Religion: Americans Facing Toward Mecca

The fast-growing Muslim community is invisible no longer

Ogene Davis of Atlanta faithfully attended a black church through high school but became deeply troubled that "good" Christians could tolerate a socially and racially unjust world. "Christianity was not working for blacks," he concluded. Karima Omar Kamouneh (nee Virginia Marston) of Burbank, Calif., was raised by devout Episcopalians but felt plausibility was somehow lacking. "I had milked everything out of Christianity, and it still didn't make sense," she relates. Dawud Wong Chun, a Chinese American in Brooklyn, says simply that he thirsted for a "pious, virtuous, fruitful life."

For all three, the answer was Islam, a choice that until recently...

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