Islam Converts Stay Their Paths Despite Hardship
By Sara Taylor
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
staylor@media.ucla.edu
Thirty-five years ago, at age 12, Reymund Nur converted to Islam while still living in his parents’ Methodist household.
Five years ago, Boni Bee was a young Hindu woman seeking clarity and purpose in her life.
Last spring, Leilani Downing was reading the Christian Bible and looking for meaning in Christianity, her birth religion.
Today, all three are Muslims and live their lives according to the laws of Islam.
A common stereotype is that of the Arab Muslim, when in reality Islam draws from many different ethnicities.
“The majority of people feel that all Muslims are Arab, but in reality only a small percent 15 percent are of Arab descent,” said Faryah Humkar, a member of the UCLA Muslim Student Association.
The Muslim population, she added, includes people from many different backgrounds and ethnicities…
Age of Jahiliyah 
Wa Alaikum Salaam Zanjabila,
Thank you for providing the article!
May Allah grant you the best.
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As salamu alaykum,
Converting at twelve! That’s really something.
In case you’re interested, here’s my post on Russians converting to Islam:
The Spread of Islam to Russia
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Salaam Alaikum Abdur Salaam,
I agree with you brother and you made some very good points. Media I believe, plays a great influence on people’s thoughts and perceptions. The impact of media is not fully appreciated by many, and that is why I think more Muslims need to start going into journalism careers, so we can counter the negativity.
A lot of Arabs are beginning to feel what it has been like and continues to be like for black people. It is a shame that race still plays a large part in American society. The Muslims are now facing nasty stereotypes.
Being a Muslim woman, I’m stereotyped all the time as being oppressed, submissive, etc.
Sometimes this gets very tiring but it just means we have a lot of work to do in getting the true message of Islam out.
Jazzakum Allahkhair for your comments.
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In my humble opinion, I believe that the belief that Muslims are Arab comes from what is occuring in the Middle East. News coverage follows the sensational, and for a great deal of time anything involving Muslims and sensational has been occuring where there are predominately Arabs. Its called guilt by association or the appearance thereof. As a black man who grew up in the inner city, I have many stereotypes attributed to me, primarily due to the fact that when you read the news on that area, it tends to involve someone that looks like me. Get my point?
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Salaam Alaikum Dawud,
Thanks for the information. You have a good point. But I think that it is important that it be stressed that Muslims come from all parts of the world. In that way, it shows the true expanse of our deen.
If people think that Islam is just among Arabs or in Arabia, they might not be as open to it, but if they know that Muslims are in Europe, China and America, that can change things.
Thanks for your comments and visit.
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The reason that many people most like consider most muslim to be Arab or of Arab descent is that so much in our deen is composed of the early generations that came out of the Arabian Peninsula. I belive the main reason is that the entire Language and a great amount of the work is In the Arabic Language and even the lingua franca during th Middle Ages was the Arabic Language and was so during the Glorias and Rich Islamic history of many dynasties, despite if your were Persian, Ethiopian, Berber, West African, and Southern European (Spain, Andalusia). So don’t we think that may be just a tiny,itty bitty, bit of a reason why people think that most Muslims are Arabs?
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