// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhy did IslamInSpanish go to therapy? It had a lot to translate.

IslamInSpanish

Founded	2013
Founder	Jaime Fletcher
Type	Non-profit organization
Legal status	Active
Focus	Education about Islam in Spanish
Headquarters	Houston, Texas, United States
Region served	Worldwide
Method	Audiovisual media, khutbahs, interactive website
Key people	Sandy "Sakinah" Gutierrez, chief operating officer
Website	www.islaminspanish.org

IslamInSpanish is an American educational, non-profit organization that seeks to educate Latinos about Islam in the Spanish language worldwide through audiovisual media (DVDs, television, audio recordings, radio, and an interactive website). It distributes materials within the United States and to Spanish-speaking countries. The organization was founded by Jaime "Mujahid" Fletcher, a Colombian American convert to Islam, and is based in Houston, Texas, where Fletcher's wife, Sandy "Sakinah" Gutierrez, serves as chief operating officer.

In January 2016, IslamInSpanish opened Centro Islámico in Houston, described by organizers and journalists as the first mosque in the United States built specifically to serve, and to be led by, Latino Muslims. The center combines a prayer space with a museum on the history of Muslim Spain, and its Friday sermon is delivered in Spanish and broadcast to audiences across Latin America. A larger facility on the same site, in the Alief neighborhood of southwest Houston, opened in 2024 at a reported cost of about $4 million.

History

Background

Latino converts have been part of the American Muslim population since at least the 1930s, when Puerto Ricans in the northeastern United States began joining the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad; one of the earliest literary references to a Latino Muslim appears in Puerto Rican author Piri Thomas's 1967 memoir Down These Mean Streets. Later Latino Muslim organizations included the Newark-based group Banu Sakr, formed in the mid-1970s, Alianza Islámica, founded by Puerto Rican converts in East Harlem in the late 1980s, and the North Hudson Islamic Education Center in Union City, New Jersey, which has held an annual Hispanic Muslim Day since 2002. IslamInSpanish and Centro Islámico are frequently described as part of this broader, decades-long history of Latino engagement with Islam in the United States.

Founding

Jaime "Mujahid" Fletcher grew up in Alief, a neighborhood in southwest Houston, where as a teenager he was involved in gang activity before spending time in Colombia, his family's country of origin, where he began to develop an interest in education. Fletcher converted to Islam a few months before the September 11 attacks of 2001. When he tried to explain his new faith to his Spanish-speaking relatives, he found there were few Islamic educational materials available in Spanish, and he began translating Islamic texts and producing Spanish-language audio and video programs to fill the gap. Those early efforts grew into IslamInSpanish, which by the mid-2010s had produced several hundred audio recordings and videos, many of which aired on public-access television before the organization shifted its distribution to the internet. Fletcher and Sandy "Sakinah" Gutierrez, who would later marry and become the organization's chief operating officer and the interior designer of its community center, converted to Islam together after a year of study.

Fletcher has said his relatives initially knew little about Islam and were concerned when his wife began wearing a hijab; his parents later embraced Islam themselves after learning more about the faith through the Spanish-language materials he produced.

In 2013, IslamInSpanish began holding weekly Friday khutbahs (sermons) in Spanish at two locations in the Houston area, with the sessions streamed online for a worldwide Spanish-speaking Muslim audience.

Centro Islámico and the first Spanish-language mosque

On January 30, 2016, IslamInSpanish held its grand-opening celebration for Centro Islámico, drawing hundreds of visitors over the opening weekend, including Latino Muslim leaders from across the country. Organizers and news coverage described it as the first Islamic center in the country built by, and intended to serve, Latino Muslims. The opening celebration included a recitation of the Quran in Arabic, English, and Spanish, and remarks from converts and organizers describing their journeys to Islam. The roughly 5,000-square-foot (464 m²) building included a mosque, a museum on the history of Muslim Spain, a lounge, administrative offices, and a media production studio; organizers said the design was meant to evoke al-Andalus, the historical period of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula. Visitors noted the building's Andalusian design elements, including colorful azulejo tile work and arches modeled on the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. An FBI special agent, Patricia Villafrán, also spoke at the opening as part of a panel on hate-crime awareness for Muslim and Latino communities.

