Islamic practices in Belo Horizonte: Adaptations and choices in a bastion of Brazilian traditionalism

Abstract

This article aims to analyse sociologically the adaptations Islamic religiosity has been undergoing in Minas Gerais state, one of the most conservative states of Brazil and a bastion of Catholicism. In order to understand the consequences of the cultural negotiation in the practise of a religion that is considered to be ‘foreign’, and to what extent this process is guided and intermediated by Muslim leaders or defined by ‘individual’ decisions of believers, we analyse four important points addressed by Islamic normativity: Islamic clothing, prayers, halal food, and marriage. This research draws on 18 months of participant observation and interviews. We contend that community members, especially women, have a revived and rigorous religious practise, sometimes exceeding the demands of the Sheikh, not only due to the influence of global conservative religious movements, but also because of an elective affinity between the conservatism of Minas Gerais and traditional Islamic values concerning family and gender.

Introduction

This article aims to analyse how Muslims adapt and negotiate their religion in Brazil from a sociological point of view. In the Brazilian context, and particularly in the state of Minas Gerais, Muslims are a minority group to which little attention has been paid. Minas Gerais is one of the most conservative states in the country, a bastion of Brazilian Catholicism and home to important evangelical churches with leaders of national importance. According to Gracino Júnior (2008), something he calls mineiridade (the culture of the state of Minas Gerais) was built over centuries. It is a way of life common to the people in the region, involving a great attachment to traditions, to Catholicism, and to family. Gracino also affirms that the Portuguese Crown’s prohibition of regular religious orders in 1711, intended to strengthen its control over the territory of the state of Minas Gerais, gave the lay faithful direct experience with rituals, helping forge a strong identity bond with Catholicism. Later, Catholicism became a cultural heritage of the state and has been intensely exploited by the religious-tourism industry. To crown this process, the state executive branch seems to be investing in recent years in an ideology that affirms that mineiridade would be a safe haven in the face of the dangers generated by modernization, the breakdown of institutions, and anonymity in contemporary society (Gracino Júnior, 2008). In the statements that Gracino collected in Minas Gerais, the author noted references to the figure of the mother: a woman always present at home, dedicated to raising (numerous) children, to protecting the family, and to resisting modernization. All these factors, together with low demographic mobility, keep Minas Gerais one of the most traditional states in the country.

Therefore, we pose the question: how is Islam – a religion that in Brazil is practised by a small minority, and that is barely known and is associated with foreigners – practised in a deeply Christian and traditional context such as in the state of Minas Gerais? From approximately 35,000 Muslims who inhabit Brazil, according to the 2010 census, only 1000 live in Minas Gerais. The state of São Paulo has the largest Muslim population, while the state of Minas Gerais stands at fifth place. Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, has about 2.5 million inhabitants and only one mosque, the Centro Islamico de Minas Gerais (Islamic Centre of Minas Gerais). This institution serves the residents of the capital and the metropolitan region. Not surprisingly, most of the research conducted in Brazil on local Muslim minorities focuses on the situation in São Paulo. In this context, scholars have analysed the construction of religious, ethno-national, and gender identities (Castro, 2013; Pinto, ¹ 2005); the history and impact of immigration, including the generational perspective (Gattaz, 2001; Osman, 2011; Truzzi, 2008); conversion (Marques, 2000; Ramos, 2003); performances and religious rituals (Ferreira, 2001, 2007); intercultural marriages (Pasqualin, 2018; Pasqualin and Barbosa, 2016); and sexuality and human rights (da Silva, 2019).

This particular study will contribute to the debate on Islamic practices in the Brazilian context by drawing attention to other scenarios in the country and their implications for the negotiations and decisions of followers. To what extent does the context in Minas Gerais hinder or encourage Islamic practices? There are very few studies on Muslims in Minas Gerais, most notably, Hachem (2008) and Sena (2007), who wrote about the community of Belo Horizonte, in addition to Cunha (2006) and Oliveira (2017), who researched Muslims in Juiz de Fora. Ordinary practicing Muslims make their own decisions in the face of the challenges posed by the local context (Césari, 1994). Nonetheless, Muslim leaders also need to adapt and offer solutions (Amir-Moazami and Salvatore, 2003). To what extent does the expression of Islamic religiosity in Belo Horizonte come from the flexibility of leaders as opposed to the individual decisions of believers? Finally, the third question that guides this work is how Islamic religiosity is practised in Belo Horizonte in relation to gender bias. In order to examine these questions, we evaluated the practice of the following four important aspects of Islamic normativity: clothing, prayers, halal food, and marriage.

