Why women convert to Islam
QMI AGENCY
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A landmark project exploring why women convert to Islam wraps up at England’s prestigious University of Cambridge this weekend.
Organizers say that one of the main reasons for hosting Narratives of Conversion to Islam in Britain is “a general sense of frustration” with the media’s “one-dimensional portrayals of female conversion.”
They say that these focus on women who marry into the faith, and suggest that they do so at the expense of their independence and liberty.
“Judging by what the media tends to write about Islam, you would expect liberal-minded, intellectually-engaged women from non-Muslim backgrounds to give it a wide berth,” Prof. Yasir Suleiman, the project’s leader, says on the university’s site.
“It seems to be a religion that clashes with our ideas about modernity. Yet, the paradox is that there is a noticeable number of well-educated, intellectually-engaged women with high-flying careers who are choosing to become Muslims. So the question is, how do we explain this?”
The project team says that despite the myriad reasons for women converting to Islam – which, contrary to popular belief, often do not involve marriage – a consistent, emerging theme is that many stressed a strong sense of continuity with the past. Although outsiders view conversion as a break with a previous life, and in extreme cases apparently “racialize” white converts as if they have somehow become non-white by joining the faith, the women who make the change retain many of their fundamental beliefs and relationships.
The organizers say they will share their findings in a report to be published in spring.
“(It) will attempt to describe and explain the journeys converts take in full,” Suleiman says. “The stories are very different, but the women who tell them have consistently stressed that they don’t see conversion to Islam as a break from the past, but part of one greater, continuing journey as a whole.”
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