[Mb-civic] Muslim Converts, Meet the FBI - Colbert King - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Muslim Converts, Meet the FBI

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, August 20, 2005; Page A17

Shortly after the London bombings, it became fashionable for some 
American commentators to cite the alienation of British Muslims as an 
example of a massive failure of assimilation -- a state of affairs, they 
asserted, that is inconceivable in the United States.

Americanization, went their argument, has virtually eliminated teeming 
groups of disaffected Islamic immigrants within our shores.
   
Well, that may be true but it's not the whole truth concerning American 
Muslims.

Islam in the United States is not solely the province of immigrants from 
North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. The largest and 
fastest-growing ethnic group of American Muslims is African Americans, 
whose estimated numbers range between 1.3 million and 2 million. Most, 
by the way, are Sunni Muslims and not followers of Minister Louis 
Farrakhan's racially exclusive Nation of Islam.

What's more, the group within the African American Muslim community that 
is experiencing the most explosive growth is probably the least 
assimilated: black inmates. Good statistics are hard to come by, but one 
estimate places the number of Muslim converts in prison above 250,000. 
What brings them to Islam? Survival? Acceptance? Rejection of 
Christianity? Spiritual transformation?

One thing for sure: It's not Americanization.

Which gets us to the FBI, converts to Islam and a possible terrorist 
plot in California.

When FBI director Robert S. Mueller III joined us at The Post for lunch 
in June 2002, Muslim converts in prison seemed to be the last folks on 
his mind. At the time, Mueller was preoccupied with discussing the 
bureau's new post-9/11 mandate to detect and foil terrorist actions 
against American targets before they happened.

Not so today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081901460.html
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