disposed to do so again. Thank you for your time and consideration
of our thoughts.

Sharifah and Bahaudeen S.