Dr. Esam Alkhawaga says he feels more secure and free practicing Islam in Dayton, Ohio, than he did in his native Egypt. He immigrated in 1994, choosing what he called "the beauty of American culture."

Yet Muslims have taken an emotional beating in this country since Sept. 11, 2001, most recently in the bombardment of aspersions meant by an otherwise innocuous statement: "He's a Muslim."

At the first women's conference of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh yesterday, Dr. Alkhawaga, a psychiatrist, said the rhetoric is "very troubling." In fact, he proposed that the integration of pure Islam with American culture at its best would make "a perfect marriage."

When Muslims in every other national culture define differently how Islam looks and feels -- from Egypt to Jordan to India -- "What's wrong with American-Islam?" he asked.

At the daylong conference in Oakland, educators, health professionals, Islamic scholars and Westerners who have converted to Islam held forth in discussions and speeches on topics that ranged from the emotional and educational needs of new Muslims, to child-raising, to the impact of nutrition and exercise on the body's ability to perform worship.

The audience of mostly women sat on one side of the aisle from the men and the boys, all in stockinged feet, most of the women in headscarves.

Several speakers urged the education of Muslim women.

Education can develop an appreciation of what Dr. Alkhawaga called "the gray area" of life. Life is not black and white, he said, and either-or ideology causes problems, just as education "can fight extremism and terrorism."

Karen Traugh, a converted Muslim who married a Jordanian, is active in interfaith groups at the Islamic Center, on Bigelow Boulevard. She said Muslims in America can find their Islamic core when they are not bound by the conscriptive culture of their homeland.

"When you come to America, you can really examine why it is you wear what you wear," said Ms. Traugh. In Jordan, the almost-universal look of religious dress is robes buttoned up the front.

"It doesn't vary much," she said, and it's an example of how cultural customs can become as important as or override pure worship.

Dr. Alkhawaga said his choice was a culture he described as "disciplined, responsible, polite, with equal opportunity."

Arabic cultures are not as emotionally expressive as cultures in America, he said, and repression of emotion takes its toll on children.

"The real orphan is the one who has a distant mother and a busy father," he told his audience. "It is not information but what touches us emotionally that we learn from."

Many Muslims who immigrate find a much more tolerant place than the one they left, said several of the speakers, but the challenges are heady, especially in raising children to be modest and non-materialistic.

On the importance of raising children to be good Muslims, Karim Abuzaid, Imam at the Prince George's Muslim Association in Lanham, Md., told the crowd of about 75, "Mothers, it's all about you. No one will feed the child what you want it to have but you. The baby sitter is a parking lot."

Throughout the big room, some women's expressions darted in alarmed unison; others nodded solemnly.

"I'm not living on the moon," he added quickly. "I understand most families need two paychecks.

"It's challenging to bring up children here, but also in Egypt and the rest of the world. But who does not want his child not to smoke, to drink, to have children out of wedlock? To not steal, to not cheat, to be kind? Islam can help you."