IN A NEW LIGHT New faith, changed man Mujahid Fletcher runs a nonprofit that produces multimedia items designed to educate Latino Muslims about Islam.
A new faith changes one man IN A NEW LIGHT New faith, changed man
Mujahid Fletcher runs a nonprofit that produces multimedia items designed to educate Latino Muslims about Islam. LINDSAY WISE, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Published 5:30 am, Friday, June 13, 2008
Oscar Gomez was hanging out with old friends at a barber shop in Alief when they asked him if he'd seen his buddy Jaime Fletcher lately.
"No, I haven't seen him," Gomez recalled answering.
"Man, your boy is flipped out," his friends told him. "He's Muslim now."
"Muslim?" Gomez asked. "Are you serious? How'd he get into that?"
But his friends just shook their heads and said Fletcher — a young Colombian immigrant they knew as "Jay" — had "turned Arab" and changed his name to Mujahid, Arabic for "one who struggles."
That was about six years ago. When Gomez finally ran into Fletcher at a basketball game, he couldn't believe how much his childhood friend had changed — for the better.
Not only was the former gang leader walking the straight-and-narrow, he was counseling others to leave the violence of the streets behind. He even convinced a one-time rival from another gang to become his "brother in Islam."
Gomez was impressed to see how Fletcher had completely turned his life around. He wondered if it had something to do with Islam. A few years later, Gomez, too, became a Muslim.......