Our hypothesis is that the rigorous religious practices especially among women in Belo Horizonte and its metropolitan region are due to a selective affinity between Minas Gerais’ conservatism and traditional Islamic values concerning the family and gender roles in society, in addition to the influence of global conservative religious movements such as Salafism.

The research draws on participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The authors carried out participant observation at the Islamic Centre of Minas Gerais between August 2018 and December 2019. Eight women and eight men attending the Islamic Centre of Minas Gerais were interviewed, including both immigrants and converts, in addition to the sheikh responsible for the institution. This article is structured as follows. First, an overview of the Islamic presence in Minas Gerais is presented, addressing aspects such as the religious institutionalization and social morphology of Muslims. Subsequently, Islamic practices are analysed in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, the state capital. Finally, the conclusion will answer the three questions on which this research is based.

Islam in Minas Gerais: institutionalization and social morphology

In 1962, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants formed the Sociedade Muçulmana Beneficente de Minas Gerais (Muslim Charitable Society of Minas Gerais) in the state capital. In the 1980s, when Belo Horizonte’s Muslim community met at a mussala (Hachem, 2008; Sena, 2007), a young sheikh named Suheil began to encourage the construction of a local mosque among its members. The architectural plan of the temple was funded by the government of Morocco, and the funds for its construction were donated by wealthy community members (Real, 2014).

The community was made up mostly of Arab men. According to one of the interviewees, several of them were Shiites, who typically married Christian women and had a little interest in raising their children in their religion. For this reason, the interviewee said that Shiism has become a fairly small denomination in the city. Sena, (2007, 2013) points out that, despite the low hereditary transmission of Islam, the creation of the mosque can be interpreted as a strategy by immigrants to maintain their religion in Belo Horizonte, since it led to the growth of Islam beyond the initial ethnic group. Inaugurated in 1991 and in use since 1992, the Islamic Centre of Minas Gerais became the new headquarters for the Muslim Charitable Society of Minas Gerais, which gradually counted on the growing presence of new converts. Today, the mosque’s congregation is predominantly Sunni, which is the denomination followed by Mokhtar el Khal, sheikh of the mosque since 1993. Born in Morocco 57 years ago, he became a naturalized Brazilian. Mokhtar completed his studies in Saudi Arabia, just like F., an Indian immigrant who, with the sheikh’s approval, taught the religion to converts. F., who is married to a Brazilian woman, temporarily moved to Belo Horizonte because of her. He later migrated to the United States and has since continued to give teachings online to members of the mosque. His teachings are based on Salafism, an ultraconservative Sunni movement that advocates the restoration of Islamic practices and beliefs in their purest form based on the example of the earliest Muslims (Clarke and Beyer, 2009). Some of the followers of Salafism who were interviewed disapprove of what they consider innovations within Islam, such as Shiism. Despite such disapproval, the Sunnis coexist peacefully with the Shiites, who are few in number and keep a low profile, and the issue of denominations is not discussed in the mosque. There are Shiites, however, who choose not to attend the temple in Belo Horizonte, according to one of the interviewees.

The community is very small and does not have enough resources to sustain a schism. Ethnic, national, and theological disputes and schisms are not encouraged by the sheikh. It is common among converts to Islam to change their names and adopt a name in Arabic; however, the sheikh says it is important to have Muslims with Brazilian names to show that anyone can be a Muslim. When we asked him about the presence of Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the mosque, he explained,

We don’t ask for a person’s ID before letting them in; it doesn’t matter if you’re a Shiite Muslim or a Sunni Muslim. For me, the respect for the environment, for the place, for the religion, that’s what really matters.

