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It's 1 p.m. in Mission Viejo, California, when Angela Collins answers the call to prayer.

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It's her second prayer of the day, and following custom, she'll pray three more times before the day is done.

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Now I have this belief, and I love my belief, so I have to respect it and follow the rules.

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The rules are not easy to follow.

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Angela is Muslim. She has been for almost five years.

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Raised Catholic, she learned about Islam after meeting Muslims while traveling overseas.

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She converted just two months after September 11th,

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a time when the war on terror was almost synonymous with a war on radical Islam.

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I saw a very dark persona of Muslims in general to Americans,

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and I realized it was so far removed from my actual experience abroad

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that people had to know this is not who they are.

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This is not how they are.

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There are an estimated 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide, and most are not Arabs.

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Here in the United States, while the Muslim contingent numbers an estimated 7 to 8 million,

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it's growing rapidly.

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20,000 new converts each year, four times as many women as men.

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In the Quran, it says that women were created independently of Adam,

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that Eve was an independent creation of God.

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And so for a lot of white American women, that really appeals to their sensibilities of equality,

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and it's very liberating for them.

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Maybe I'll help you put something.

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Julia Roach converted to Islam after being introduced to the religion by her husband, Chris.

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They weren't married at the time.

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He is also an American.

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When I found out he was Muslim, I told him, I believe, right away,

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I will never become a Muslim, I will never cover my head, I will never be this person.

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So don't ever ask me to be that person.

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And he never did.

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But she did have lively discussions with him about religion.

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She was raised a Christian and said she converted after she was able to see past the stereotypes

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and learned about the values of Islam.

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The concept of freedom and liberty of each individual person and the rights of each person,

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and that's all wrapped up in the theological teachings of Islam as well.

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Yes, I'm an American.

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I'm very outspoken.

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I'm pretty assertive and very happy person.

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And it's not the typical stereotype that people see with a Muslim woman.

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We're going to eat green eggs and lamb.

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Five years after converting to Islam, Angela Collins is now the director of an Islamic school.

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It took her a while to get used to wearing the hijab,

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but now instead of being a fashion emergency, it's become a fashion accessory.

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Yeah, people looked and they were curious, but they never,

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a lot of the times they didn't realize I was a Muslim wearing hijab.

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They thought, oh, she must be some French designer coming up with a new fashion.

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It's not a new fashion, but maybe a new face on the world's second largest religion.

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George Lewis, NBC News, Los Angeles.