Her opinions on the "mystery" of the Trinity, proper attire, and public worship arrangements, are worth considering. (May start threads on these later.)
I report and link. You decide. - J :)
From a Toronto Star article, Soccer mom picked to head Islamic group:
Soccer mom picked to head Islamic group [/] Convert | How a Kitchener teen stopped saying her rosary, tuned in to the Qur'an and became president
of N. America's largest Muslim group [/] Sep. 24, 2006. 01:00 AM [/] STEPHANIE SIMON [/] SPECIAL TO THE STARCanadian philosophy student Ingrid Mattson had given up God. She had stopped saying her rosaries, stopped taking communion. She was an atheist, abroad in Paris the summer before her senior year at the University of Waterloo.
But she could not stop listening to the Qur'an. [/] "Forget it," she told herself. "This can't be happening to me." [/] But day after day, she popped the cassette into her Walkman, mesmerized by the chanting and oddly moved by lines such as: "Of him seeks every creature in the heavens and on earth; every day in splendour."
When she returned home to Canada after that summer of 1986, Mattson signed up for the only Arabic class she could find. It was full of 8-year-old immigrants, who soon came to resent her for winning so many of the chocolates the teacher awarded top students. [/] Mattson wanted to hang out in bars with her brothers, the way she always had. [/] Instead, she found herself at her sewing machine, stitching headscarves. That spring, during the holy month of Ramadan, she gathered several Muslim friends as witnesses and pledged herself to Allah.
[…] Last month, about 60,000 Muslims in the United States and Canada elected the 43-year-old Kitchener native president of the largest Muslim organization on the continent, an educational and professional group called the Islamic Society of North America. [/] She is ISNA's first woman president, the first non-immigrant and the first convert to Islam.
[…] Outside the organization, Muslims have greeted Mattson's election more warily. [/] She has received angry letters from conservatives who resent having a woman in charge. Such critics often cite an ancient hadith, or narrative about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, stating that no goodwill comes from entrusting leadership to a woman. [/] The Islamic left has questioned Mattson's credentials as well. A traditionalist who dresses modestly in ankle-length skirts and loose blouses — and who avoids shaking men's hands whenever possible — she pushes women's rights only so far. [/] She has called for mosques to dismantle barriers that block women from seeing or clearly hearing the imam during prayer. But she does not support the more radical, feminist notion that women should pray alongside men — or even lead men in prayer.
[…] Mattson's journey to Islam began when she was a teenager in Kitchener. As a girl, she had been the most pious in her family of seven children, but when she entered high school, she began to find bedrock concepts such as the Holy Trinity illogical. [/] The nuns and priests at her Catholic school were unable to answer her questions. "Accept the mystery," they told her. She couldn't. [/] As president of the ISNA — an unpaid post — Mattson will lead a diverse organization that trains Muslim leaders, sets standards for hundreds of mosques, helps immigrants adjust to North American life and serves as an umbrella uniting associations of Muslim engineers, doctors and other professionals. She will also be a very visible spokeswoman for the faith, a role she relishes.
[…] At the convention's opening seminar, she urged her fellow Muslims to step proudly into mainstream society and engage their neighbours until they stop associating Islam with terrorism. [/] "Islamic medical clinics ... Islamic ethics ... Islamic charity. These are the terms that should come off the tips of tongues," she told a cheering crowd. [/] "Islamic intellectuals ... Islamic peace movements ... Islamic human rights. This is who we are." [/] Los Angeles Times [My ellipses and emphasis]