According to the 2010 demographic census, Muslims represent about 0.01% of the inhabitants of Minas Gerais, where 70% of the population is Catholic and 20% is evangelical. Even if in small numbers, Muslims are dispersed in dozens of municipalities of Minas Gerais, with a greater concentration in Belo Horizonte. In Minas Gerais, 74% of Muslims in 2010 were male (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), 2012); this is a higher percentage than in the Brazilian Muslim population as a whole, where they make up 60% of men (Castro and Vilela, 2019).

Regarding nationality, the Muslim population of Minas Gerais remains mostly composed of foreigners. In 2010, Brazilian-born men and women represented 42% of the 1008 Muslims living in Minas Gerais, which is still far less than the 70% of Brazilian-born people (out of a total of 35,166) who practised Islam throughout Brazil in 2010 (Castro and Vilela, 2019). Following the profile of foreign Muslims in Brazil, the main country of origin of these immigrants is Lebanon. Muslims in Minas Gerais, as well as in the rest of Brazil, are generally in an advantageous situation in the labour market, and hold a higher educational level than the average non-Muslim population in the state: 25% of the Muslims in Minas Gerais held a university degree in 2010, as opposed to only 7% of the non-Muslims (IBGE, 2012).

Although they are generally able to integrate well into the state’s economy, the fact that Muslims constitute a minority poses great challenges in their daily lives, especially for women, as we will see below.

Islamic practices in Belo Horizonte

In this section, we will present data on Islamic practices in Belo Horizonte divided by gender. First, for each researched aspect of Islamic normativity, we will focus on the regularly religiously observant men of the community, then on the women, and finally, on the position of the sheikh.

Islamic norms on clothing have a much greater impact on women. As Read (2007) states, ‘Perhaps no single issue better captures the controversy over Muslim integration than the Islamic practice of veiling’ (2007: 232). Despite all the attention paid in Islam to female clothing, there are also rules in the Quran and in the Sunnah that apply to males in the religious community. Men should cover their private parts, that is, the part of the body between the knee and the navel. They should not wear tight clothing or anything associated with the feminine, such as silk, golden ornaments, or bright or gold colours. In addition, it is recommended that they follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad and cover their heads. To do so, they can wear a taqiyah, a tiny hat. Those who have opted to wear it does so predominantly at the mosque and at home, while its use is avoided at work or college. Some have worn it in public spaces and were mocked by classmates, while others were embarrassed by stares and/or verbal abuse. Some men did not even try to wear it to ‘prevent problems’. In general, it is more commonly used by converted Brazilians, especially those who have been Muslim for a few years, who seek greater religious rigour and who emulate more traditionalist figures of the community.

The Quran and the Sunnah set down the following four fundamental requirements concerning female Islamic clothing: (1) clothing must cover the entire body, except the face and the hands, (2) clothing should not reveal the contours of the body, (3) clothing should not be transparent, and (4) finally, clothing should not draw a man’s attention to the beauty of the woman.

All interviewees claimed to continue to wear the hijab beyond prayer times, despite the immense challenges imposed by the context in Minas Gerais. Informants mentioned that when wearing the veil, they had encountered verbal aggression, discrimination in the labour market, and even physical aggression. There are touching reports such as this one, given by L., a 50-year-old confectioner and a resident of Betim, in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte:

I lost 80% of my clients (after converting and wearing the veil). [. . .] People began to humiliate me and hurt me, saying horrifying things to me. They said I was going to starve [. . .] 80% stopped doing business with me. I got a lower . . . salary. There were a few people, real friends, who came to me and ordered a cake. [. . .] People who had already made an order would cancel it. Some of them, who had already scheduled me to help with their parties, would eventually cancel. They would explain it to me by saying things like: ‘Oh, I had to cancel it because I’m not giving the party this month anymore’, and afterwards, I heard they had hired someone else . . .

Every woman in our sample who wears a veil and is not self-employed is unemployed. When they go for job interviews, they are asked if they will use ‘that’ while working. If they say yes, they lose the chance of a job offer.

