in the name of Allah the most beneficent
the most merciful
Salaam alaikum my name is Jaime Fletcher
or Mujahid Fletcher I accepted Islam
approximately 11 years ago after looking
into many different religions and I
would say bump in my head you know live
in what some may say as a troubled youth
right I was a leader of a gang when I
was 13 years old and I had a lot of
questions about life and I wanted
straight answers and I looked all around
many people had many opinions but when I
found the Quran and I realized that this
book had never been changed I analyzed
it as I had done for many other
religions like Christianity and Buddhism
and Hinduism Kabbalah which is ancient
Jewish mysticism and so when I looked
into the Quran it I realized that this
book was a bit different than everything
else that I had studied and when I
started going to the mosque and
realizing that they did have answers I
went back and forth for about a year and
asked many questions and the more
questions I asked the more certainty I
obtained and eventually I felt like I
wanted to change my life for the best
and I accepted Islam and ever since then
I found peace I found a life free from
contradiction and I think that that is
something that everybody is looking for
straight answers not just about the
creator of the heavens and the earth and
what he wants from us but about life in
general because Islam is a way of life
so it helped me solidify my relationship
with my family some of my family members
have even gone on to accept Islam and so
now Islam is a way of life for us is an
alternative lifestyle that we don’t know
what we will do without it you know
that’s become the best gift that the
Creator could have given us
the toughest trial when a person accepts
Islam at least in my opinion is when we
come in contact with the Muslim
community sometimes we look at the
Muslim community and we think that
whatever we read in the Quran and in the
narrations of the Prophet is exactly
what we’re going to get from the people
who are practicing that faith but we’ll
soon come to realize that even in
Christianity or any other faith nobody
can really embody every single law right
so with Islam because we don’t know it
we look at the actions of Muslims and
then if someone I remember for example I
was trying to leave smoking cigarettes
and there was a Muslim outside the
mosque smoking cigarettes so all of a
sudden I went to him and I said is this
in Islam is this religion right it would
make it easy for me like if he says yes
then I don’t have to be smoking but he
said you know he turned it off and he
said you know you’re gonna be a better
Muslim than me you know and that was the
answer and I was like well is it in the
religion or not you know so when I
started seeing that sometimes there was
a contradiction between what was Islam
and what was the action of Muslims I
realized that it was a test because you
can’t rely on what people are doing
anymore so you have to become very aware
of what they should be doing and what I
should be doing and that leads us to
learn and then comes the aspect of who
to ask who do we take our knowledge from
and so it begins a whole search and and
you know reaiiy denta fine you know our
our belief about life and understanding
and so it’s a challenge basically to go
through all of these cultural sort of
vehicles that happen right because we
may have people from different
ethnicities and we may be from a
different ethnicity so we have to
realize that Islam is universal and when
we see it from the pure core from the
sources from the Quran and the Sunnah
the tradition of the Prophet all of a
sudden we realize that all the different
ethnicities and all different people can
participate in it and we’re all
challenged to be the best about what the
text calls us to do in theory and try to
implement it so after that the main
challenge is how
can I implement it without looking at
others and trying to compare myself or
trying to compare them then it becomes a
journey of you being judged by Allah
alone and being sincere in it and just
trying to do your best
when I embrace Islam I was three months
before September 11th so sometimes these
new Muslims we look at our situation and
say especially young Muslims I embrace
Islam when I was 23
so I began questioning and asking myself
what am I going to do now I have I had
wasted a lot of time before because I
wasn’t focused and Islam gave me focus
September 11th happened three months
after I embraced Islam so when I was
looking to see what profession I
actually wanted to carry out when
September 11th happened the Muslims were
very weak in media they didn’t have a
proper representation in public
relations in the image of Islam for the
American public and I started asking
myself if I wasn’t Muslim I maybe
wouldn’t even like the Muslims because
of the way that they’re being portrayed
in the media so I took it upon myself to
take on a profession that was unique to
our community which is media production
basically I went and studied multimedia
which is a combination of video
production audio production web design
and graphic design and my wife who had
just embraced Islam as well found out
