Word: islam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...their charred tissue and bone fragments for the parents to hold a funeral. Staring at the two wooden boxes covered with green embroidered cloth and surrounded by grieving family members, the Muslim cleric was gripped by both sadness and rage. "The terrorists who kill in the name of Islam claim they are the martyrs," Magid told TIME later, the anger still roiling him. "But the victims are the martyrs. The terrorists are the murderers, and God will deal with them on Judgment...
Breaking with tradition hasn't bothered Magid. Born 40 years ago in the northern Sudanese village of Alrakabih along the Nile River, he studied Islam under African Sunni scholars, who included his father. Magid immigrated to the U.S. in 1987, when his ailing father came seeking medical treatment. Unlike many foreign imams, who find America's open society too jolting and withdraw to their mosques, he reveled in the cultural diversity. "I never had a Jewish friend until I came to the U.S.," says the gregarious imam. "And the questioning of all religions here helped me strengthen my own beliefs...
Magid reached out, taking college courses in psychology and family counseling, teaching classes on the Koran at the Islamic Center and Howard University in Washington. One of his African-American students at Howard--Amaarah Decuir, who had recently converted to Islam from Catholicism and was getting a master's degree in education--eventually became his wife and educated him on women's issues. In 1997, Magid became imam of a mosque just west of Washington called ADAMS, an acronym for All Dulles Area Muslim Society. An imam can be a layman sufficiently versed in the Koran to lead daily prayers...
...American imam becomes de facto mayor of his Muslim community. A line of congregants often stretches outside Magid's office filled with followers asking for all kinds of help. Finding love, for example, can be difficult for observant Muslims scattered in U.S. cities; Islam forbids physical contact in dating or cruising for mates in nightclubs that serve alcohol. A breathless young man once phoned Magid in the middle of the night to ask if he could perform a marriage in a parking lot "right now" so the suitor and the woman in his car wouldn't feel guilty about what...
...whether the Koran allows a woman to have a bikini wax. He advises abstaining from alcohol and sex before marriage but knows his advice won't always be followed, so he also counsels on safe sex and the health dangers of binge drinking. As for the bikini wax, Islam's rules on female modesty allow it, he decided--if a wife's husband will be the only one to see the result. "He's not some big, scary imam sitting in his office passing judgment," says Zohra Atmar, a 25-year-old legal assistant who is a mosque member...