Nahela Morales is a Mexican mother of one currently living
in New Jersey, USA. She serves as the National Hispanic Outreach Coordinator
for Why Islam, a non-profit dawah organization.
Recently, she and a team of volunteers traveled to Mexico to
give dawah and provide aid for impoverished families. It was during this trip
that she visited the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas in the State of Chiapas,
home to a growing number of indigenous converts to Islam. This is her story of
the Muslim mothers living there.
Where exactly is
Chiapas and what kind of place is it?
Chiapas is in the south of Mexico, bordering Guatemala,
Central America, Vera Cruz, Mexico, and Tabasco, Mexico. It’s a very humid,
tropical area with lots of natural vegetation; it’s a rainforest.
Culturally, it’s a very rich place with lots of tourism,
especially in San Cristobal de Las Casas. The people who live there are
predominantly indigenous made up of Mayans and non-Mayans.
How did Islam
originally reach Chiapas?
This is kind of a tricky question to answer because
unfortunately Islam didn’t come in a very truthful way. It was brought by a
group of Spaniards who adhered to a specific sect of Islam and held onto
practices that were not actually part of the religion. When they migrated to
the area, they built industry and created jobs for the indigenous people who
lived there. But the jobs were not fair. They forced the people to work from
Fajr time until 12 midnight for a pay of only about $10 per week.
Alhamdulilah, the indigenous people accepted Islam but ran
into disagreements and were outcast by the Spaniards when they tried to subject
them to practices that were not from the religion, such as never being able to
speak to their family members.
This caused a lot of fighting and separation
between the people and basically split everyone into two groups: those who
tried to follow Qur’an and Sunnah and those who did not. Some who felt that
these ways could not be from Islam traveled to Mexico City, about a 12 hour bus
ride from Chiapas, searching for other Muslims who could teach them the correct
practices of the religion and they brought those teachings back with them to
Chiapas.
How many Muslim
converts are living in Chiapas now and what is their community like?
Currently, there’s an estimated 300 converts living in
Chiapas, but the number is still growing. Chiapas actually has the largest
number of Muslim converts living in one location in the whole of Mexico. Pretty
much all of those who converted are related to one another through the same two
families and speak Tzotzil, the native dialect of the people.
The masjid is called Masjid Al-Kauthur and is located
pretty much in the middle of the rainforest. It’s very small, maybe the size of
an office conference room, and is made of mud cement. Despite the size, the
masjid still offers daily congregational salat five times a day and the Jummah
prayer on Fridays. It’s open for the both men and women.The Khutbas are given by one of two of the oldest Muslims in
Chiapas who happen to be brothers. One of them studied in Spain and has been
Muslim for 14 years and the other one has been Muslim for 18 years.
In terms of resources, the community is very poor. The work
that’s available is very limited and the pay is inconsistent. You have
agricultural workers, carpenters, construction workers, and taxi drivers, but
none of them have a regular income. If it rains, the construction worker can’t
work. If no one in the community needs something fixed, the carpenter can’t
work. If the taxi driver is low on money, he can’t buy gas to run his cab. When
a holiday comes and people only have four chickens to slaughter, that’s what
they slaughter. During Ramadan, they fast all day and then break their fast
with a piece of tortilla, some salt, and call it a day.
But the contentment is unexplainable.
There, it’s really just them and Allah, and that’s it. To break fast with a
piece of tortilla and salt, that shattered me.
They are all very united mashaAllah and help one another
out. The whole community comes together to spread funds amongst everyone. If
one family manages to grow a crop of tomatoes, they’ll split their tomatoes
with the other families so everyone can eat tomato, mashaAllah. They’re really
a living display of what it means to be one ummah.
Tell me about the
Muslim mothers in Chiapas.
Most of the families live in the outskirts of San Cristobal,
about a 15-20 minute drive away from the main part of the city. But it’s known
by all that they’re Muslims. Even when people don’t know to call them “Muslim”,
they call them the “different people who live in that town”. They have told me
that for the most part they don’t feel any different because they speak the
local dialect. But those who are from different tribes and speak Spanish have more
difficulty mingling in and can feel rejected at times. But in general, the
non-Muslims in the area are used to seeing the Muslims around so they don’t
treat them as strangers or foreigners.
MashaAllah, one of the things that struck me the most about
these women was their attire. It really impressed me how they adapted to a new
way of life in Islam but still hold on to their cultural identity and dress,
usually a long wool skirt tied with a string belt, a colorful blouse, a small
sweater, and then the hijab. So they’re identified by others as being Muslim
because of their hijab, but the rest of
their attire makes it known that they are part of the indigenous community.
99% of the Muslim women in Chiapas are stay-at-home moms and
about 99% of them all breastfeed their babies mashaAllah. Most of the women
have at least 3 children. We saw some families with as many as 6 or 7 children.
