Islam is winning converts among the indigenous people of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, where Christianity has been the principal spiritual belief and where religious differences are a growing source of conflict. The newly converted Muslims, 15 of whom have already made the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, said they chose Islam out of conviction, but also because they were fed up with the often bloody clashes between Roman Catholics and Christians of other...

In recent years, Agustin Gomez Mendez and other Maya Indians in far southern Mexico have taken yet one more sharp turn in a long quest for redemption, deciding that Jesus Christ isn't their personal savior after all. "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger," says Gomez Mendez, a poor farmer and father of six who converted his family to Islam in 1996 under the tutelage of Spanish missionaries. Over the past few years, about 300 evangelical Christian Maya have...

It was not an unusual menu that graced the table one recent Thursday at Patricia El-Kassir's west Houston home. For El-Kassir, a Mexican-American convert to Islam, starting the day with the Mexican egg breakfast and ending it with a Lebanese meat-and-bean dinner meant nothing more than the merging of cultures easily found in Islam. "One of the things that brought me to Islam, that I think is so beautiful, is that Muslims come from all nations," said El-Kassir, whose husband is a...

Slipped inside a strip mall across from Exposition Park where the smell of incense mingles with Arabic swirls on the wall, Muhammad Gomez absorbs the message of Allah. Sitting beside him in this storefront Islamic center, Domy Garcia raises her hand and asks why she and other Muslim women are obliged to cover their heads with the hijab. Mariam Montalvo takes diligent notes at the Sunday afternoon Islamic lesson with the holy Koran by her side. Here at the ILM Foundation, a new Islamic...

At dusk, Aminah Martinez prepares dinner in her small Fairfax kitchen. Corn tortillas for enchiladas, grated cheese and beef for tacos, maybe an avocado for guacamole -- all staples of her youth. But dusk is also time for prayer. So every evening, with her husband and two children, she places her hands together and kneels to the east. It is Maghrib, Muslims' fourth prayer of the day, and she begins whispering in Arabic as the subtle aromas of Mexico mix with sounds often associated with the...