Abdurrahman Sykes former evangelical preacher who converted to Islam. At age 12 he read the whole Bible ("from genesis to revelation" he says).
is when he went to Africa and heard the aden (call to prayer) that everything commencé.Déja tiny grandmother Sykes taught him the faith she had a great influence to his religious orientation. One Day as a child
Sykes told his grandmother: " God will not be happy today "" Why
"she replied
" Because we sing a lot to Jesus and we do not sing for him. "
Then she replied:" When you grow up you learn a lot. "Ten years
already preached at the church with a Christian minister he played the piano at the church with the faithful ...
After twelve years he read the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, after reading the Bible, he noticed that he never met the word trinity in any of its pages when he made this remark to a senior professor of the Christian Church this man of religion always tried to avoid even making detours soon as they saw the small Sykes he would always avoid his questions rather relevant, but one day it caught fire while the teacher replied: "The reason it is because it is not there "(as heard it elsewhere).
At the age of fifteen he went to study at a theological school Bible (studying the King James Bible) a little later he studied another version of the Bible to understand more ... but he made a severe nervous breakdown because despite all these studies it was béants.Plus holes later at the age of 17 he went to Africa South and he left the evangelical church the last prayer he did (South Carolina) was in a Baptist church.
arrived in Africa in charge Sykes was very hungry then responsible for its accommodation took him eat in a corner of a street
he knew well but all of a sudden we heard: "Allah OUAKBAR, OUAKBAR ALLAH, ALLAH OUAKBAR .. " Sykes said
very puzzled: "What is it?"
LEADER: "This is the call to prayer of the Muslims do it 5 times a day." Sikes said he felt it was something good and it pérsentait something true ...
now named Shaykh Abdurrahman Sykes takes a big star with Islam in Central Florida, where he serves as full-time Muslim chaplain in a federal prison nearby and is well known as a spokesperson. His wife is also a convertie.C is a former evangelical preacher and cancer survivor, it is converted in 1984, tried to educate his religious occuppe always a very important place in his life.
the morning of September 11, 2001
Imam resident in Clermont Abdurrahman Sykes flew to Washington. Four minutes after his arrival at the airport of
Washington Dulles Flight 77 had crashed in the Pentagone.Il wear the same type of clothing he had proudly worn for 20 years Muslims traditionally religious (known as the djellaba) with a long and thick beard - Sykes walked into the airport with dozens of other passengers unaware that the nation had been attacked. 
few meters after, Sykes saw a large crowd of people around the television to a restaurant in the airport. They were faces of pain and angry, there was a blur on the TV then it has become clearer and he was confronted with images of the attacks?!? Filled with confusion and immense sadness Sykes
immediately thought of his wife and his four young children in North Carolina. The family had been separated for several months because Sykes ended a school in Washington and he prepared for them a new home in Clermont. There was (weekly) studies in sociology and Islamic Leesburg, Virginia, he was working on a Master 
for religious work as a chaplain in a prison in Florida. While Sykes stood frozen watching television, TV reporter told the nation that America was attacked by terrorists who were Muslim extremists. Sykes began to notice uncomfortable stares in his direction
. He wore the same long beard and clothing that features terrorist. But Sykes is not a profile terroriste.Il is the son of two Christian farmers in North Carolina and was converted to Islam two decades earlier. For the first time in his life, Sykes was terrified.
ISLAMOPHOBIA
This is not an unusual story. Muslim Americans across the country observed a change in their lives since September 11 and according to the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Florida has been a center of anti-Muslim.
spokesman Ahmed Bedier of the Tampa center has seen the impact of hate crimes in Central Florida, including vandalism of the education center of the Community in Lutz (Islamic center in a suburb of Tampa). In June, a group of vandals entered breaking into the center and scrawled anti-Muslim expressions on the walls - "kill all Muslims! ! ! "And" you killed my sister and now I try to kill you. "Bedier was devastated ...
"It's very hurtful," he said in an interview on Tampa Tribune. "It makes me so sad and it upsets me. When Muslims see this, they feel intimidated and helpless. Clearly this was done by a group of ignorant people, a group that has a lot of hatred in their hearts. "
There has been a steady rise of anti-Muslims in Florida and around the country. According to a study CAIR, the activity of anti-Muslims has increased nationally by 15 percent in 2002, and Florida increased 95 percent in 2001 ... (Scary numbers).
