Suburban bliss

The Times' Andrea Elliott writes another in her string of arresting front-page profiles of Muslims in the New York area, A Cleric’s Journey Leads to a Suburban Frontier.

Sheik Reda Shata pushed into Costco behind an empty cart. He wore a black leather jacket over his long, rustling robe, a pocket Koran tucked inside.

Mr. Shata and his family enjoy Middletown’s tranquillity, a sharp contrast to their old Brooklyn neighborhood. Outside their new home, which is next to the mosque, he lingered with his young son, Mohammed, and his daughters Esteshhad, left, and Rahma.

The imam, a 38-year-old Egyptian, seemed not to notice the stares from other shoppers. He was hunting for a bargain, and soon found it in the beverage aisle, where a 32-can pack of Coca-Cola sold for $8.29. For Mr. Shata, this was a satisfying Islamic experience.

“The Prophet said, ‘Whoever is frugal will never suffer financially,’ ” said the imam, who shops weekly at the local store and admits to praying for its owners. He smiled. “These are the people who will go to heaven.”

Seven months have passed since Mr. Shata moved to this New Jersey suburb to lead a mosque of prosperous, settled immigrants. It is a world away from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he toiled for almost four years, serving hundreds of struggling Muslims for whom America was still new.

His transition is a familiar one for foreign-born imams in the United States, who often start out in city mosques before moving to more serene settings.

For Mr. Shata, Middletown promised comfort after years of hardship. He left behind a tiny apartment for a house with green shutters set amid maple trees and sweeping lawns. He got a raise. He learned to drive.

But the suburbs have brought challenges that Mr. Shata never imagined. His congregation in Brooklyn may have been on the margins of American society, but it was deeply rooted in Islam. Muslims in Middletown were generally more assimilated but less connected to their mosque.

To be a successful suburban imam, he found, meant persuading doctors and lawyers not to rush from prayers to beat traffic. It meant connecting with teenagers who drove new cars, and who peppered their Arabic with “like” and “yeah.” It meant helping his daughter cope with mockery at school, in a predominantly white town that lost dozens of people on Sept. 11.

It's a great article, of course; the audio slideshow, narrated by the imam, gives it another dimension. And the closing paragraphs--wow.

One afternoon this month, a yellow school bus with mechanical problems pulled into the mosque’s parking lot.

The imam had just finished the afternoon prayer and was leaving the mosque. Eagerly, he walked up to the bus, his long robe flapping. He wondered if his daughter Esteshhad might be onboard.

As he drew closer, he saw the children pointing at him and laughing. He struggled, in English, to offer the driver help, but she politely declined. He searched for his daughter. It was not her bus. Relieved, he walked away.

For Esteshhad, life had been hard enough, he thought. After attending an Islamic school in Brooklyn, she is now one of only two girls who wear head scarves at her public middle school. She sits alone at the front of her bus. In the cafeteria, she eats by herself.

“They keep thinking I’m weird,” she said. “I feel weird, too.”

She hears about sleepovers and trips to the mall, but she has yet to experience these things. Her mother cannot drive, and Mr. Shata is reluctant to chauffeur his children until he feels safer in the car.

Outside school, Esteshhad’s only other contact with her peers comes at the mosque. But even there — where some girls carry designer bags — she often feels left out.

One night this month, she sat slouched on the edge of her bed. If only she had a cellphone or an iPod, she said, she might have friends.

“I have friends,” her 7-year-old sister, Rahma, piped up.

“You don’t wear a hijab,” Esteshhad shot back.

Recently, her mother noticed that Esteshhad had forgotten parts of the Koran. She was also becoming more assertive.

A sign outside her room read, “Please knock before entering!” and then, in smaller letters, “I’m angry.”

Esteshhad’s mother has thought of enrolling her again in an Islamic school, but Mr. Shata is reluctant. He wants to give public school a chance. Still, it pains him to see Esteshhad so alone.

When asked how he would respond if Esteshhad stopped wearing a head scarf, the imam thought for a moment. Such a scenario, for him, would have been unthinkable in Egypt.

“I would try to convince her and I would find 1,001 ways to her heart,” he said. “I hate aggression. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘Teach, don’t humiliate.’ ”

Teaching, for the imam, also means learning. He will learn as he goes, he said, with Esteshhad at school, with the teenagers at his mosque.

It is a path he began in Brooklyn. To live an Islamic life in America, he said, requires a curious mind and a strong heart.

Mr. Shata tries to bring both to his youth group every week.

Only 11 young Muslims came to the first meeting in October. Now, the imam looks out at a room full of faces.

“Sixty and counting,” he said.

Like anyone else of integrity and goodness, Imam Shata is not what you might think he is. He's the kind of person who you want to converse with, hear about his experiences, listen to his views; things like this make sense about him:

Every Friday, a dozen of Mr. Shata’s former Brooklyn congregants began appearing in Middletown to hear his weekly sermon.

“Maybe he’s here in body, but his soul is there,” said Amgad Abdou, an Egyptian driver who came every week, his limousine full. “He’s like the Statue of Liberty, part of the skyline. He’s part of Bay Ridge.”

What great quotes; what telling details, the perfect story arc.

It does make me think Elliott's fingerprints are sometimes a bit too apparent in her articles; but that's probably because when it comes to Islam, non-Muslim Americans still need their hands held a little.

Photo of Imam Shata and his young son, Mohammed, and his daughters Esteshhad and Rahma by James Estrin for the Times.