Bridging the religious divide

Rick has studied war since he joined the Marines at 17, and blames Islam and Christianity for many of the world's conflicts. He suggested Sarah turn to Buddhism: "I never heard of any Buddhists starting wars.

Bridging the religious divide
Stephen Magagnini / The Sacramento Bee

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Rick Tisdale sat at the head of his dinner table five years ago to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast, the first after 9-11. The world had changed and now his own was about to be up-ended in a way that would threaten and challenge everything he stood for.

He was a Marine then, a crack sniper at the front-lines in the war on terror. Rick had devoted his career to battling Islamic extremists. This day was for family, for the very thing he held dearest.

His family was with him at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Base on Oahu, where he was stationed: his wife Sandy, who served as nurse in the Gulf War; his youngest daughter Shelby, then 6; and his oldest daughter Sarah, then 13, and his in-laws, visiting from Sacramento.

But this Christian American family was about to pull up a chair for Islam.

Tisdale remarked that Sarah wasn't eating.

"I'll eat later," she said.

"Is it that Ramadan thing?" Rick joked offhandedly, referring to the 535q1614f Muslim practice of fasting between sunrise and sunset.

Sarah looked at her father. "Yes," she said.

Rick noticed everyone averting his gaze. They knew his daughter was a practicing Muslim. "Everybody, including the in-laws, knew but me," he recalled recently. Rick, furious, left and drove to the sanctuary of a friend's house.

"There was this awkward silence," Sarah, now 18, said. "My grandmother said I'd ruined Thanksgiving, and my aunt seems to think I'd become this mindless Muslim drone."

Said her father: "I didn't speak to her for the longest time."

The war that broke out in the Tisdale home that day reflects one of the world's great conflicts, the battle over the true nature of Islam: good or evil, peaceful or violent. It represents one family's odyssey from anger and fear to love and tolerance, "and how we learned to live together despite our differences," Sarah says.

Today, Sarah isn't the only Muslim in the family -- the day after she turned 18, while her dad was in Iraq, she married Mohammed Hannan, a Bangladeshi she'd met online.

The entire family now lives in Lincoln, Calif., in a house full of military and Muslim worship gear and a constant barrage of one-liners. "Nobody get out unscathed," Rick says.

Rick, 41, is still fighting terrorism, working as a security consultant in Afghanistan. Sandy, also 41, is in the Air Force Reserve awaiting deployment to Iraq. As a family, they have declared a loving truce, though skirmishes break out. "It still happens," Rick said. "There may be something happening in the world, and I don't want to talk to her."

His views on Islam have been shaped by his military experience. He remembers the Oct. 23, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, where 241 Marines and sailors died.

Rick doesn't distrust all Muslims -- "I give anyone a chance" -- but still resents Sarah's conversion. Sandy also fought her daughter's rejection of Christianity with an arsenal of reason and tears.

The couple met in Hawaii. While Rick served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Sandy steeped Sarah in Christian camps, musicals and schools. "She knows the Bible better than I do," said Sandy. "This whole interest in Islam blindsided me. Who gives up their religion? It's the way you get to heaven. It was frightening she would deny Jesus for another God named Allah."

Sarah Tisdale always has been intrigued by other cultures, starting with her Latina phase, Sandy said. "When she was 11, one of her friends was from Peru, so in three months she was fluent in Spanish. She even told people she was Spanish."

Then came her Goth period, with its spiked cuffs and black nail polish. "I wasted six months with the punk, grunge group," Sarah said. She then went Middle Eastern and switched from Salsa to belly dancing.

She was 12 when her mother heard her chatting over the Internet with a Muslim calling himself "Hussam."

"I heard 'Sarah, I love you very much'," Sandy said. "I locked the computer in the guest room and she was taking the locks off with a screw driver. We had some ugly conversations."

Sandy called the FBI to interview Sarah about Hussam, who was though he had told Sarah he was 17. "He was lying to me, saying 'I love you, you're so pretty' and at that age that's what I wanted to hear," said Sarah.

