Islam taking root in southern Mexico SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- In recent years, Agustin Gomez Mendez and other Maya Indians in far southern Mexico have taken yet one more sharp turn in a long quest for redemption, deciding that Jesus Christ isn't their personal savior after all. "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger," says Gomez Mendez, a poor farmer and father of six who converted his family to Islam in 1996 under the tutelage of Spanish missionaries. Over the past few years, about 300 evangelical Christian Maya have converted to Islam in southernmost Chiapas state, which has been riven by spiritual struggles for centuries. The conversions have left the Muslim Maya's neighbors and academics mystified. But their missionary guides hope the new Muslims will prove the first in a wave of converts in Mexico. A missionary leader, Esteban Lopez, 52, says the Maya of Chiapas had been abandoned by Mexican society and are ripe for the Islamic group's message of another path. "They change religions like they change socks," says Abdias Tovilla, a non-Indian who heads a coalition of Protestant churches in San Cristobal. "As long as a church is helping them, they are happy." The Spanish Islamic missionaries arrived in 1995, amid turmoil caused by rebellion a year earlier by the mostly Maya Zapatista National Liberation Army. Starting slowly, the Spaniards began speaking about Islam to any Maya who would listen and wooing evangelical leaders. In 1996, the Muslims offered to help the evangelicals establish a new market in San Cristobal, attracting many to the planning meetings. The 300 Muslims in Chiapas join several hundred others sprinkled throughout this largely Catholic nation of 100 million, according to Omar Weston, director-general of the Muslim Center in Mexico City. That number pales in comparison to the estimated 1 million in Brazil and 300,000 in Argentina. Partly with financing from abroad, the Chiapas Muslims began creating businesses to employ the new faithful. The four dozen children at their madrassa, or school, spend 90 minutes a day studying the Quran and Islamic teachings in Arabic, says Lopez, the missionary. Classes also include mathematics, geography, Spanish and other lessons. But the greater mission, Lopez says, is to forge a pure Islamic society. Lopez and the other Spaniards are members of the Murabitun, a largely European group of converts to the mystical Sufi strain of Islam. The group hopes to return to the fundamental Islam lived by the prophet Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic religion, and his early followers. The group's spiritual leader, Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, a Scotsman, has sharply condemned democracy and global capitalism. But he also recently spoke out against the terrorism of Sept. 11, arguing that the terrorists' real aim was to discredit and destroy Islam. Active in South Africa, Chechnya, England, Spain and elsewhere, the Murabitun have been accused of being anti-Semitic. They have also been dismissed by many mainstream Muslims as a quasi-Islamic cult. Arriving as they have on the heels of the Zapatistas' uprising, the Muslims have spurred unease, if not outright hostility, among many in Chiapas. State and federal officials have investigated the group's finances and motives. Coverage in the local press has been largely negative. Click for complete article from the Houston Chronicle
"Islam taking root in Mexico", and "they change religions like they change socks", seem to be contradictions. Catholicism is so integral to the culture of Mexico that I doubt Islam will ever be a major religion there.
Good point. I think, though, that Catholicism doesn't really represent well the large population of Indians who live there and still practice native spiritual practices. Generally, though, I agree that it is hard to separate the culture of Mexico from much of the culture of Catholicism. They are deeply interwoven.
