Converts for Love of Allah

Converts for Love of Allah

By Asma Gull


Katherine never thought when she interviewed an imam for her college religion class that she would end up questioning the religion she was raised in Christianity. After giving her a brief, simple, and clear introduction to Islam, the imam asked his own question of Katherine: can you explain the Trinity? Katherine, who was raised Catholic should have been able to answer that question, and she did try. She says, It was really frustrating for me. I just had failed at explaining it properly. It was a hole I discovered. From that moment on, a seed, as Katherine describes her sudden interest in Islam, was planted. She didn't actually convert till years later after dating a Muslim man.

Whenever I attend an Islamic event or am speaking about Islam, I always make an effort to note the ethnic diversity of the American Muslims attending the event. In all colors, shapes, and sizes imaginable, the American Muslim community is clearly ethnically diverse. While its common to find a mosque frequented mainly by one ethnic group, even that mosque has a few parishioners from outside that particular ethnic flock. More and more, these days, in addition to seeing the usual diversity, I often see one, two, or three white women at Islamic functions or gatherings. While I have come to expect their presence now, I admit initially to being perplexed by them. Considering the negative perceptions associated with Islam by many Americans, how could a white, American woman overcome these views to become a Muslimah? Why do white American women convert to Islam?

No one knows exactly how many white American women are Muslim because no one has taken on an extensive count. Carol Anway surveyed and interviewed many in her 1996 book, Daughters of Another Path, which was inspired by her own daughters conversion to Islam. The best estimates place the white population within the American Muslim population at less than one percent. That number seems small, but one percent of a seven million plus community is actually quite large! From my own experiences, I know that enough white American women have converted to Islam to warrant labeling the phenomenon as, well, a phenomenon.

In some ways, these women are just like other male converts to Islam or converts from other ethnic groups. Many of them talk about how their own birth religion, usually Christianity, never made logical sense to them. Katherine told me that taking religion classes in college increased her frustration with Christianity: You could see how things could be edited. It raised a lot of questions for me that I really couldn't deny anymore. Later, in law school, Katherine met a young Arab man studying in the United States, whom she began dating. To engage him in debate, she would read sections of the Quran, planning on challenging him citing the holy book of his own religion to prove her points. Much to her surprise, and particularly because she was so skeptical, she found that she agreed with what she would read in the Quran. Soon, she had read the Quran from cover to cover, agreeing all the way along. Patiently nursed through her evolution by her boyfriend, Katherine gradually realized she wanted to become a Muslim that the Quran reflected her true feelings. Katharine's experience is not unique. Many women who are introduced to Islam by a Muslim boyfriend end up converting to Islam.

To assume, however, that these women convert out of love for their boyfriends would be wrong though. One white convert I met named Michaela vehemently asserted that she converted for herself, even though her now-husband did introduce her to Islam. She finds the view that she converted for a man very patronizing. Most female converts say that they would still be Muslim even if their Muslim significant others left them. Katherine, for instance, broke off her engagement with the Arab man who had helped her learn about Islam. The reasons were varied, but Katherine knew she wanted to remain Muslim. All her friends thought she would return to her previous party lifestyle. They were wrong. For Katherine and other converts, their belief in Islam is sincere. To assume that their belief depends on a man would be to belittle their sincerity. Michaela wrote in an Azizah Magazine essay she wrote, I told my mother that even if he disappears tomorrow, I will remain Muslimah - Insha'Allah until I die.

Not all white, female converts came to Islam because of a boyfriend, however. Many converts sought out or met Muslims initially because they were lovers of culture and religion. Lori, an Italian-descent American, was studying at the Sorbonne University in France. Her love of culture and diversity, and the need to practice the French language, had taken her to France, where she met many Muslim students from all over the world. Moroccan students taught her a little Arabic and shared Cous Cous with her. A Muslim man taught her about Islam in exchange for English lessons. The generosity and hospitality of her new Muslim friends reminded her of the Italian culture of her family, who also engaged in large dinners and constant exhortations to EAT. Lori finally realized she wanted to be Muslim herself when she was traveling in Algeria in the summer of 1987. She couldn't find a hotel to stay in, so her cab driver explained to her in Arabic that she would come home with him, to be taken care of by his wife. She says he seemed so pious and so concerned for her that she realized, If this is what Islam is, then I want to be it. Of the Muslim students and cab driver, Lori says, They pushed me to being Muslim in a good way.

Like Lori, another convert named Keech had also left America to explore the world. Keech writes of her life, I've lain in the jungles of Guatemala sick to death with Malaria, kissed a shark off the Belize Cays, wrapped a live boa constrictor around my neck, eaten cobra, dived for conk on the Mexican Riviera and traveled through the Killing Fields of Cambodia overland in a pickup with an armed guard carrying a machine gun to protect me from the Khmer Rouge bandits. Ive tromped through the ruins of Angkor Wat with an eight-year-old guide. Because of this exposure, I love people of all ages and of all cultures. AlHamdulelah, I have experienced many diverse ways of life first hand and lived to tell about them. When her daughter told her mother that she wanted to visit a local mosque but was scared to, Keech, being the adventurer she is, volunteered to take her. Keech laughs looking back at herself, entering the Seattle mosque in tight jeans and a revealing blouse. But the other Muslim women were never judgmental, and Keech felt serenity at the mosque that she soon was hooked on. She and her daughter both converted.

Keech continues in her bio, the rest of my family does not understand us. For her and other white, female converts, family relations are a struggle, a jihad, so to speak. The struggles Lori and her Syrian husband Mahmoud, whom she met at the Sorbonne after she converted, have had with her family are quite sad. They fail to see the similarities between Islamic and Italian culture or celebrate that Muslims recognize Jesus. Katherine says that she can always tell when her mother has been watching television shows like 20/20 that propagate negative stereotypes about Muslims irresponsibly. Her mom will call her up at law school with a barrage of questions about Islam. Katherine and her father do not even discuss the topic, other than his giving her gifts like a copy of the Bible and pictures of the Cross. Katherine keeps her resolution though she knows that she has studied the Bible yet found Islam more personally satisfying. Their tolerance of the reluctance of their families and parents shows how dedicated these women are to Islam.

These women face additional pressures from non-Muslim Americans, people who look and talk just like them and therefore cannot understand their choice. People are just confused, exclaims Katherine. As white Muslim women, they are sometimes seen as exotic by non-Muslims an odd occurrence considering that non-Muslims often accuse Muslim men of such patriarchal behavior. When Michaela met a female reporter for her local paper at her home for a post-9/11 story, she took off her hijab. The reporter wrote in her story for the paper about Michaelas long blonde hair, much to Michaelas displeasure. As American communities become more diverse though, attitudes become more open too. In Loris neighborhood, her Syrian-Italian-American children mix right in with those of her Chinese, Indian and African descent neighbors yet another sign of how American Muslims, more and more, reflect the core American value of ethnic diversity.