30 Masjids 🟩

By Aman Ali

Basheer pointed to his gleaming skin and said the no-facial hair stereotype about Native Americans is true.

“Open up a history book and you’re not going to see Geronimo or Sitting Bull with a beard or nothin’” he said.

“Wow, I think you’re probably the least hairiest Muslim I’ve ever met,” I quipped back.

Basheer Butcher is a full-blooded Native American that converted to Islam in 2001. He hails from the Sioux tribe and grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. He now lives in Sioux Falls and is active in the Muslim community here of about 3,000 people.

We chatted at length by kicking back on some stones in front of a gaping waterfall in a nearby park. He said he may have abandoned certain traditions in his culture when he embraced Islam, but becoming Muslim actually strengthened his Native American identity.

“A lot of virtues in Native American culture are very similar to values in Islam like sincerity, courage, wisdom and generosity,” he said. “My whole life I was searching for this connection with God and with Islam I felt like I finally found it.”

Basheer has a towering physique and a distinguishable face that looks like it was chiseled from stone. He wears a soothing sandlewood cologne and speaks with a gentle tone that brought comfort to my senses in more ways than one. When he began opening up about his life, he often reflected with brief pauses before he spoke giving me the impression it’s been a rocky journey to get to where he is today.

Basheer’s birth name is Louis Butcher Jr. and his family name is High Elk. Growing up on a Sioux reservation, he had a rough upbringing and was in search for divine answers to understand what he was dealing with.

“My father was an alcoholic and my parents got divorced when I was really young,” he said. “I had a lot of anger and feelings of resentment because I couldn’t make sense of anything.”

He also had his own demons. He battled with alcoholism and got into fights on the reservation that landed him in and out of jail. He said he never felt much of a connection with many of his Native American spiritual traditions like sweat lodges, a ritual where you ask tribe leaders to pray to spirits on behalf of you.

“I never understood why did I have to tell someone to talk to the spirits or God for me,” he said. “Why can’t I connect to God directly? My whole life that’s what I was seeking.”

He left the reservation at age 31 and moved to a small town in South Dakota called Rapid City. That’s where he met a co-worker that embraced Islam. Basheer was intrigued and in 2001 began researching the religion.

9/11 happened in midst of his studying of Islam and I asked if that tragedy altered his views of the religion.

“I already had my mind made up about being Muslim when 9/11 occurred,” he said. “I saw what was going on with the backlash and how Muslims were getting attacked. Going through what my people have gone through for the past 250 years in this country and seeing what the Muslims were going through, I felt that connection.”

Basheer’s family speaks Lakota, a Native American language that uses many throat sounds found in Arabic. He shared with me a Lakota proverb that helped lead him on his journey to Islam.

“In Lakota, we have a saying – Mitaku Oyasin,” he said. “It means ‘We are all related’.”

Through God, he said, he felt more connected to humanity and the environment. It was the connection he had been seeking his whole life. His family wasn’t upset with him leaving behind his Native American spiritual traditions, especially his grandmother.

“When I became Muslim, my grandmother told me a Lakota proverb – Taku oyagagmi hantas ihab ichuwo,” he said writing down the proverb on my notepad. “That means ‘If you don’t understand something, then leave it.’”

I drove Basheer home to his apartment at night and we passed by a Native American woman that seemed to be drunk as she stumbled down a sidewalk. Basheer’s face began to ache looking at the window before he quickly turned away.

“Alcoholism is one of the biggest problems Native Americans face anywhere,” he said. “A lot of people deal with their issues by turning to alcohol. Before I was Muslim I had a problem with it. Inshallah (God willing) I will never have to live that life again. It took my father’s life when he was 41 years old and it took my mother’s life in a fatal car accident when she was 36 years old. Being a Muslim and trying hard to be a good Muslim made a big change in my life.”

He may not practice many Native American customs he grew up on, but Basheer emphasized he doesn’t look down on his peers for doing them.

