Plans underway for first Muslim sorority

Gamma Gamma Chi hopes to open its first chapter at the University of Kentucky.

[M]any young Muslim women are intrigued by the concept. Since Gamma Gamma Chi was founded seven months ago, Muslim students from 14 states -- and from Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates -- have e-mailed the sorority's national headquarters in Alexandria, Va. The biggest response came from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, a city with a Muslim population of nearly 2,500.

The idea for Gamma Gamma Chi came from Imani Abdul-Haqq, a 34-year-old business administration major at Guilford College in Greensboro.

She hopes to establish chapters in every region of the United States by 2015.

A black woman who converted to Islam in 2000, Abdul-Haqq considered whether to join an established black sorority, but worried she would have to compromise her Muslim beliefs. Even the term for the nine predominantly black fraternities and sororities -- the Divine Nine -- makes her uncomfortable. Only Allah, she says, is divine.

''As a Muslim who dresses modestly and does not drink, I wouldn't want to set myself apart from the people I was pledging with," she said. ''I want to feel the unity."