that she loved graphic design so we went
into a very the best art school
basically that we have in technology in
Houston the audience into the Houston
and as Muslims there we began to educate
our environment about who the Muslims
were the Dean of Education I remember
would step out of his office for us to
make Salah and our times of prayer
knowing that Muslims were being seen
somehow in the media I did a lot of
projects with video production and audio
explaining what Islam was and they
realized that as long as these skills
went on to communicate a message to
society that’s what we’re about
so I think that my profession coincided
with being able to do something for
Islam and I knew eventually I could have
a profession where I could actually make
a living and at the same time serve
Islam so at my graduation my wife and I
graduated with honors we I was hired by
a an upscale home builder as a marketing
director my first month out of
and I worked there for about three years
and I gained a lot of experience and I
launched my own business at the same
time that I was working there and due to
the need of the Latino community asking
about Islam instead of us going and
coming and talking so many places we
began to generate audio and visual
material to be more efficient for us so
that we could just distribute it and
instead of speaking to millions of
people we would distribute basically to
millions of people online so we created
an organization called Islam in Spanish
which went on to educate Latinos about
Islam using audio-visual our
professional skills basically and when
we started seeing people embracing Islam
asking about Islam and we started seeing
that speaking engagements were lighter
because now we had some material and
people could take that give it to the
loved ones and so that led over to us
wanting to build a studio production
studio and how many lot of people like
Hakeem Olajuwon and others in I’m Suraj
Mahajan others saw the need for Islam in
Spanish due to the fact that we did a
television show we should have our own
production studio where we can not only
produce this but also now teach media to
Muslims especially the Muslim youth so
that they can be the next generation of
people given the message clearly about
who we are so we also do media trains
now in the studio it’s about a
quarter-million dollar studio basically
state-of-the-art production studio
facility and we do film screenings
documentary screenings we speak about
social issues we bring in people who are
not Muslim and they speak about the
social justice issues that they’re
dealing with and we support basically
anyone that we can with media so that’s
gone on to be nonprofit or
community-based work that doesn’t
basically negate my very profession we
have an advertising agency called focus
point studios I’m a producer for Comcast
I belong to an organization called a
leap National Association of Latino
independent producers so we go to
Universal Studios Hollywood I was just
there with Robert Rodriguez the director
of the sprat oh and Spy Kids and so on
Rita Moreno from West Side Story Dolores
Huerta who was a social activist along
with Cesar Chavez and so being with
these great you know individuals and
seeing the advocacy for Latinos in media
and being a Muslim the only Muslim
Spanish person there in Hollywood and
seeing all of this and being able to do
work at that level it’s a blessing and
so I go to New York and have friends and
Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and in in
California I go there and your training
and then come back to Houston and then
we try to benefit at a local level and
speak through universities and so on so
I think the the way of giving the
message if I if I didn’t have media I
would have to just be speaking and
saying so many things but with media we
just focus on specific issues and it
goes globally so I think the profession
is something that we should align
ourselves with when we embrace Islam to
see what we can do where we can serve
Allah Azza WA JAL and at the same time
be able to provide for our families it’s
very important
now my first Ramadan was very unique
because
seven months after accepting Islam I had
the opportunity to go to Mecca for Hajj
and in looking at the territory in Mecca
I saw Mountain Haram which is the place
where the Quran was revealed in
understanding a bit about the Quran and
the power of the Quran how is revealed
for twenty three years to know that
there is a month dedicated to this book
and that every single night this book is
recited in taraweeh as a congregation
right as a community and that you as an
individual should invest your time and
read in the Quran and reflect him so
this is the month of the Quran pretty
much Ramadan I tried my level best to
read the whole choir and alhamdulillah
having the zeal of becoming a new Muslim
I used to want to read a just a part of
the Quran every single day and so when
Ramadan came it was like that challenge
that I wanted to take on and then I
realized that there was so much going
here and there with eating you know what
the Muslims and invitations and I
realized that it wasn’t just sitting
with the book but also coexisting with