There is a lack of educating some influential Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Jerry Vines who enflament anti-Muslim feelings by using anti-Muslim.
Example - the Rev. Jerry Vines of Jacksonville, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said in 2002 that "Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives and his last was a girl 9. ».....
Except his name is Arabic the Sykes family like any other white American wife Nuran, children 13 years and Haleema Billaal 10 years, two daughters aged 17 and Kamila Naasiha 15. "I was wearing a djellaba on 9/11/2001, I was more like an Arab not an American. "
" I knew I had to leave Washington this morning.
I called the hotel where I should go because I had friends. I remember telling them that "you must leave me out of here. My name is Abdurrahman ... So they sent an airport shuttle to pick me take and then I boarded a train. The train had to make four stops unexpected, and it took me 19 hours from Washington to the new Florida. "Weeks after that it was confirmed that there were some
terrorists in the prison where I was Imam, and there were reports like if a Muslim were required to reverse the country and join the jihad without be a lâche.Je them I immediately said that this is not Islam. Islam teaches that any Muslim or non-Muslims who shows good will if only the weight of an atom is rewarded. Islam is a religion of peace and jihad is the struggle within . Jihad does not mean war or killing of innocent. ''
Bassem Chaaban, Assistant Director of the Centre for Peace at the Islamic Society of Central Florida has invested his career to resolve such misconceptions in interfaith education. "These terrorists are not Muslims. If you told me you're a doctor when I fell on the floor and then you have no knowledge of how to help me ... you're not a doctor. You can call a doctor or all you
want, but you're not a doctor, " Shaaban said. "The same reasoning applies to terrorists who will mark them as Muslims. The proof is in their actions. They can say they are Muslims but their actions go against the fundamental teachings of Islam, which are teachings of peace, not murder. "CAIR's Bedier accurate quotations of the Holy Quran to illustrate that point, for example Surah 8 - Verse 61:" And if they incline to peace, incline to it and put thy trust in Allah, for it is it is the Hearing, the Knowing. Or Surah 2 - Verse 190. "Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress, for Allah loveth not transgressors! "
Shaaban added, "When I see someone on the street who needs help, I will not ask:" Are you Christian or Muslim? I said, "you need help? ... "True Islam teaches that Judaism and Christianity teaches. "
Areej Zufar, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Central Florida shows that the media only contribute to the problem. "Violent extremists are not practitioners of Islam, a religion of peace and compassion.Les media should not associate the two. But unfortunately, the media often succumbs to the sensational ... "Adds
Chaaban" the media always attaches the word "Islam" [to fundamentalists and extremists], and so when you hear the word Islam, it is negative. We want a balance. You must show the bombing and fundamentalists ... But also show how prayer and the Christians and Muslims and Jews talking together peacefully. "
Sykes takes deep breath and folded his arms and said:" After I reprimanded the inmates for terrorists and spread messages of violence, my life was threatened. They tried to assassinate me. Someone from the prison told us they planned to make me something and there was a weapon in the chapel. And staff checked the chapel 20 minutes before my program enseigenement, and found that inmates had taken copper piping and had sharpened as a weapon. "
Sikes's face darkened and he said:" But as these prisoners were not successful, they put a contract on my life (outside the jail) inmate non-Muslims was found at the bottom of lobby of my office with a sharpened metal rod; cétait very dangerous because some of these homemade weapons are far more dangerous than weapons "normal". For example if I were to stab you with a knife you have an injury more clean with a homemade knife, "he says nervously.
"So I was very stressé.Ma life was threatened and people looked at me differently. I guess that is contributed to the fact that I am a minority among minorities among minorities. I am the only cleric in white Corrections United States .... "His wife Nuran
breaks the conversation. "The story about ...," she suggested gently.
"Oh yeah," he says with wide eyes. I lived in the Clermont and had switched to school in Washington, and my family flew down to Florida about a month after September 11 and enter into our new home here. The night we arrived in October 2001, and when we walked towards the door, someone yelled, "BOOM!" the towers disappeared!
''"I watched my family and say" we do not need this .... "While rubbing his beard he tells the story about how his school was raided by the FBI and has been studied. The agents took computers from school and says he has restored broken.
