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From: mayne@sun10.scri.fsu.edu (William (Bill) Mayne)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: HOW I REVERTED TO ISLAM
Message-ID: <1990Dec5.082914.2315@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 5 Dec 90 08:29:14 GMT
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Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
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In article <1990Dec2.211935.6446@nntp-server.caltech.edu> shamma@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:
[Article by anonymous friend of poster omitted]

I'll use this as a point of departure a few questions concerning
words I've seen in talk.religion.islam and other matters.

I am curious about the use of the word "reverted" in the title
of this thread and the text of the article in question. When I
first read it I assumed it was about someone who left Islam and
later returned, a very common experience for young people raised
in any religion, it seems. But the article described how a
non-Muslim came to be a Muslim. Normally the word we English
speakers in the west would use for that is "conversion". The
"re-" prefix implies going back to something. Now this may just
be a confusion of usage if the author was not a native speaker
of English. But I wonder if it is more than that. Does it have
some special significance to Muslims, suggesting something like
the soul "coming home" even if they weren't a Muslim before?

Second related question: Does anybody know how many Muslims there
are in various western countries and the proportion which are
(1) natives or at least from families of traditional Muslim countries
vs (2) converts from the host countries. In the U.S.A. I know there
are many black Muslims. In fact as far as I know they constitute a
group (actually few groups) of their own. How many other converts are
there? How do other Muslims regard the separate (but equal?) black
Muslim groups? Of the converts, how many converted (or reverted, if
you prefer) at least partly because of marriage with a Muslim?

Finally, I see a lot of other unfamiliar words in this forum.
Since I am glad to learn new words and I realize that most messages
are intended for Muslims who already know them I'd appreciate
it if authors would continue to use their special vocabulary but
explanations be posted for us infidels who want to learn. This could
be in the articles themselves (by the author or moderator) or maybe
in a separate "frequently asked questions" post. Here are a few
words taken from the article mentioned.  In some cases I have an idea 
what they mean, but my assumptions may be incomplete or wrong:

Muslima - evidently "a" as a feminine suffix, from Arabic?
SAW - acronym for some traditional blessing, like PBUH?
iman - The usage was "with strong iman" describing a woman.
       Also, isn't this used as a title for some high clerics?
made Shahadah -
     --------
to strive Insha-Allah to be a true Muslim
          -----------

There are several other unfamiliar words which I have seen and which
appear to be part of a special islamic vocabulary, but I don't find
in the particular article which prompted this post. There have been a 
few articles which though written in English (sort of) contained so
many unusual words I couldn't figure out what the author was
writing about!

I admit I'm asking here partly out of laziness. I could no doubt find
answers in books. But I hope some folks out there on the net will
want to give their views and I seek to learn what regular people
think, not just what scholars write. Actually the former is far more
interesting to me.

Bill Mayne