Muslims and my family who had recently
embraced Islam my wife and my father we
were going to a lot of different
gatherings meeting different people
non-muslims were coming to the mosque
because food was being served
so it became a month I was actually
pretty busy in the morning trying to do
a personal sort of struggling and in
reading this book in the afternoon or
evening breaking the fast and eating and
being with the congregational prayer and
then the last ten nights come in the
midst of prayer at night so you start
seeing all these different opportunities
and being a new Muslim you kind of want
to deal with everything and then you
realize that you’re limited and you know
in time and you’re limited in your
capacity and so trying to find that
balance to where at least you’ll make it
through our Ramadan
and not you know try to hit every little
angle but try to do you know one’s best
I had a lot of friends of mine that had
breast had embrace the Sun and they gave
me good advice and alhamdulillah I think
I’m out of my family members asked a lot
of questions as to why we weren’t eating
I was working professionally as a
marketing director and a company they
would ask why I wasn’t eating and so it
is a month also where we can educate the
people who are in the environment and
I’m on the purification you start
feeling a cleaner physically you start
feeling even stronger because you don’t
have so much that our body is processing
that holds us down on a daily basis when
we eat it’s like cleaning our body our
mind and spiritually connecting I mean
it’s it’s kind of renewing oneself and
so the the first Ramadan for myself was
like embracing Islam all over again
the youth in the month of ramadhan when
they’re going to school they too are
challenged because they are looked at is
different possibly right they’re not
eating the rest of the people are eating
in the cafeteria or whatever the case
may be the youth may take a stance of
kind of hiding their fast which is fine
because the month of Ramadan the fasting
is for Allah but at the same time if you
take a proactive approach and let the
environment understand why you know the
people who you come in contact with why
it is that you’re doing what you’re
doing it makes an educational
opportunity for the rest of the people I
know in the city of Houston Ramadan
they’re the the MSA in the University of
Houston there’s something called the
fastest time and they invite a lot of
people who are not Muslim and they
basically give in charity if if one
person who is not Muslim fast the the
organization will give like ten or
twenty dollars basically to a specific
charity that benefits like poverty and
things like that something everybody
agrees to so you find a lot of people
were not Muslim fasting for a specific
day for that faster thing and so
alhamdulillah I’ve been fortunate to be
a speaker there and so they bring in a
speaker and then the speaker speaks
about the benefits of Ramadan but then
we bring up people who have never even
thought of fasting before and how they
felt and so we bring them up and they
get to you know explain their their
situation how you know they couldn’t
cuss and it was very tough and they
never even realized that they couldn’t
cuss this is this was interesting right
somebody else comes up they said well I
thought it was all about food but then I
realized that you know trying to not
talk about people was the most difficult
thing for me right and these are regular
people and so I think when the one that
you start looking at all that they start
seeing wow you know these people really
just for one day pondered upon all these
different details and how many of the
Muslim youth are just going through the
motions
just going to school and man you know I
want you know I want to eat this and
that you know in Ramadan yeah I mean
we’re when I break my fast man I’m
hungry or they want to sleep in later
sometimes because they’re fasting these
sort of tendency sometimes may come from
specific countries because I’ve lived in
the Middle East and sometimes certain
people look at fasting as a day as days
when they go to sleep at fudger and they
wake up at about 1:00 or 2:00 in the
afternoon so that they don’t have to
necessarily go to the whole fast of the
day so some youth may have these
tendencies they don’t even know where
they come from but the youth that really
understand the power of the fasting and
the purpose behind it when they indulge
it they benefit from it friends of
theirs may begin to understand some of
that and then they can do specific
events such as that fast asan or things
that are creative so that they can make
something out of that time because it is
a time that all of the good deeds are
increased so they should somehow get
involved obviously be with family
spend time you know eating dinner and
you know family members different people
invite people to eat and and hopefully
be in the spirit of Ramadan because
living here in America you may be in the
spirit of other holidays that are being
expressed in the environment from the
social culture and you may know you know
maybe a Muslim may not share in a
specific holiday like Halloween but you
go to CVS Walgreens anywhere it’s there