“Everyone has their own sense of a higher power whether it be a connection to God or spirits,” he said.

This year marks 10 years since Basheer has been Muslim. Given his tumultuous past, I asked him where he thinks he’d be today if he wasn’t Muslim. It was a heavy question for him to process and he looked away and took in a few deep breaths before he answered.

“You know, that’s something that’s always in the back of my mind but I try to keep things in a positive perspective,” he said. “Allah has blessed me and I’m always trying to do something good and focus on change in my life.”

“It’s always a worry for me to slip and go back to my old ways,” he added. “But as a believer in God, our faith is always going to go up and down. It’s always important to keep that in perspective to avoid going astray.”

With Islam in his life, I asked him if he has been able to find the answers he was seeking when he began longing for his connection to God as a child.

“Everything happens by Allah’s will,” he said. “All the things I experienced, they happened for a reason and made me the person I am today. There is a connection to everything in this world through Allah.”

Our conversation ended there and I drive away and get a phone call from a friend in New York. I’m quickly pulled out of the spiritual high I was on talking to Basheer to deal with some petty drama my friend had dropped on me. While on the phone, I scratch my nose and notice Basheer’s sandlewood scent is still on my hand. I’m reminded about the connections I have to people in this world and to roll my eyes at my friend’s problem would be rolling my eyes at God’s beauty. I immediately give my friend the time of day he deserves.

Basheer is right, we are all related.

By Bassam Tariq

DAVID

Before prison, David only knew one world — the biker one. He was part of a biker gang and got himself into a lot of mess. Once a man pulled a loaded gun to his face and nearly killed him. Another time, two men opened beer bottles on his scalp and left him to die. Before Islam his enemies were the people around him, after he became a Muslim his biggest enemy became his own anger and aggression. David lacked self-control and vowed to become a better man in prison.

David picked up a Qur’an only so he could refute his sister who embraced the faith. After reading it cover-to-cover he was so moved by the book that he accepted Islam. Later in his life, David was sentenced to three years in prison in South Dakota. He knew very little about Islam, but saw this as a chance to turn things around for himself. His cellmate was an observant Jewish man who was serving a life sentence. Since David didn’t know Arabic and believed that the call to prayer had to be made before praying, he got his cellmate to do a call to prayer in Hebrew just so he could pray. The other prisoners would mess with them and call their cell “Little Jerusalem.”

A year into his sentence he decided he wanted to get married. He had been in a number of unsuccessful marriages and knew now what would work for him and what wouldn’t. It was important for him to find someone while he was in prison so they could accept him for who he is. Somehow or another, the Islamic Pink Pages, a matrimonial directory, found their way to him. In it, he found a listing for a lady in Singapore and wrote her a letter introducing himself. The lady, Nor, received the letter two weeks later. She didn’t know what to say, Nor was the assistant principal in a prestigious Islamic School, David was in prison in South Dakota. She sent him a letter apologizing and saying that he might have gotten the wrong person, but still went ahead and introduced herself.

NOR

Nor’s husband died in a brutal car accident. She was left to raise her three children on her own. Her eldest son felt that she should look to get married again as she was still young, so he put a listing out in the Islamic Pink Pages. Nor was understandably uneasy in the beginning with her correspondence with David, but felt she should at least give him a chance. His honesty and candor caught her off guard. It was different, it was refreshing. They kept in touch for a year. Nor studied Shariah Law in college so David would ask her questions about Islam that he and his fellow inmates would have. They would wait patiently for “Sister Nor’s” responses on many legal Islamic issues. They would take her word as if it were the Quran itself. The inmates had very little exposure to Islam. Once, a Muslim was admitted to the South Dakota prison who knew some Qur’an. They all would gather around him just to hear him recite it in Arabic.

A year into talking, David finally built up the courage and asked her hand in marriage. He sent the letter and waited impatiently for her response. Everyday as the mailman came by he would run frantically up to the bars and ask if there was any mail for him.

