Hasnija Abdul Moumen, age 19

Brooklyn, NY

9/11 changed my life. That day I was supposed to be in school, and it happened, and I went straight to the mosque and from that day on I covered—I started wearing hijab, that's Islamic headdress—and I just changed my life. No more bars. No more dancing. Not going out with friends that much. Getting into Islam was like "Whoa, this is what I have to do, this is an obligation."

My biggest fear is God. Definitely. I have no fear of men, no fear of animal. When I was younger, I used to ask my dad, "Daddy, what are you scared of?" And he's like, "God." And I'm like, "What about a big shark that comes and eats your head?" He's like "No, honey, God."

In every household there is some type of discrimination, whether it be from religious or racial background... I used to be like, "Damn Jew", but that's about it... I didn't take it that far unless they were being mean and giving me bad looks--I'm going to have to make it equal, just out of not being tolerant. I would just give them a dirty look.

I had this thing about www.muslimsingles.com on the Internet, because I was new to the religion and I wanted to meet people, get different people's perspectives and yadda, yadda, yadda. So, Ihad, he emailed me saying, "Hey, what's up?" and me being very open and honest, blah, blah, blah, "How are you, how's everything, you live in Brooklyn? Cool, let's go meet up. We'll go paint pottery." And we did. And I was like, "What a sweetheart!" He brought me flowers.

On our second date we went to this really cool place on 100th street, and we sat in the old back room at a little table – and he said, "Hazzy, how would you feel... would you marry me?" And I turned bright red because I didn't know. I was like, "Swear to God, are you serious?" And he was like, "Yeah I want you to marry me and be my wife," and I'm like, "Holy Shit!" and I was like, "Yeah, I'll marry you."

I've known Ihad maybe a month and a half. We got married last Friday. I was crying because everyone was in a white wedding dress and I was in slacks and sneakers. We just came back from joining a mosque and it was raining and my feet were wet and I was just like, "Wahh...!" I don't know, it happened so fast... I married him because he was a good Muslim. Thank God. I didn't marry him because I was blindly in love with him. I wanted him to improve my being, improve my religion, get me straight up to heaven.