In the Mosque of Belo Horizonte, there is an image illustrating three girls wearing hijabs, with the caption, ‘Inside the mosque, please wear the hijab’. This instruction shows that the institution recognizes that some might not wear the hijab beyond the prayer times. When interviewed, the sheikh stated that women do not need to wear the hijab in the workplace, because that is where they earn a living. According to him, God would understand it. Such a standpoint is surprising, not so much for the flexibility in relation to wearing the hijab in such a context, but for regarding women as responsible for their livelihood. This might show the influence of the local context on the sheikh as a Moroccan immigrant, as the participation of women in the Moroccan labour market is quite low (23% and as low as 16% in urban areas), according to a 2018 World Bank report. ² In Brazil, female participation in the labour market is 49.9%, according to the 2010 census.

With regard to men’s clothing, the sheikh draws attention to the taqiyah: ‘The priest, the pope, the rabbi, everybody wears it . . . the essence is the same’. He also mentions the beard: ‘Haven’t you seen that they are all bearded? Even in the movies, Moses, Jesus . . . Solomon, they are all bearded, so it is a natural thing among men’. However, he makes it clear that the righteousness of the faithful is more important than appearance:

. . . the essence is the person’s practice, when I’m honest, when I’m punctual, when I’m caring, when I’m generous, that’s the real effect. But what’s the use of wearing clothing that is considered Islamic from head to toe, if I’m a crook, if I’m dishonest, and so on? It means nothing. [. . .] So the man, he has to cover his private parts . . . just like the woman. The fabric of the clothing can’t be transparent, for men or women, it can’t reveal the person’s body, it has to be loose, this is the . . . I won’t say Islamic dressing code [but the] proper dress code [. . .] for Jews, for Muslims, for Catholics.

By emphasizing that the righteousness of one’s character is more important than the dress code, the sheikh, in his official discourse, welcomes the moderate practice reported by male believers. However, in terms of rigidity, it falls far short of the actual practice of female converts and immigrants. In addition, it is worth noting how the sheikh draws parallels with Judaism and Christianity in order to present the Islamic dressing code as the appropriate standard for all ‘peoples of the Book’ and not as something exotic or peculiar. This is a clear attempt to align more closely with and be integrated into the Christian context in which they live, something also found in the discourse of several men who were interviewed.

With regard to prayers, it should be noted that Muslims must offer five daily prayers: one at dawn (Fajr), one at noon (Dhuhr), another in the afternoon (Asr), one more at sunset (Maghrib), and finally, one at night (Isha). On Fridays, Muslims are expected to hold noon prayer in a mosque. Muslim women do not have this obligation, because at home they have duties as sacred as prayer itself.

In analysing this practice promoted by Islamic normativity, we notice once again the pressures exerted by the context of Minas Gerais on the minority religion and believers’ attempts at negotiating this situation. Some respondents were turned down when they asked their employers to let them attend Friday prayers at the mosque. However, most employers agreed with this request as long as the employee made up the time with overtime and weekend shifts.

Most respondents stated that they were not embarrassed to pray in front of non-Muslims, but they usually seek an empty or private place to pray. One of them reported that once, when he prayed in a city museum, a guard warned him not to. Another respondent said that he did not feel embarrassed but admitted he used to hide to do his praying: ‘No one knows I’m a Muslim at work’ (M., biotechnologist, 33 years old). That is, though he stated that he does not feel embarrassed, his behaviour suggests apprehension, since he has not revealed his religious identity or practice to colleagues. This respondent even lost a previous job because he was a Muslim.

Half of the male interviewees claimed to offer not only the five mandatory daily prayers but also additional voluntary prayers: ‘Muslims, they do at least five prayers a day. Of course they end up doing more [emphasis added], but it’s at least five prayers a day’ (M., biotechnologist, 33 years old). Believers strive to offer prayers at the proper times, but when they cannot, they group them together and ‘pay the debt’ at the next session or as soon as possible.

None of the women reported offering prayers in between the regular times, a rare aspect in which men were more devoted than women. However, since it is more common for women to stay at home than for men, they can offer prayers more easily at the proper times. Some interviewees said they ask for permission to use stores’ fitting rooms to offer their prayers when they are away from home. One of them also reported praying at the chapel of the Christian University where she studies.

