syed writes "Her name is Melanie and she is a quiet American with light ivory complexion and blue eyes. Her parentage is unknown. She is a child orphaned as an infant, and raised by an older couple who's own children were grown. She had been studying the faith of Islam throughout the later part of the summer and her perspective of the world was abruptly changed on Tuesday, September 11th.

While it had difficult before to explain to her friends why she wanted to study Islam and why she was considering the faith for herself, September 11th only made her actions seem even more alien.


After serious contemplation Melanie made her decision. It was 12 days following the attack on New York and Washington DC that Melanie Johnson spoke the words that Muslims around the world declare…she declared "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah." With that Melanie joined a growing number of Americans who are members of the fastest grouping religion in America. She told those present that she chose to be known within the Muslim community as Salma and from that day forward has worked to live in the fold of Islam.


It hasn't been easy. Salma works to support herself, as a daycare worker in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. A single woman responsible for her own needs, she has encountered many small tribulations including a severe broken ankle earlier this summer which left her unemployed for over two months. Within days of embracing Islam, Salma was with other Muslims at a regional peace rally and found herself the next day having her photo in the paper, in full hijab. Those who didn't know before would definitely know now!


Weekly, she travels more than 50 miles to a small village to take classes with other Muslim women. And it was during one of these trips that she had her only taste of hatred for her faith. It wasn't a seriously violent act that she encountered, but rather a symbolic one, as a man in his a pickup truck drove up along side her car and pointed his hand at her in the form of a pistol and symbolically pulled the trigger. Salma and Sara, who was traveling with her, both were shook up as they registered what the unidentified driver was suggesting. He didn't know who they were, but only knew them as Muslim women because of their simple scarves. No one knows what his true intention was. He may merely have wanted to terrorize them to the point of making them hide in their homes or to force them to remove their headscarves. Or even, he wished he really did have a gun, so that he could have shot them.


In the end, the symbolic pistol only solidified the attitudes of the Salma, Sara and other American Muslim women in eastern South Dakota. Prior, the women were attempting to keep a low profile, as much as possible. Now, they decided that no one was going to drive them into their homes! It was a battle of wills. The women were going to speak out and stand up for their rights as American women to practice their chosen faith! They began going to stores and into business districts in hijab and abaya in mass. The American people were going to have to deal with their fellow Americans one way or the other. No more would these American converts allow themselves to be intimidated. Even Muslimahs who had previously not been willing to wear the hijab were donning the scarf in their battle to defend their right to practice their chosen faith against all the pressure that was being put up. There is a saying "When God closes a door, He opens a widow". In this case, God may have closed the window and opened the double doors!
"