She ended the relationship but pursued Islam, officially converting in 2002.

In her journal, she wrote: Things I have to give up: Bad music, pork, my style? swimming, defiance, Hope Christian Chapel, my family? Guy friends.

Things I will have to start doing: learning how to pray 5 times a day; wearing hijab; obeying my parents without complaint...If I converted, we would be an odd-looking family.

Rick has studied war since he joined the Marines at and blames Islam and Christianity for many of the world's conflicts. He suggested Sarah turn to Buddhism: "I never heard of any Buddhists starting wars. I said it doesn't make sense to convert until you learn everything about it."

Her parents enrolled her in Catholic school, where Sarah debated the nuns. "Islam allows you to ask why," Sarah said, "And in my journey in Christianity, when you ask 'why,' you're told to just have faith. That wasn't satisfying enough."

She said Islam provides her with a roadmap to a good life: "Every morning I put on my scarf and realize as I go out the door I am going to be a living example so I have to behave myself. Islam tells you that everyone will be held accountable for all their sins."

But Sandy couldn't understand how Sarah had lost faith in Jesus. "As a parent my job is to make sure my child understands the faith we've always believed in," she said. "What had I done wrong?"

Both mother and daughter cried over the schism. Then they had a heart-to-heart. "I told her there's power in knowledge. I don't have any problem with you reading the Koran, I just don't believe in this religion," Sandy said.

They consulted a counselor on the base, but "He said, 'How dare you let the enemy into your home?"' Sandy recalled. "I was so offended by that."

The counselor's reaction brought Sandy and Sarah closer, and Sandy realized they needed to reach a compromise.

"I wanted Sarah to know at the end of the day, I loved her beyond religion. I know some parents say it's my way or the highway, but it's never been that way with us."

Her parents did forbid her to wear her hijab on the base -- they thought she was asking for trouble. But she wore it on the school bus, and dug deeper into the meaning of Islam to convince herself the 9-11 terrorists weren't true Muslims.

On Valentine's Day 2004, the Tisdales moved to California to be closer to Sandy's family.

Sarah joined a mosque in east Sacramento. She quickly became the youth leader and organized an interfaith football game, with the ultimate goal to break down barriers and find common ground.

Sandy was trying to distance herself from Sarah's faith, hoping it was a phase. "But with this interfaith football game, she truly needed help."

Sandy brought food, ran the scoreboard and, even though the Christians ran up the score, 56-6, Sarah came away a winner in her mom's eyes.

"If Sarah was out there smoking, drinking, doing drugs, screwing around and getting pregnant, I would say knock it off, but your child is preaching virginity and being kind and generous and organizing community groups," Sandy said.

As much as Sarah's changed her family, she's changed Sacramento's Muslim community. Last April, Sarah put on an all-girl dance for 100 Muslim girls who felt left out at proms because their faith forbids them to dance with boys. She's planning a hijab fashion show. Sarah owns at least 50 hijabs of many colors. "I really like light purple," she said.

Rick doesn't care what color it is: "When we went to visit my dad and she had that thing on her head, we let him think she was a nun," he said, half-seriously.

Salam's Imam, Muhammed Azeez, said Sarah is a bridge between two worlds. He hired her as a youth coordinator.

"She's developed her own hip-hop Muslim cultural identity," Azeez said. "She listens to music, obsessively jokes around, but she's a Muslim

"She muscled her way through her family's objections, but what stuns me most is her struggle for acceptance within the Muslim community," Azeez said. "Some Muslim girls challenged her, but she's earned everybody's trust, respect and confidence."

Sarah Tisdale is a champion at breaking barriers, but she tested the limits of tolerance in July 2002 when she began an on-line friendship with Hannan, a Bagladeshi immigrant.

He, his mother, Zahida Begum, and two brothers had come to the U.S. in 1999, landing in Cape Coral, Fla.

