All The Same

By Yonat Shimron, *A believer in hope* - Charlotte Observer - Charlotte, NC, USA; Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Jewish-born Muslim convert reaches out to promote his vision of understanding and tolerance

An N.C. congresswoman is elected on the strength of a TV ad blasting a proposed community center near ground zero in New York as a "victory mosque."

The new chairman of the congressional committee overseeing domestic security said he plans to open an inquiry into what he calls the "radicalization" of the Muslim community.

And in Oklahoma, residents approve a "Save Our State Amendment" banning Islamic, or Shariah, law.

In this polarizing environment where Muslims are often cast as the enemy, David Sterling recently began writing an occasional column for The Chapel Hill News.

The 58-year-old American-born Muslim convert has a more hopeful vision for Muslim acceptance in the U.S. With the calm demeanor of someone not easily rattled by the latest demagoguery or political posturing, Sterling is trying to make his vision a reality in his everyday interactions.

The owner of a pair of stores that sell gemstones for amateur and professional jewelry designers, Sterling is in his element helping people unleash their creativity.

"I really believe this is a precursor to a new reality," said Sterling, who lives in Durham. "Islam is here to stay in the U.S. And I believe there will come a time when it will be popular."

In his first three columns, Sterling wrote about mollifying his Jewish family after he converted to Islam 35 years ago, traveling to Washington with his wife, Zahara, to participate in the "Rally to Restore Sanity" in October, and embracing Jesus as one of the great prophets Muslims emulate.

Sterling has also taken on a larger public profile recently as one of a group of Muslims who gather for the obligatory Friday prayers, called Juma'ah, at the Friends Meeting House in Chapel Hill. There, Sterling occasionally delivers the sermon, or khutba, following the prayer.

To those who would paint Muslims with a broad brush, Sterling is proof that Muslims are a diverse bunch. Sterling follows the mystical branch of Islam called Sufism. Like other Sufis, best known for their ecstatic use of chanting, singing, dancing and whirling, Sterling wants to experience transcendence in this life.

"This is the paradox of life," he said explaining the Sufi way of thinking. "We are in time and we contain the timeless."

But while many non-Muslims have embraced bits and pieces of Sufism, especially the poetry of Rumi or the music of the late Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sterling practices the mainstream Islam preached by Muhammad. He prays five times a day, fasts during the holy month of Ramadan and abstains from alcohol.

Happy in the U.S.

Yet committed as he is to Islam, Sterling avoids the immigrant mosques, where he says the sermons are either too dogmatic or irrelevant to the issues facing Muslims today.

He is adamant he would not want to live in a country that follows Shariah law, especially as it's interpreted in the Middle East, where he says it has become oppressive. And after traveling the world and living abroad, he says he's happiest in his native country.

"I would never want to live anywhere else as a Muslim than in the United States," he said.

Born to Holocaust survivors who emigrated from Poland, Sterling was raised a Jew in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. He went to Hebrew school, attended synagogue and celebrated his bar mitzvah, or coming of age ceremony. Sterling completed high school in 1970, during the height of the countercultural revolution and was swept up in it.

Meeting a holy man

At 18, he hitchhiked across the country and dabbled in different faiths, trying to square his parents' narrow form of Judaism with his desire for a more universal faith experience. He joined the Hare Krishna for six weeks. He lived on a Hopi Indian reservation. He studied Tibetan Buddhism.

He was living in Berkeley, Calif., when he read a book about Sufism and was "enthralled." Later, when he ran a sandwich shop, he met an Iranian-born Sufi traveling the country with only a portable outdoor gas burner and a book of poems by the Persian master Hafez.

He invited the holy man to the communal house where he was living and the two became friends.

One night he had a vision of a man dressed in a long robe wearing a veil of shimmering light who said to him: "Come. Don't hesitate."

When he awoke, he got in his car, drove to a Sufi congregation and joined.

He has never looked back. Eleven years after his conversion, he agreed to an arranged marriage to Zahara. He was 35. She was 21. They never dated, much less talked to each other.

Today, the Sterlings say they advise their five sons against such an arrangement - not because they are unhappy, but because they recognize how fortunate they are to have found such a compatible match.

"We know how unusual it was," he said. "To find that in this day and age, while not impossible, is rare."

After following his Sufi spiritual master, Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri, to South Africa for five years, the Sterlings returned to the United States in 2002 and settled in Houston, later in Durham. The couple opened their store, Rare Earth Beads, in 2005.

Building a bridge

Every few weeks, the Sterlings lead a "zikr," or practice of remembering God, in their home during which they pray and chant. Newcomers to the practice said they appreciate the sincerity of Sterling's approach.

"David makes the living heart of Islam more accessible to me as a non-Muslim," said Krista Bremer, a writer from of Chapel Hill who is married to a Muslim. "He's provided a bridge for me and my husband to meet in a place where I could understand and relate to his faith."

That's exactly the approach Sterling now takes with his column.

In October, he wrote about finding forgiveness from his family for his conversion to Islam.

"I see us overcoming the currently volatile and highly emotionally charged narrative about Islam and Muslims in America and the world," he wrote. "Standing on level ground, we are all the same in the end."

Picture: David Sterling grew up in a Jewish family and says he has found forgiveness from his family for his conversion to Islam. He hopes to spread the message of acceptance. Photo: Harry Lynch/CO.