Difficulties in the work environment were reported by all women who had the opportunity to perform paid work, even self-employed workers:

I would isolate myself in a quiet place to do [the prayers] [. . .] I felt a little embarrassed; sometimes someone would yell from outside for me to assist them. So I was embarrassed in a way. [. . .] It has happened several times that someone interrupted me while I was praying. [. . .] Any novelty is strange, so here in Belo Horizonte, this religion is strange in a way. [. . .] Because people think everyone here is a Christian . . . (V., 44 years old, unemployed, former saleswoman)

Senegalese immigrant S., in turn, reports difficulties in offering prayers at the right time because of her work as an artisan and independent saleswoman. Her workplace, a square in the central region of Belo Horizonte, is not clean enough. In addition, customers interrupt her without hesitation during this intimate and misunderstood moment. In both cases, the women thought it best to pray in the privacy of their homes. As for prayers at the mosque on Fridays, it is unusual for women to be released from work to attend them. Some women justify the situation by saying that their employer does not allow it because it is not a religious obligation for women, and the women adjust to that.

Women seem to receive less respect than men when trying to put into practice their unusual religiosity. Bosses, colleagues, and clients do not seem to understand or care about their religious duties. Perhaps, that is why, many of the women interviewed stressed that it is possible to pray unnoticed by others, for example, simply by lowering their heads while travelling on the bus in a seat or standing.

The traditionalism in Minas Gerais, marked by machismo and its strong Christian heritage (Gracino Júnior, 2008), linked to the Islamophobia that has been developing in Brazil (Caixeta and Castro, 2020), makes Islamic practice even harder for women.

The researchers perceived a widespread use of applications on computers or mobile devices to remind the user of prayer times and fasting during Ramadan, ³ as well as to help them locate the sacred direction towards Mecca. Only one of the men interviewed, a Senegalese, said he did not feel the need for the app. Technology and online life has had a real impact on offline practice in Belo Horizonte and its metropolitan region; it has definitely been incorporated into the daily prayer practice. The sheikh himself uses app and confirms its usefulness for the correct Islamic practice.

When asked how he helps the faithful deal with the daily obstacles to holding prayers, the religious leader was once again flexible and concerned about not being confrontational and not creating conflict. He understands that the believer needs to make a living and supports the idea that they should first show that they are impeccable professionals, deserving of concessions, such as going to the mosque on Fridays. He also proposes that the Muslim say his or her prayers during bathroom breaks, so as not to interfere with the ‘working time paid by the boss’. This comment is surprising, since the bathroom is usually seen as an unclean place, meaning that it is not suitable for the practice of anything connected to the sacred. Not everyone shares the sheikh’s recommendation, as shown by a convert’s testimony stating that prayers in the bathroom, although not prohibited, are not recommended.

Another one of the most affected religious precepts is halal food. The consumption of halal meat – that is, meat authorized for Muslims to consume – is severely affected by the tiny local consumer market. In addition to the slaughter ritual that must be followed, the animal must be raised and fed differently – for example, without hormones or other additives. Such meat is almost completely unavailable in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, thus forcing local Muslims to adapt. Ferraz (2015) has observed a comparable situation in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In that context, the anthropologist noted that believers say the words ‘in the name of God’ before eating non-halal meat, or they eat only fish, which is considered a neutral food.

The men interviewed in Belo Horizonte generally take one of two approaches. The first one is when the Muslim himself slaughters the chicken he will eat, if he finds a breeder who allows him to do so. The other one is to say ‘in the name of God’ before eating the meat of an animal raised and slaughtered in a non-halal way. Only one of the interviewees claimed to have given up beef and opted to eat fish instead. Several of them claimed to eat halal meat on feast days at the mosque, as did women. On these occasions, at least seven members of the community must come together to slaughter an ox or sheep and share it with the others, according to the sheikh. To do so, they travel to a farm in the city of Esmeralda, 80 km (50 miles) away.

Among the women who were interviewed, only one said that, due to the difficulty of finding halal meat, she ate non-halal meat frequently. All others try to find other ways around the problem: they raise chickens in the backyard and slaughter the birds for consumption) and fish. One of the women claimed to have become a vegetarian. Another, a Senegalese immigrant, said she saves up money (about 400 Brazilian reals, or roughly US$80) to buy a sheep slaughtered in a halal way. When the meat runs out, she does not mind abstaining from meat until she can buy it again, which, on occasion, has taken up to 8 months.