His shoulders are collapsing and he looks down. "I've always been a person who tried to live my life honestly and with good under and character ... "With shining eyes.
The family remains silent. Sykes looks at his three daughters and smiled. Kamila
gathers his courage to talk about his own experiences. His eyes remain focused on her blue jogging while struggling to keep calm without showing his emotions.
"We moved here well after Sept. 11, so it was kind hard. The first day I started college my locker was broken. And then later in the class, a boy during a conversation about 9 / 11 says: "I think all Muslims should be killed and if I saw them on the street, I would draw.
''She wears her hands his face to cover up the tears started flowing down his face. She can not talk for almost 30 seconds. "I did not really want to say" hey, I'm Muslim "so I just kept my tranquillité.J I called my mom and she picked me up and I went to a different school. I liked it because the teachers did not allow children to keep saying things like that, which I'm grateful. "
Sykes interrupts her daughter. "When the child stood in her classroom and said that the teachers did nothing. I went to the principal about it and he did not even excuses ... "
Haleema seized arms giant oversized chair where she sits in and speak quickly while playing with her long hair." I covered my head in the fourth and fifth class (primary school ) and incident occurred. Once on the bus, a girl and a boy have torn my hijab in my head and threw him out the window endehors. Now I'm not wearing my hijab, but some children may bring my photo class at school who shows me wearing it just for fun of me .... "The young Billaal squirming on the carpet. His eyes with tears." a boy it amused me because I was Muslim and he said that Osama bin Laden when he was my uncle saw my dad wearing the djellaba. He keeps talking about my tears never cross his eyes.
The eldest daughter, Naasiha is silent. She says she does not speak. The children watch their mother wipes the tears from his face.
"Obviously all the stories that happened to me affected my family," she said happily with a British accent.
Nuran was born in South Africa where she met Sykes in the early 80s. The couple went to the U.S. This now and have been married for 20 years.
"A school Billaal office staff was wonderful and the teachers were wonderful. But one day, one of the teachers Billaal came to me and said some of the school children made fun of me because they Billaal seen wearing the hijab. So he said, "just explain your religion so that children who mock Billaal be educated. And Billaal actually did the lesson himself, he spoke of Islam .... She stops and starts to cry.
Sykes brings her chair closer to soothe his wife. She continues: 'So I offered my services at his school and staff office insisted to pay for my work. But I soon discovered that some parents would see the principal and asked, "how can you pay this lady? How can you pay a Muslim?''She cries unable to continue.
Sykes breaks into the conversation. "I had prostate cancer in May of this year dernière.Et from May of last year and March this year, I had to do 10 surgeries. They ' have actually indicated that I would die, and they sent me home. So she really needed this work to keep his mind on other things, "He said.
He looks at his children: "But when your children are in pain, you're in pain. It's hard enough being a teenager in this world. It really is like the worst part of life, I think. And our children have all this pressure to be in a minority religion ... Their mother wears a hijab, their dad is wearing a long shirt that looks like a dress. The other kids say: "Oh, your dad wears a dress. Haleema
''laughed nervously ...
"... For me, I am so grateful to be invited to Islam. And my whole approach to life is gratitude. When I had cancer, it was very hard for my family. My cancer was very serious. When people came to see me, I said: "listen, get a smile on your face is win situation. If I die, I'm going to heaven, and if I die God will not test me. I do not want to lose here.''
... The family gets up from their seats and prepared for their sunset prayer. Billaal goes in the empty room at the house and stands before the microphone and puts the two hand side of his head and begins the call to prayer of a young Arab superbe.Sa voice echoed throughout the house. Noran Kamila and cover their hair with white scarves, and stand behind during Billaal he ended the call to prayer. Sykes enters the room, stands beside his son and provides prière.Toute family falls to her knees for seven minutes rocking back and forth several times.
When the prayer is over, and Kamila Billaal located on the edge of the floor. He wraps his tiny arms around her waist and hugs him. They are silent and their eyes closed, as their parents continue to pray quietly a few feet in front of them.
The children get up and run into the kitchen to talk about lighter things and eat dinner and children laughing and talking together.
Standing with his arm around his wife, Sykes observes his children without saying a word. A tired smile spreads across his lips, and he seems at peace.
