A Call to Lead
By many accounts, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, and Muslim chaplains are increasingly becoming an essential part of college communities
By Kendra Hamilton
Imam Yahya Hendi came from afar — the occupied Palestinian Territories — to become, in 1999, the first full-time Muslim chaplain serving at a university in the United States. He is now the chaplain at Georgetown University. Rumee Ahmed, appointed earlier this year as Brown University’s first Muslim chaplain, had a significantly shorter trip, moving to the Rhode Island campus from Silver Spring, Md.
But both men are part of a small but gathering wave of Muslim chaplains whose work tending to the faithful makes them an essential part of U.S. institutions, including universities, hospitals, prisons and the military.
“There are 17,000 Muslims in the U.S. military,” says Hendi, who in 1997 was also the first Muslim appointed to a chaplaincy at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. “But there are only 14 Muslim chaplains serving that population.”
Firm figures on the number of Muslim students at U.S. higher education institutions are difficult to come by, although there are 600 Muslim Students’ Association chapters at U.S. and Canadian college campuses, of which 150 are officially recognized by the national umbrella group. But the number of chaplains serving that population is small.
Ahmed notes that there are no more than 20 chaplains in the New England chaplains’ association he recently joined, and most of them are either part-time or volunteers. That number will increase by one at least in the coming months, as Ahmed’s wife, Ayesha Chaudry, currently a graduate student at New York University, has accepted the chaplaincy at Connecticut College.
According to 2000 U.S. Census figures, there are currently an estimated 6 or 7 million Muslims nationwide, more than 30 percent of whom are associated with a mosque. Between 1994 and 2000, the number of mosques in the nation increased 25 percent, according to “The Mosque in America: A National Portrait,” a 2001 survey commissioned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The number of Muslims associated with a mosque grew by 300 percent over that period and 75 percent of mosques — especially those in suburban areas — reported growth in the number of congregants.