In the case of halal food, the sheikh is more flexible than the community of believers, including his wife and daughters:

Islam demands that every kind of food one eats must be lawful and allowed. In the case of Muslims who live in a Catholic or Jewish environment, they can eat the same food eaten by Jews and Catholics, except for those things that are definitely forbidden in Islam: pork, alcoholic beverages, and blood. But if I go to your house and you offer me a dish, I will not ask whether you have cut the animal or not, which is the right Islamic attitude [. . .] Here at home, I eat meat from the market . . . it’s the regular type of beef, because I’m in a Catholic country. But some people say ‘no’ – my daughters, my wife, they don’t eat it. They used to eat it years ago, but it all depends on the person’s interpretation. Now, as I see it, if the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) gave the permission to eat the same food eaten by a Catholic and a Jew, why am I going to make my life harder?

The final aspect of religious practice to be analysed is the issue of marriage. Islam dictates that Muslims should not go on dates; instead, they should always seek marriage. From the eight men we interviewed, we learned that only one of them is married to a Muslim. Three out of eight interviewees are married, while the rest are single or divorced. Among those who are married, there was a Senegalese immigrant man married to a former Muslim who now follows a syncretic religion known as Spiritism and an Egyptian married to a Brazilian woman who is ‘not yet Muslim’. She respects her husband’s beliefs but attends an evangelical church and says she does not like discussing religion. Her husband hopes that she will still become a Muslim but regrets that she does not agree to discuss religion, making it harder for her to know ‘the truth’. Another curious testimony is from a Tanzanian immigrant, divorced from a Brazilian woman. According to him, it is difficult to marry Brazilians because ‘they are very jealous’, they are liberal, and ‘they show parts of their bodies’. There are many interethnic marriages in the Muslim community of Belo Horizonte, which create special challenges in everyday life.

As for our small sample of interviewed women, two of them were divorced, one was single, and one was engaged. All others were married. Their spouses and the fiancé were Muslims. The requirement to marry only Muslim men was followed by all those we interviewed and contacted during participant observation. Furthermore, they take the ban on dating very seriously. A couple of converts were warned by the sheikh that dating was not allowed in Islam and got married in a week. Another convert received a proposal of marriage from her Pakistani suitor 15 days after they met. Delighted with such an attitude, she said, ‘Muslims are different, Muslims do get married’. Traditionalism in Minas Gerais greatly emphasizes the importance of family and marriage, an elective affinity with Islam.

According to Islamic normativity, Muslim men are permitted to marry Christian, Muslim, or Jewish women. They must respect the spouse’s belief and even help them to live within their religion. However, the children of this union must be Muslims. In the case of women, they are required to marry someone of the same religion, since Christians and Jews do not have the same doctrinal obligation to respect the wife’s belief. In practice, this approach helped spread the religion around the world and aimed to ensure the continuity of belief by the children born from an interreligious union.

Ethnic endogamy is not required by Islam; however, minorities often pursue it with persistence. In a context like this, marrying a spouse of the same faith and culture makes it much easier – or indeed, might be the only way – to ensure the maintenance of foreign language and customs in the host society. Some immigrants make great efforts in this regard, such as the sheikh himself, who returned to Morocco to get married. He stayed there for a month, and by the time he returned, he was already married. He made a point of forming a family in which the children could speak the language of their grandparents and communicate with them. In Belo Horizonte, there are very few Muslims and even fewer Muslim women, and they all come from very different ethnic and national backgrounds. It is hard enough to find a Muslim wife; it is even harder to find one of the same ethnicity. In addition, there may not be enough societal incentive to encourage a search for spouses of the same nationality and culture, in Brazil or abroad, despite the existence of various websites promoting Muslim marriages.

The sheikh emphasizes the importance of marrying someone of the same religion, regardless of their ‘culture’. He gives the example of his youngest daughter, who is engaged to a converted Brazilian:

If my daughter wants to marry a Brazilian, I’m not going to say ‘no’. As to culture and so forth, I don’t know . . . But if the person has an Islamic base, then that is the person who is suitable to live with . . .

