By Jim Shelton, New Haven Register Staff

Shade by shade, Jamila Marr has big plans for Muslim youth in Connecticut.

First she’ll hit them with a little knowledge. Then she’ll follow with some American-style friendship and faith.

“This is what makes sense to me,” explains Marr, a 25-year-old Yale-New Haven Hospital nurse and the national vice president of the nonprofit group Seven Shades. “We’ve got to do this.”

Seven Shades refers to the seven types of people who will be protected by Allah’s shade: just rulers, people who bring peaceful greetings throughout the land, those who are God conscious, those who practice charitable giving, young activists, people who put sex in its proper place rather than everywhere and people who are deeply attached to their communities and masjids or mosques

The Muslim youth group that bears the same name began in 2007. It has local chapters in a handful of cities around the country, including Boston, Atlanta, Detroit — and Greater New Haven.

“A bunch of us were at a MANA (the Muslim Alliance of North America) convention, and on the last day we broke up into small working groups,” says Marr, who lives in West Haven. “Ours was a youth group task force. We came up with a list of probably 30 things we wanted to see happen, from mentorships to activities for youth. But then we also said we wanted to have a national youth group that focuses on indigenous Muslim youth.”

Indigenous is the key, Marr and other local Seven Shades members say.

As opposed to the common portrayal of Muslims in America as recent arrivals from other parts of the world, Seven Shades represents a thoroughly American sector of the Muslim world. These are lifelong Muslims in their teens and 20s who were born in America or who came here as children and raised within the American culture. They’re also American-born young people whose parents converted to Islam from other religions.

They text. They join online social networks. They know all the same music, fashion and lifestyle trends as their non-Muslim counterparts.

Yet too often they’re caught in between cultures. Continued...

• 1
• 2
• 3
• See Full Story

“I have the same conversation all the time about being Muslim,” says Khadijah Abdullah, a 23-year-old student at Southern Connecticut State University.

“Where are you from?”

“America.”

“Where were you born?”

“America.”

“Where are your parents from?”

“America.”

“People are very ignorant, for the most part, about African-American, Latino and white Muslims,” Abdullah says. “I don’t speak a different language.”

For young Muslims whose parents came here from another country, the culture clash can become evident frequently, such as when a teen son or daughter is assigned a school project with a student of the opposite sex.

“When puberty hits, the schizophrenia starts,” Marr laughs. “It gets to a point where, if the parents don’t understand, you just go, ‘Rrrrhhhhhhhh!’ You develop a split personality. You have one way you act with friends at school, another way with Mom and Dad, another way with Muslim friends when your parents are around, and another way with Muslim friends when your parents are not around.” Continued...

• 1
• 2
• 3
• See Full Story

Marr’s parents converted to Islam before she was born. She says that she’s learned to navigate through a circle of relatives that includes Muslims and non-Muslims, and friends who include American-born Muslims and foreign-born Muslims. There can be tension at every turn. For example, she’s felt left out at Muslim religious services where little English was spoken. She’s felt misunderstood when a new acquaintance didn’t realize it was possible to be African American and Muslim.

Marr and Abdullah say Seven Shades can help on several fronts. Its mission is to build support and fellowship among local young people, while presenting a new facet of Islam to the wider community.

Marr has a handful of recruits thus far. She’s organized one event — a talk by Imam Zaid Shakir at Hamden’s Salma K. Farid Academy, co-sponsored by New Haven’s Masjid Al-Islam — and she is planning a program on “Islam and Culture: How to Mix Them” for early May.

“You’ve got to stay strong in your faith, but without cutting off from your family, and without having your family cut off from you,” she says. “Seven Shades puts things in a different perspective, where people aren’t always eagleeyeing you from every angle.

“I think the potential is high,” she adds. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who are down with it and want me to keep them posted.”

• 1
• 2
• 3
• See Full Story

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• See Full Story

• Return to Paging Mode