This is the second part of my personal journey through Islam in America. Make sure you’ve read Part 1 before reading this post. Everything will make more sense, Inshallah.

Now, I’m going to talk about the most important part of my life. Every life has a moment when things change; when we alter our outlook on life. Mine came in 1991. But let’s talk about the 90′s in general.

Unlike the first post, this decade will be broken into several parts. The first part is before the “life-changing event.” The second part is after the “life-changing event.” Well, let’s get going.

1990′s

Brooklyn Tech

This decade really starts in 1989. This was the year I learned many things about myself.

As I’ve mentioned in the intro to my first post, I’m somewhat intelligent. Maybe not quite a genius, but definitely smarter than your average bear.

Throughout most of my time in school, I was pretty lazy, and never tried very hard. This is how a typical school year went:

1. I’d play around in school, wouldn’t do my homework, and got in some trouble.
2. I’d bring a bad report card home and my mother would go ballistic.
3. I’d do a whole lot better the next semester and earn a little reward from my mother.
4. School year would end.
5. Summer would come.
6. New school year begins.
7. I’d play around in school, wouldn’t do my homework, and got in some trouble.
8. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But in 1989 I decided to do things a little differently. I made up my mind to try to do well in school.

And I did. It was surprising how easy good grades were when I actually did the homework and studied a little.

To make a long story short, I did really great in my last year of Junior High, got lots of rewards, and proved to myself that I could do well if I wanted to.

Then came high school.

My heart was set on John Jay High School which was famous for its emphasis on law and I wanted to be a lawyer at the time. And there was the local zoned high school for Bed Stuy called Boys and Girls High. It had made dramatic improvements in recent years and wasn’t the death trap it used to be.

And then, there were the science schools.

For those of you familiar with NYC, you know there are three so-called “science schools.”

The Bronx High School of Science. Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. And Brooklyn Tech.

All or most Junior High School students take a standardized test to enter one of these prestigious schools.

Like most eighth graders in NYC, I took the test but never expected to be admitted to any of the schools. I didn’t believe I smart enough to get in.

And to my great surprise, I passed the test and was admitted to Brooklyn Technical High School.

There’s a modern video of some kids at Brooklyn Tech at the top of this page.

Even more surprising was how I got in. Since I didn’t really care about the test, I took my sweet time while taking it.  I ran out of time, and did not answer the last 15 questions!

And I still got in.

This changed me quite a bit. There’s a big difference between people telling you you’re gifted (my mother used to tell me this all the time) and actually knowing it.

I now decided live the American dream. I was gonna rise up out of the ghetto and become a prominent lawyer (or doctor; I changed my mind often). I was gonna live in the fancy brownstones of Park Slope or the Village. I was gonna get the hell outta Bed Stuy. I was gonna get paid.

And it would all start with Brooklyn Tech.

Well, things didn’t quite work out that way.

In Brooklyn Tech, I was no longer one of the smartest kids in the school. I was just another smart kid surrounded by thousands of other smart kids, many of whom were much smarter, had tried harder in Junior High, had private tutors, and were willing to work and study as hard as they could.

I did try to do well the first half of the school year. Yet, I only did so-so. Not really bad. Not really good.

I totally stunk up the second half of the year. But there’s a reason why.

The Daara House

In 1991 my mother, younger sisters and I began to visit this house in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, where every Friday, several Senegalese immigrants would gather to chant and recite Hasayats (Arabic poetry by a Senegalese Sheikh named Ahmadou Bamba).

Here’s a video of some Senegalese men reciting Hasaayat. This is how things were at the Daara house, except they were inside and sitting down.

The Senegalese men would bring their wives  along (who were very often American) and their children. They would also cook huge pots of traditional Senegalese food.

Most of the Senegalese men would sit in the living room in a circle chanting the poems in loud voices. The women would usually sit in a separate room chatting. And the kids were usually in the basement or outside acting crazy.

My sister’s and I loved it. The food was great. I got to meet a lot of good friends. I could stop pretending I wasn’t Muslim. And I could escape the pretentiousness of high school life for a few hours.

One of the men who attended this house (which we called the Daara House) was a Jamaican born Muslim we knew as Brother Muhammad. I would become best friends with his son, Yusuf.

Brother Muhammad was putting a program together to send American Muslim kids to Senegal to study Islam. He was coordinating with one of the Sheikhs in Senegal named Serigne Mourtada Mbacke, who was the son of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba.

We visited the Daara house every week for about six months. By the third month, my mother started talking about sending my sisters and I to Senegal also. But I didn’t really think she was serious.

When she found out some kids pulled a gun out on me while walking home from school one day, I think she made up her mind.

I was plain sick and tired of New York City.

High School was not fun for me. It was a constant parade of trying to figure out classes, girls, fashion, and myself.  And a daily ritual of trying to survive.

I had to ride the subway to Brooklyn Tech. Riding the subways in NYC is not safe. Especially if you’re skinny with glasses. Every day was an adventure in trying to avoid getting mugged or “jumped.”

I was just a smart kid trying to become something more than another African-American male statistic. But other African-American males were always trying their best to make my life hell.

I was robbed on a few occasions. I had a gun pulled on me once (as I mentioned above). I don’t know how many times I was tempted to slip a kitchen knife in my bookbag to take to school.

So the thought of escaping this madness for Africa was exciting.

When my mother said she wanted to send us to Africa, I completely stopped trying to get good grades in school. I just stopped caring completely.

And in August 1991, I got on the plane with several other young Muslim boys from NYC, including Yusuf and Brother Muhammad and made the trip to Senegal.

My initial reflections on Senegal continue in Part 2b.