I’ve been in South Carolina for the past two weeks. I do have to admit on my flight to the south I was getting nervous about getting dirty looks towards my appearance as a Muslimah (hijab & abaya). I think the last time I felt like that was when I started wearing hijab to High School where there were no Muslims. It’s a kind of feeling where your stomach turns and you feel a butterfly sensation.
To my suprise since the day I landed here I have not received one dirty look, Alhumdulilah! Instead I have received many smiles and nods of respect. People here actually go out of their way to be nice, opening doors for you and sincerely asking how you are doing. There doesn’t seem to be many Muslims here, I bumped into one Muslimah at the mall. She came up to me and introduced herself and told me that my face seemed new to her since she knew bascially all the Muslims in town! There also isn’t any zabiha places to eat around here, which was a little hard to adjust to in the beginning.
Reflecting upon all of this makes me grateful for all the things I do have back home in Chicago. The great Muslim community, the abundant Masajid and an assortment of zabiha restaurants you can choose from. Alhumdulilah, it truly is a blessing.
On another note, I have been able to do some dawah while I have been here. Every morning there is a breakfast reception in the hotel I am staying at. Isra and I make our way down and get some breakfast every morning. The employee who works there, Barbara, is a very friendly African American woman. After a few days of seeing one another we started talking. At first it was basic conversation about our backgrounds. Just yesterday I thought it would be a good time to bring up religion. The topic came about so smoothly, it wasn’t wierd or akward at all. Alhumdulilah it was a very good conversation and I hope that Allah SWT will guide her to the truth. She listened very intently and didn’t refute at all!
As Muslims we have to remember that it is part of our duty to spread the deen of Islam. This has been a particularly new interest of mine and I have been trying to make the best of every oppotunity I get to do dawah. Many of us think we are not capable of spreading our deen because we are not knowledgable enough. The truth is we all know the basic beliefs of our religion and that is essentially what you need to convey. You don’t have to be fancy with your words, you just need to speak from the heart and tell others what the religion of Islam is truly about. There is a great CD set out there by Sh. Muhammad Alshareef called ”Fiqh Ad-Dawah: Guiding to Allah by the Book” definitely worth checking out. Inshallah Allah will make this duty easy upon all of us.
All in all I would have to say the south has truly lived up to its “Southern Hospitality.” Back to Chicago on Friday inshallah!