Within its first six months, Centro Islámico said it had welcomed 28 converts to Islam, ranging from children to a grandmother, according to Alex Gutierrez, the organization's development and operations director. Organizers said the center's Sunday classes were livestreamed to viewers in countries including Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and Germany. Fletcher's account of his own conversion had already been the subject of an earlier Houston Chronicle profile in 2008, in which he described the change as bringing him a sense of "peace" and "justice."

National Latino Muslim Convention

In December 2016, IslamInSpanish organized the first National Latino Muslim Convention, titled "Making a Difference Together," held December 23–24 in Houston in conjunction with the Texas Dawah Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Close to 250 Latino Muslims traveled from across the country, including California, Illinois, New York, Alabama, and Louisiana, to attend the two-day gathering. Speakers included Sheikh Reymundo Nur, Sheikh Muhammad Isa Garcia, Imam Yusef Maisonet, Imam Daniel Abdullah Hernandez of the Pearland Islamic Center, and the clinical psychologist Haleh Banani, and panel discussions addressed topics such as fraudulent marriages sought for immigration status and countering hostility toward Muslim and Latino communities. The convention also recognized early Latino Muslim organizers, including Omar Ocasio of the New York-based group Alianza Islámica. Members of the wider Houston Muslim community helped fund bus transportation for attendees traveling from other states. Coverage of the convention also noted that an institute of Islamic studies was being established in Barranquilla, Colombia, to train future Latino Muslim educators.

Media coverage and growth

In January 2019, IslamInSpanish and Centro Islámico were the subject of an episode of Vice's documentary series Minority Reports titled "Why Latinos Are Converting to Islam," which examined the growing number of Latino converts to Islam in the United States. The episode, hosted by Lee Adams, was also discussed on Houston Public Media's Houston Matters program later that month. Researchers have offered a range of estimates for the size of the Latino Muslim population in the United States, from about 50,000 to 265,000 people, out of an estimated 3.3 million Muslim adults nationwide, according to a 2017 report cited by Religion News Service.

Expansion of Centro Islámico

During Ramadan in 2022, IslamInSpanish broke ground on a major expansion of Centro Islámico on its 2.5-acre property in Alief, adding a new 10,200-square-foot building with a larger prayer area, classrooms, an event center, a cafe and lounge, and a 3,600-square-foot production studio for bilingual media, along with outdoor space including a basketball court, soccer field, and playground. Fletcher, the organization's chief executive officer, said the roughly $3 million expansion was intended to serve as a model that could be replicated in other American cities, and IslamInSpanish said it was considering opening a second Centro Islámico in Dallas, where it already operated an outreach office. During Ramadan in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization had begun hosting weekly bilingual Facebook Live question-and-answer sessions and virtual lectures; organizers said the online programming drew converts who later relocated to Houston to be closer to the community, including Jessica Disla, who took her shahada in a livestreamed gathering in 2020 and moved from Connecticut to Houston the following year.

New facility in Alief

IslamInSpanish opened its expanded Centro Islámico facility on Brant Road in Alief, holding a soft launch in September 2024 and a grand-opening celebration on November 16, 2024. The roughly 10,000-square-foot building was reported to have cost about $4 million and includes a prayer hall, a museum illustrating roughly 800 years of Muslim history in Spain, a youth room, and a cafe, in addition to office and classroom space. The center holds Friday sermons in Spanish at 1:30 p.m. and in English at 2:30 p.m.

Facilities and programs

Centro Islámico's design draws on Andalusian architectural motifs intended to reflect historical connections between Islam and Spanish-speaking cultures, an emphasis organizers say is meant to help Latino visitors see Islam as part of their own heritage rather than as a foreign import. Gutierrez, who designed the interior, has said a mural near the entrance and repeating patterns throughout the prayer hall and museum draw on Andalusian art and history, blended with design touches that reflect the couple's Colombian background. The center also includes a cafe, which organizers describe as an intentional nod to Colombian coffee culture, and a youth room decorated with graffiti art where children and teenagers can gather.

In addition to religious services, the center produces bilingual Spanish- and English-language media, hosts community and youth programs, and provides Islamic educational materials free of charge, which organizers say are funded primarily through individual donations. Fletcher has said the center does not seek to pressure visitors into converting, describing its approach as providing information and allowing people to reach their own conclusions.

See also

• Latino Muslims
• Alianza Islámica
• Black Muslims
• Islam in the United States
• Latin American Muslims

External links

• IslamInSpanish.org