S. Korean soldiers convert to Islam before Iraq tour

S. Korean soldiers convert to Islam before Iraq tour

Kim Kyoung-hoon
and Choi Yoon-sang
Reuters/Seoul

South Korea's 35,000-strong Muslim community gained 37 new
converts on Friday when officers and enlisted soldiers destined
for a tour of duty in Iraq were admitted to the faith in a
ceremony at Seoul's main mosque.

South Korea, where Buddhism is the most common religion and
Christianity has grown rapidly, has pledged to send 3,000 troops
to help reconstruction in Iraq. About 650 South Korean army
medics and engineers have served in the country for a year.

"You are reborn as believers and believers are true human
beings," Sulaiman Lee Haeng-lae Imam told the new converts at the
Seoul mosque, one of five in a country of 48 million people.

Sulaiman, a South Korean leading the congregation in Seoul,
said the men's decision to convert to Islam will go a long way
toward helping their 3,000-strong contingent become accepted by
Iraqis once it is deployed.

"The Iraqis could become your friends for eternity," Sulaiman
told the new converts after he received oaths from the soldiers.

A public affairs officer attached to the unit, Capt. Lee Yun-
se, said many of the 37 new converts had some background in Arab
culture, including Arabic language study in college and travel to
the Middle East.

All 3,000 soldiers in the contingent took courses on Arabic
culture and customs to help them fit in in Iraq.

"The 37 soldiers then volunteered to learn more about Islam at
the Seoul mosque and then converted out of faith," Lee said.

The troops of the Zayitun unit -- the Arabic word for "olive"
-- are awaiting orders to ship out to northern Iraq to help
maintain peace and rebuild the country.

But seven months after a pledge by President Roh Moo-hyun and
three months after parliamentary approval, the government has yet
to officially announce where they will be deployed and when.

A team of liaison officers will leave soon for Iraq to
coordinate logistics and operations with the Coalition
Provisional Authority and local leaders, the defense ministry
said.

In the face of small protests and calls by members of
parliament to scrap the deployment, the government has said it
will still go forward.

The 37 new Muslims boosted to 41 the number of Muslims in the
Iraq-bound contingent. The other four are military interpreters
drawn from the country's Muslim community.

"There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and
Mohammed is his messenger," each of the 37 soldiers recited and
in return received a copy of the Koran.

They were completing a crash course on the religion, a mosque
official said, finishing in 10 days what can take up to six
months.

South Korea's defense ministry barred the soldiers from
speaking to the media covering the ceremony.

South Korea is home to another 70,000 Muslims from outside the
country, primarily from Southeast Asia.

First introduced to the country by Turkish soldiers who fought
in the 1950-53 Korean War against North Korean aggression, Islam
has had a small but steady following until in recent years the
number swelled with an influx of foreign workers.