The houses are very poor. The walls are made of lumber
that’s tied together, kind of like when you tie Popsicle sticks together to
make a wall for a toy house. Some of the women have to hang plastic on the
inside to help keep the water out. The whole house is just one room that’s
divided into areas by curtains. The beds are just mats laid on the floor. The
bathroom is an outhouse with no drainage; you just poor water in before you go.
The kitchen is run on a gas tank and when that gas runs out, the women have to
cook in someone else’s house. Most of the homes don’t have refrigerators. But
the families don’t have a lot of food in the first place so those who do have fridges just share their space with the ones who don’t. And look at us! We have fridges
full of food and still open the door ten times before deciding that we have
nothing at all, subhanAllah.
The women have to walk to the river to wash their laundry,
bring it back wet, and then hang it outside to dry. A couple of the women whose
husbands manage to bring home a little bit of money use the funds to sew and
embroider items to sell such as mats or blouses. Because of lack of resources,
the women almost always cook together.
One sister only has beans, another only has rice, so they come together
so all the families can have a little bit of everything.
But even in such conditions, the women are very content and
satisfied with everything that Allah, subhana wa ta ala, has given them. The
whole time that I was there, I never heard one complaint from a single one of
them about their situation. They’re always smiling and they’re always together.
They’re very united. When the men are out, they’re helping each other with the
children, or cooking together, or working together to sell things. They have
that true peace that comes with accepting the Qadr of Allah and an amazing
sisterhood mashaAllah.
As a mother and
Mexican convert to Islam yourself, what sort of connection did you build with
the mothers in Chiapas?
When we got to Masjid Al-Kauthur and I saw these sisters,
the first thing I did was start crying. And then they started crying. It was as
if our sisterhood in Islam just immediately brought us together and made us so
happy to see eachother. The hugs were long and the tears just kept flowing. It
was an amazing feeling that I’ve never felt, and with people who I had never met
in my life. The bond of sisterhood in Islam that brings us together is very
powerful. It’s truly a connection beyond words.
Take away the environment and the lack of resources and I
found that these mothers had many similarities with Muslims mothers around the
world, regardless of where in the world you live.
The way they
nourished their children and the way I nourished my own child were similar. The
way they taught their children and encouraged their children to pray,
especially the older ones, I felt was similar too. I mean, there were so many
similarities. And I think it’s because no matter the situation we are in, as
mothers we always want the best for our children and we care for them. We’re always
the nurturers, the caregivers, and the protectors of our children.
What do you think is
the greatest Islamic lesson we can learn from the Muslim moms in Chiapas?
The biggest
lesson is to put Islam as a priority. Even with their lack of resources, Islam
is the priority for these mothers. And it shows that you don’t need money, or a
fancy house to pass on the single greatest thing that Allah has given us, the
Qur'an. Even though they had little knowledge, they made sure to pass on
whatever they knew of the religion to their children. As soon as they learned
something, they passed it on mashaAllah.
We put so
many obstacles on ourselves that we forget our priority should always be to
insert the values of the Quran and Islam into our families. These women in
Chiapas don’t have Friday night classes with guest speakers, or Al-Maghrib
institute, or online halaqahs, but they are there learning their religion
and passing it on while so many of us here (in the US) don’t.
Even in terms
of manners and character. I will never forget little Omar, who was only about 5
or 6 years old, but he was the most helpful little boy I ever saw. He would run
back and forth to help us and thank us. The lack of resources and education has
not stopped them from teaching their families manners.
No matter
where in the world we are, or what our situation is, Islam is one and the Sunnah
of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is one. We should be teaching our
families these two things no matter what. Don’t take it for granted.
Lack of time or
money shouldn’t be an excuse for us to not teach our children the lessons they
need to learn. And I say this as a full-time working mom.
Is there anything
else you would like to add?
At one point
when we were all cooking together, some questions came up about our lifestyle. After
we answered them, we asked the women if they would ever want come to America. They
said no. And I didn’t expect that. It surprised me because they were so full of
questions and happy with all of the answers we gave them, but they had no
desire whatsoever to take part in it. The lesson I brought home from this is
that when Allah, subhana wa ta ala, chooses things for us and we accept what
He’s given us, He puts that satisfaction in our hearts.
In America,
we have everything and we always want more. But in Chiapas, they don’t have and
they’re content, subhanAllah. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think
of my family in Chiapas and how accepting they are of Allah’s Qadr.
Sometimes
we’re complaining over the most insignificant things when we’re really rich.
We’re filthy rich. And not because we
have a roof over our heads, but because we have Islam. Sometimes we focus so
much on our actual hardships that we forget about Islam. But these women in
Chiapas aren’t like that. They don’t even know if they’re going to have food to
last them the day but they’re okay with it. It’s amazing subhanAllah.
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To learn more
about the Muslims living in Chiapas, Mexico, or to help out with some of the ongoing
projects there, contact Nahela Morales directly at nahela@whyislam.org.
