Militant faith makes inroads in new population
By Andrew Redmond
The August 16, 2007 conviction of Jose Padilla on heavy charges related to Islamist terrorism is throwing into perspective a small but growing phenomenon: Hispanic converts to Islam in the United States.
Well-known for missionary zeal, Muslims have had much success among “marginalized” populations in the West. In the United States, prisons are perhaps the largest ground for recruitment, while Islam — with its emphasis on family and order — has had a long impact among blacks. Interestlingly, blacks are being drawn increasingly to “orthodox” Islamic groups with links to the Middle East, a change from earlier days when black supremacy groups like the Nation of Islam — Muslim in name only — were major players.
Padilla was recruited to Islam while in prison as a common criminal. The son of Puerto Ricans, he was caught up in the gang life, joining the Maniac Latin Disciples and doing various prison stints. On his last bid he converted to Islam, which, in its jihadi form, was the perfect fit for his criminal predispositions. According to the government, Padilla eventually became a soldier for al-Qaeda linked terror cells.Padilla’s arrest led him to be held in conditions that many allege are essentially torture.
The phenomenon of Hispanic Muslims is fairly new, and takes interesting twists. Spain was occupied from the 700s AD to 1492 by a series of Islamic occupation states originating in North Africa. While these Muslim Moors were largely white — the descendants of Romans, Visigoths, Vandals and others, the occupation linked Spain to the Muslim world, and was collectively known as al-Andalus, today’s Andalusia. Jihadis still see this westernmost outpost of Islam as lost territory which Allah has commanded them to regain.
Muslim missionaries in America have appealed to this aspect of Spanish history, arguing that the modern-day Hispanic population should return to its “original” Islamic faith, wrested from them by the evil Christian conquistadors who soon went on to oppress the Indians of the New World. Thus in the Muslim analysis, “Mestizo” Hispanics — half-“Arab”/half-Indian — are doubly oppressed and must find a home in Islam.
Hispanic cultural practices also have an interesting interface with Islam, especially the practice of machismo, which finds an echo in the second-class status afforded women in Islam.
While these fanciful revisions of history have had some impact on Catholic Hispanics, who are already holders of various heretical views denounced by the church, an even more serious problem is the apparent gang affiliations of some Hispanic converts and the people they deal with. The powerful and deadly MS 13 http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1251 and other crime networks have been working with jihadi groups across the United States, not least in smuggling illegals and drugs from Mexico.
The threat of a Hispanic/Muslim http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1469 is something to keep a lookout for as America’s steep decline continues.
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