He was intrigued by Sarah's conversion story -- which she'd posted on-line -- but after a week she blocked him electronically, afraid he was another person claiming to be someone he wasn't. She unblocked him six months later. Every time she took part in a live chat, "I'd show up in the room," said Hannan.

Finally, Sarah telephoned him. "I was nervous and excited," he said, and nearly fainted when Sarah told him about a store in Sacramento with edible body paint. "I thought that was very forward."

The budding romance was opposed by both mothers, who didn't want to lose their children to someone of a different faith, in a different place. Hannan's mother expected him to marry a cousin she'd picked out in Bangladesh.

Hannan sent Sarah his high school graduation picture in May 2003. "My dad hid it under the phone books," said Sarah. She found the photo and gasped, "Wow, he's very handsome."

As for Hannan, "I thought she was beautiful," he said. "We already clicked on the non-physical level -- there was no going back."

In August 2005, Hannan got his nursing degree. He traveled west to meet Sarah and her mom. Rick was being shot at and avoiding car bombs in Iraq.

Hannan talked nursing with Sandy and made a good impression. Rick learned Hannan had visited without him there and thundered over the phone, "be a frigging good Muslim and meet the father."

So Hannan came out again when Rick got home in December.

"I thought it would be like 'Meet the Parents,' with my dad playing De Niro," Sarah said.

Hannan was terrified, but Rick broke the ice by talking about his wild youth in Ft. Myers, Fla. Soon, they were laughing.

Said Hannan, "I was stressed to meet him -- this was a guy in the Marines and I was so different from him. I was really amazed how down-to-earth, friendly and open he was -- if he was bothered by anything he would tell you right away, which I respected."

By week's end, Rick was impressed enough by Hannan's character to give his blessing.

Now it was Sarah's turn to meet Hannan's mom. Sarah had learned Arabic and Urdu and used it to charm Hannan's aunt from India. "She told my mom, 'I really like her. This girl is perfect'," Hannan said.

But Hannan's mother didn't want to lose him. And Sandy refused to let Sarah move to Florida. Some of her relatives suspected Hannan wanted to get married to obtain U.S. citizenship.

Sandy put her fears on the table with Imam Azeez an Afghani restaurant in Sacramento.

"I told her no one is trying to take Sarah away from you," Azeez said. "If it is true that he is the love of her life, and they were meant for each other, then how can you deny them?"

Sandy finally gave her blessing. "Hannan's always been kind, supported his mom since he was 17, put himself through college and graduated with a 4.0," she said.

Then Azeez advised Sarah: "'Do not lose your parents' respect and love. How do you know this is not some guy who just wants to use you and your family?' It took her a few months to make sure she wasn't being led by emotion or the sensation of love."

Last July, Azeez married them on the living room couch before 20 people -- half relatives, the other half Muslim friends.

Sarah is studying counseling at Sierra College while working at a Laundromat and the mosque. Hannan awaits citizenship papers so he can work as a nurse.

Rick, who says he holds Sarah accountable for 1,400 years of Islamic history, admits, "I've put her through hell. I'm sick of hearing about Muslims -- I just lost a buddy a few weeks ago."

Rick allows that his son-in-law is a "good guy," and that all Muslims aren't terrorists: "There are some decent ones in Afghanistan. The heartburn is with the conversion."

Debates still rage at dinner. The other night over Sarah's enchiladas, they sparred over whether the U.S. has helped oppress Palestinians.

Hannan sat silently. "Just observing," he said.

"I try to get him riled up," Rick grinned.

They manage to joke about Sarah's conversion. Hijab and all, she even joins her family at church. "We always sit in the front row," Sandy said. "The look on people's faces is just priceless."

"They were probably looking at my face," joked Rick, who admits Sarah has made him more tolerant. "I've gotten a very good education on the religion. Sometimes she's got her ducks in a row and she wins an argument."