Trip of faith takes skeptical turn - A California Muslim's recent visit to Cairo becomes a journey of religious discovery and cultural disillusionment.

CAIRO — Friday morning came, and the broad-shouldered young African American made his way to the sedated city's ancient quarters. He walked the streets with the determined gait of a football receiver to Al Azhar Mosque, arriving just as the muezzin's call to prayer summoned the faithful.

Suddenly, the outgoing Californian ceased his banter and gaped, awestruck, at the intricately carved minarets reaching for the heavens, the browns, reds, greens and blues interwoven into masterful calligraphy.

Salahudin Ali was a long way from the drab office buildings used as mosques in the Bay Area, where he grew up, or the small student lounge he and his friends used as a prayer room at college in Oregon.

"You just get kind of shy," he said. "It's like being around a very pretty girl. You almost blush if you look."

This summer, the 22-year-old Portland State University pre-law student pursued a years-long dream. The young Muslim traveled to Cairo to broaden his understanding of his faith, following the path forged by Malcolm X, whose thinking about race relations changed after he visited Egypt and other parts of the Mideast and Africa.

At first, his voyage of discovery was a thrill ride. He was welcomed by Egyptians ecstatic to find not only an American-born Muslim, but one named after one of Islam's greatest heroes: Salahudin, the warrior who pushed the Crusaders out of Jerusalem and raised a hilltop fortress in this very city.

But Ali brought his American tendency for criticism and skepticism to a part of the world that values obedience and cohesion above all. He challenged much of what he saw, and ultimately he found himself uncomfortable in the heart of the Muslim world.

"This place went from like cool to weird in the last week," Ali said in the days before he left. "I'm ready to get back home. I'm kind of tired right now."

Conversion

Ali wasn't born into a Muslim family. He lived with his mother in the rough East Bay city of Vallejo until he was 9. When a SWAT team raided the home of his baby-sitter and found drugs, Ali's no-nonsense father, a career airman, took him and his twin brother to Travis Air Force Base, where he and his own brother, Andre, were stationed.

Uncle Andre exposed Ali and his brother, Mika'il, to the faith that both formally adopted as adults, a faith Ali said he felt drawn to because of its diverse adherents and commitment to justice.