White Muslim, Part II

By Brendan Bernhard, LA Weekly. Posted December 7, 2004.

To read the first part of White Muslim click here.

Taxi Man

Presumably the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, did not leave written instructions on how a Muslim should drive a cab in New York City. Even Vincent, with his long experience in the ultimate car culture of Southern California, says he has had to learn to be more aggressive in order to survive in the streets of Manhattan. As Vincent sees it, Islam has not only granted him a new name – Shu'aib ("Think of 'shoe' and 'Abe' Lincoln," he suggests helpfully) – it has also made him into a completely different person from the happy-go-lucky one known to his friends and family back in Torrance. Even to himself.

"In L.A., I had no direction. I was absolutely clueless as to what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I really cared mostly about the irrelevant things – my music, my hanging out, my friends, my parties. Anything that had no weight or relevance to it, that was what I was most concerned about. I was working just like anybody, living for the weekend, to buy clothes, impress myself, impress others.

"What I can tell you is this," he went on, his voice hoarse and nasal because of his cold, his thoat dry from fasting. (It was already seven hours since his last meal.) "There was Vincent, and there's Shu'aib. And literally it's two different people. Why? Because I could never, God willing, be that person again. Meaning my character, my mentality, my closed eyes, my narrowmindedness – everything was just wrong. I use the analogy that I had to have my vision taken away from me to have my eyes opened. All I can say is thanks God for Islam, because it teaches you everything about this life, about this world. It makes you ponder everything, not in a spiritual kind of way, but in a reality kind of way. So when I see things – "

"What do you see here, for example?" I asked as we sped uptown on a beautiful fall day past stores selling expensive jewelry and the finest clothing, past a stunning Japanese woman waiting at the light in a long white coat, her white poodle, straining on the leash, in a coat as well ...

"Only God knows what's in people's hearts, and how they really are and how they really feel, but what I see is a lot of people who are misguided," Vincent said, frowning behind the wheel. "Where are they going? What are they doing? What are their objectives today? Did they stop today to say thanks God for these new clothes I'm wearing? Did they stop today to say thanks God for the food they ate? Did they stop to call their parents? That's what I see people lacking."

The life Shu'aib lives now is far more demanding than the one Charles lived in the past, and he drives himself far harder than the average Muslim. Every day he must rise before dawn, wash (and during Ramadan, eat), and then hurry down to the 96th Street mosque for the morning prayer, usually in the company of 40 or 50 sleepy worshipers. By 5 a.m., he is in his cab, which he picks up at a depot on 86th Street and Lexington Avenue. The streets are dark, the air frigid. For the next 12 hours he is both in control and controlled by others – a driver at the mercy of his passengers. The city is dotted with mosques, and he must find one of them to pray in at lunch time (though he won't eat) and again in the middle of the afternoon before finally turning in his cab at 5 p.m. On an average day his take is $85, and he doesn't seem to mind how hard he has to work for it. "In Islam, money is nothing," he says with a trace of contempt. "We don't wake up in the morning with dollar signs in our eyes. The first thing we do in the morning is pray."

Four nights a week, he goes to night school at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, where he takes classes in anthropology, the Bible as literature, and Western civilization. He has also served as the vice president and president of the college's Muslim Students Association, which he helped organize with Avais, a good-humored Pakistani student with a thick mop of black hair. Last year, Vincent gave a talk titled "How Islam Changed Me" for the student association. "We wanted to show that he's a Muslim and that he's part of our family – to make a statement that Muslims are not always South Asian or Arab," Avais told me one evening, while he, Vincent and a handful of other Muslim men, including a Jewish New Yorker who is also a convert, were breaking fast in a room above a mosque on 55th Street. The atmosphere was convivial and collegiate. "It's time to pig out," one of the party joked, digging into his food. Then, humorously, he corrected himself: "Maybe I should say, 'Cow out.'"

Vincent's talk was a success. Afterward, a white student named Eric, now Farouk, came into Islam. Within a year Eric had converted his mother, sister and grandmother, Vincent told me, sounding a mite envious. (He longs to convert his parents, even daydreams about it while he's in his cab, with an intensity that might startle his mother, who, much as she respects her son's choice, told me she has no intention of joining an organized faith.) The college has a sizable Muslim population, and the non-Muslim students are intrigued by Islam. Vincent gets a lot of inquiries, often from girls, who, to show off their interfaith sophistication, will start a conversation with him by saying, "Oh, I know somebody who is an Islamer" or "I know someone who believes in Muslims."

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