For new Muslims - Are these familiar issues?

Dealing with Practice:
1. Coping with Islamic clothing (and not following a cultural style)
2. Learning how to please Allah, not following a cultural group’s beliefs
3. Avoiding blindly following the person who introduced you to Islam
4. When at masjid, feeling left alone and not made to feel welcome.
5. Being scolded for things such as wearing jeans or not wearing proper hijab
6. Lack of direction as to where to purchase proper attire and how much they cost
7. Fellow Muslims being passing judgment i.e. deeming someone as “extreme”
8. Facing negative comments
9. Dealing with old unIslamic issues: haram job, interests loans, alcohol, unlawful relationships, preciously held ideas/beliefs/practices that conflict with Islam
10. Hurrying to adopt external appearances and practices without developing a firm basis of faith
11. Relocating to a new community

Dealing with the Born-Muslims
1. Cultural paradigm shift–whites and fobs are so different
2. Answering the question, you are Muslim because you married to a Muslim?
3. Dealing with convert profiling
4. Coping with people constantly telling to do da`wah to your family, although you are trying to do it in the best way you know how, based on your relationship with your family
5. Having people constantly asking you to recite “Al-Fatihah” to prove you can do it
6. Despite being dressed in hijab, having Muslims asking you if you are a Muslim when they hear where you’re from
7. Coping with the apparent acceptability that it is OK for every Muslim to ask you very personal questions, although it would be rude for them to ask the same of people from their own culture
8. After the initial rush of happiness that you are a Muslim, then being made to feel/told that you are inferior to born Muslims, constantly hearing, “He/she is only a convert” and therefore made to feel deficient/extremist in your ideas/that your knowledge is less sound/that you are less valued as a Muslim
9. Trying to find a place that you feel comfortable in a Muslim community, especially if it has factionalized and you aren’t married to create an affiliation with one of the factions
10. Being expected to leave all your culture behind as it is seen to be inferior, but then finding that most Muslims have very strong cultural adherences that you are expected to accept
11. Learning to cope with new types of food, but having most people not willing to try yours
12. Disparity between the support networks provided to white verses non-white converts in communities
13. Lack of new friends in the community (not being introduced)
14. Lack of mentorship or support groups
15. Having to tell the story of your conversion to everyone you meet

Dealing with Marriage:
1. Difficult to meet other potential Muslims because there is no Muslim family/friends to assist
2. Ethnic divisions
3. Virgin question
4. Lack of a responsible wali
5. Difficulties for sisters who have been married before and may have children
6. Having to cope with people constantly trying to marry you off to anyone who is looking to get married, despite their obvious lack of compatibility with you as a person
7. Not being aware of the cultural differences enough to know what are the warning signs to look out for in a prospective groom, many of whom deliberately target new Muslimahs knowing they have no Muslim family to support them prior to/during a marriage
8. Children from different Muslim fathers due to serial divorces and/or polygynous marriages

Dealing with Non-Muslims:
1. Working out how to tell your family the news of your conversion
2. Working out how to introduce your new beliefs and way of life into your relationship with them, such as halal food, hijab, alcohol, celebrations of non-Islamic festivals, etc.
3. Trying to show your family and friends that you haven’t joined an extremist cult, and that you won’t grow out of it in time
4. Trying to show your family that Islam has made you a better person
5. Lack of resources to deal with fallout of converting (ex. What to do if legal action is taken by convert family)
6. Answering constant insult about Islam from family/friends
7. Dealing with non-monotheists (people of the book family members)

Dealing with Expectations:
1. Islam vs. Muslim
2. Developing a balanced view of the scholars – having respect for their knowledge and dedication to the deen, but acceptance of their human imperfection
3. The unrealistic expectations of most new Muslims of doing Hijrah to the Muslim lands and expecting it to be like Madinah at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and their shock that the Muslims in the Muslim lands aren’t all like the Ansar
4. Adjusting to the reality of the Muslim world in comparison to the ideals set by Islam and practiced by the great Muslims
5. Single Muslim women with children and Muslim wives (whose husbands continue working in the west to support them) going overseas to do Hijrah and having to cope on their own with their children, in a country that they know nothing about and where they cannot speak the language