“Sorry, David,” the mailman would say, “nothing yet.”

A month passed and no word came from Nor. David was devastated. He started getting into fights with other inmates and lost his job. His prison mates saw him falling into pieces and comforted him as much as they could. David felt all was lost with Nor, until a month and half later he received a letter from her. David was sitting in a cell when the mailman came with a letter. Nor had agreed to marry him.

David’s sister, Aneesa, couldn’t believe it. Nor had never seen a picture of David. Only David had seen a picture of Nor.

“Are you crazy!?” Aneesa asked Nor on the phone once, “He could be blind or deaf or have a bad limp. You have no idea what he looks like or who he is in person!”

“That is fine. He just needs to have a good heart.” Nor replied.

A couple of months later, Nor finally made it to South Dakota. It had been a whole year now that they had been corresponding and Nor finally called David on the phone. The prison was rowdy that day and David couldn’t hear anything on his end.

“Quiet down!” said one of the inmates, “He’s talking to his lady for the first time!”

The entire prison went mute.

“Hello?” David said on the line.

There was no response.

A minute later, Aneesa picks up the phone.

“David, she got so nervous she fainted…”

TODAY

Today, we sit together in their small house in Sioux Falls. David laid the hardwood floors himself and made some holes in the floor that have made Nor unhappy. They have been married now for 11 years. David sits next to a stack of National Geographic magazines that they got on Craigslist’ Curb Alerts. Nor walks out a little while later. She greets us and stands by the dining table. She is small and reserved. As David shares a story about growing up in the farms, she covers her face laughing and rolls her eyes.

“I’ve heard them all,” she says to us.

David’s life is an open book. No part of his life is off limits to talk about. In the first ten minutes we met him, he had shared three stories and told us about his big mouth and bad temper. Nor is the opposite, she is reserved and soft-spoken. Ever since he was released from prison, they have lived together in South Dakota.

Nor brought her two younger boys to live with them. The adjustment for Noor was difficult. She wore a scarf when she would leave the house and many would cuss at her and call her a terrorist. She took a job at the local K-mart as a cashier. In the beginning, her co-workers gave her a difficult time, but she slowly won the hearts of her customers and supervisors.

David leaves the room for a second and comes back with a stack of folders that reads “Nor’s letters.”

“You kept all these?” Nor says, surprised.

“Of course.”

David starts scouring the folder to find the first one she wrote to him.

Nor picks it up and reads it.

“ ‘I am a fair skinned, skinny Malaysian Singaporian.’” she covers her face laughing, “I can’t believe I wrote that.”

The letters in the beginning were very formal. She addressed him as “Brother David.” They were terse and cut straight to the facts. After marriage, ‘Brother David’ became “My Beloved Husband,” and the letters began to carry an emotional weight they never had before.

I see a letter in David’s hand and ask him if I can take a photo of it. He puts it down for me, but Nor quickly points at a part in it and blushes.

“Uh, well you can’t see anything past this point.”

David covers the entire page.

THE WEDDING

The day before their marriage, they were to meet each other face-to-face for the first time. David was still in prison, so when they saw one another it was through the glass separating inmates and visitors. When they gave them a minute to meet one another without the barrier, David came close to hug Nor, but she quickly moved away.

“It’s haram for us to hug!” she said to him, “we are not married yet.”

David began apologizing. He felt so bad and thought he ruined everything. For the past year, she was just words on a paper and now, she stood right in front of him and all he was allowed to do was smile and wave from a distance.

The next day, David was brought down from his cell to sign the marriage contract. When he was given a pen, his hands started shaking and he was unable to sign it.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The Warden said, frustrated by David’s nervousness.

He then walks up to David, grabs his hand and helps him sign it.

Later that day, David and Nor came together in a cold prison room where they finally saw each other as husband and wife and held hands for the first time.