Conclusion

The study of the minority Muslim community in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte proved to be rich and surprising. Despite such a small presence, which imposes great challenges, Islam is thriving in Belo Horizonte. About a decade ago, Zakia Hachem conducted field research at the same Islamic Centre where our study was conducted. According to her (in an interview with the authors of this study in March 2019), there was no such rigour in everyday religious practices at that time. Furthermore, the use of the hijab was not as common; nor was there such a commitment to religion in general. Furthermore, the community seemed much less willing to resist the pressures of assimilation into the surrounding community. Other researchers, such as Hamid (2007) and Ferreira (2013), had already noticed an increase in conservatism among Muslims in Brazil. The authors of this article presume that the global increase in religious conservatism has finally reached Belo Horizonte. This fact makes it easier for the more conservative religions (or their denominations), especially in terms of gender relations, to attract believers. Woodhead (2007) claims that in the second-half of the twentieth century, in a reaction to cultural and sexual liberalism, the three great monotheistic religions gradually intensified the traditional division of gender roles, based on the idea of the head of the family’s supremacy and on the domestic role of women. In Belo Horizonte, Salafism – a traditionalist movement within the Islamic religion – is expressed, for example, in the rejection of photographs and non-religious music and in the emphasis of distinctions between men and women concerning their clothing.

In Brazil, Islam is growing mainly among women, according to informers interviewed during fieldwork. The appreciation of the roles of mother and wife and, simultaneously, the fact that men are responsible for protecting and supporting the family seem to attract some women. They consider these characteristics of Islam as something solid and clear on which to rely. For them, this is a welcome contrast with the given societal context, in which the modern woman faces ambiguous demands and expectations; she is supposed to work outside the home while continuing to take primary responsibility for the family and the house. The formation of a traditional, united family that supports each other and grows together is a central ideal not only to Muslims but also to most people in Minas Gerais. ‘Muslims are serious, they are committed, and they do get married’. ‘My husband is a very good and dedicated man’. ‘The Muslim man is devoted to the family’. These are all phrases we heard during fieldwork.

In various ways, Muslim women of Belo Horizonte and its metropolitan region are more dedicated and rigid about their religious obligations than men are. They are even instructed by the sheikh to ‘wear a moderate hijab’ and keep their jobs. ⁴ The moderate hijab would be discreet; in addition, clothing should not show the contours of the body nor shock people who are not accustomed to Islamic habits. As examples, he mentions loose-fitting pants and a scarf that covers the neck. Despite this, women insist on wearing strict Islamic clothing, and thus, are no longer hired for jobs. They do not want to give up what they see as their obligation to God and seem to perceive the roles of mother and wife as priorities. They do not see themselves as providers when they get married, even when they belong to the lower middle class, which seems to be the case for most local converts. As for immigrants, we see a similar attitude, although they belong to a wider range of social classes. Some engage in studies and training, but paid work is more common among single and divorced women, both converts and immigrants.

Finally, the data show how the experience of Islamic religiosity in a minority context is adapted by religious leaders and ordinary practitioners alike. The sheikh studied in Saudi Arabia, the pole of an ultraconservative and rigorous type of Islam, especially with regard to gender social roles and maintaining distance from other religions. It is surprising, therefore, that his attitude towards the Christian-dominated community is so temperate and flexible. This may be a result of his long stay in Belo Horizonte. Women, however, are stricter and more demanding than their male co-religionists, including the sheikh. They are more attentive to religious demands regarding aspects such as food, clothing, and marriage. This fact is not only based on the vigour and passion associated with conversion; it is also a reality found among women who are brought up as Muslims. We have seen echoes of conservative religious movements of resistance intensifying, not only in Belo Horizonte, where they oppose the flexibility preached by the sheikh, but also throughout Brazil. Global-scale modernization poses challenges to the traditions that orient and guide societies. One of the most important traditions refers to the family and the ways in which it is structured. Gender social roles are a source of contestation and fundamental dispute (Castells, 2009). The women in our sample positioned themselves in the middle of this clash; however – contrary to the conventional superficial view – they did not choose submission. They chose a role for a woman that prioritizes the family and the dedication of a companion who holds the same ideals and purposes. This choice is closely related to mineiridade, as mentioned at the beginning of this article (Gracino Júnior, 2008). This path (although idealized) seems to justify their choices of engaging in religiosity with such devotion and rigidity, even when they are surrounded by so much misunderstanding and intolerance.