right
so as Muslims if we don’t shape our
environment and have people feel
something about Ramadan then they don’t
get to share in the same diversity that
we do you know getting the effects of
all the other holidays and so on so if
we don’t do that ourselves especially
the youth was so much energy then they
will come to find out that when their
children are growing up as youth they
will realize that they hope that they
were children fast and they hope that
they have Islam so they have to start
now consciously understanding that they
have to do something now for the future
as well
the new Muslim is like a newborn baby a
newborn baby is not requested by any
parent to just get up and run or feed
itself it consciously you know that it’s
a need and you take care of it and you
nurture it and you do pretty much
everything it needs in order to begin
crawling and then begin walking and then
you can ask of other things the new
Muslim in the sense of who they are in
their new identity they are at the point
where they’re like newborn babies not
just because Allah cleaned their sins
and they embraced Islam and although
that that’s great but if we all decide
and deal with the new Muslim with all
the rules and only deal with rules and
may break them the same way that we may
take a baby and start giving them all
kinds of rules they can’t really manage
it so we sometimes forget as new Muslims
and also the community forgets regarding
us that the prophet sallallaahu honey
was selling them he had a specific way
of dealing with new Muslims and it took
him to teach them the Quran evil was
being revealed at that time for them to
nurture their heart for 13 years in
Mecca before the ayah were revealed with
rules that mainly came in the met in the
Medina period so it took 13 years for
the Companions of the process of them to
understand law His Messenger reward and
Punishment
right the day of judgment things of the
unseen so the new Muslim misto increases
faith and believe in things of the
unseen that are coming from revelation
before we go to the physical and begin
to say you can’t do this and you have to
do that
because as soon as that happens
sometimes it becomes very difficult on
them if someone comes and says you need
to come and put a piece of tape on this
on the floor here every single day at
this time it’s you know maybe something
you do but you don’t really want to do
it but if somebody says if you don’t put
that piece of tape
they’re right somebody may trip because
elderly people walk through here every
day right and it’s part of your job to
come do that then all of a sudden
there’s a reason for it right and you
may understand and you do it with
meaning unfortunately sometimes the
nurturing or educational process with
the new Muslim is not there so the
community may expect that they just go
through the motions and have all these
rules and they carry them out but they
don’t really know so there has to be an
educational process and there has to be
a social sort of effort to be able to
deal with the new Muslims invite them to
people’s homes educate them as the
actual time of Ramadan is happening and
for the new Muslim as well to understand
that he or she cannot amass and do
everything perfect because there’s a new
Muslim just like a little kid you know
you tell them to do good they want to do
all good and they want to be perfect and
they get kind of shattered when you tell
them they didn’t do something right
because they think they’re okay so the
same way like the new Muslim for them is
just black and white they’re either good
or they’re not so somebody comes and
says you didn’t do this right and may
shatter them because nobody even told
them maybe so we educate them we deal
with them with ease and the new Muslim
should realize that they’re going
through a process and they have to be
also merciful to themselves because if
they don’t have mercy on themselves they
may break their ownselves and so many
people come in Islam and want to do
everything perfectly and there’s a
there’s a hadith in Bukhari where the
prophet saw something said not to be
extreme not to go beyond basically
measure and try to do everything perfect
because this deen of islam will break
and so what we understand by this is
that you can’t be perfect right you can
only try to strive for perfection so the
new Muslim should know that this is a
time where we try to improve and if we
come in Ramadan with a vice or a habit
that we don’t like and we know a lot
doesn’t like it and we at least have as
a goal that we get rid of that one habit
during the month of Ramadan if we
condition ourselves every single day to
get rid of that habit for 30 days if you
can do that for 30 days then there’s a
high probability that
you leave it for the rest of the year
and if you came in with a vise and you
left without it that may be the cleanest
way to have gained the mercy basically
from Allah that Ramadan and is that
simple with Allah because Allah knows
are the efficiencies and if we do
something one thing clearly for Allah it
may be way beyond and trying to do
everything properly and right and maybe
making mistakes along the way that we
don’t even realize