‘I know women born Muslims who became disillusioned an d rebelled against it. When you dig deeper, it’s not the faith they turned against, but the culture.
‘Rules like marrying within the same sect or caste and education being less important for girls, as they should get married anyway —– where does it say that in the Koran? It doesn’t.
‘Many young Muslims have abandoned the “fire and brimstone” version they were born into have re-discovered a more spiritual and intellectual approach, that’s free from the cultural dogmas of the older generation. That’s how I intend to spend my life, showing the world the beauty of the true Islam.’
While I don’t agree with their sentiments, I admire and respect the women I interviewed for this piece.
They were all bright and educated, and have thought long and hard before choosing to convert to Islam — and now feel passionately about their adopted religion. Good luck to them. And good luck to Lauren Booth. But it’s that word that sums up the difference between their experience and mine — choice.
Perhaps if I’d felt in control rather than controlled, if I’d felt empowered rather than stifled, I would still be practising the religion I was born into, and would not carry the burden of guilt that I do about rejecting my father’s faith
(Not a woman, but… Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) is a proper example of properly converting: God is the answer. Nothing mostly limited to reject alcohol or social relativism)
…. and that’s how many can feel right now.
Decency, religious and family values, control of physical needs, strict limits on inter-sex contact, etc can already be achieved in our decadent society, you can be vegetarian or abstemious by choice and you can have all that without need of becoming a muslim. It may be a surprise, but…. there’s many people that lives that way. Not needing to be catholic…. nor protestant…. nor even being religious at all.
If I say this, it’s because any of them (except Lauren Booth, who particularly became a Shia muslim in Iran) expressed any kind of trascendental need, neither said that they turned into Islam because they felt that they were following the right God’s way, or that they want to go to next life through the proper path, or that they are fulfilling Lord’s plan for their life, or that they wanted to dedicate their life to improve the life of others,or gain a full spiritual experience, etc,…
All they said is that converting to islam fulfilled their needs for letting aside alcohol, wild nightlife and the naivity of a decadent society in search for the fastest satisfaction… and also for having a stable marriage and a family life, being kind and living according to a strong moral code of values, and also for feeling liberated when covering up to protect themselves from men’s sexual looks…
Dear ladies… I am happy that you found happiness in life.
Really, I do.
Everyone should congratulate when others reach a nice level of personal completion and stability… but…
Honestly… you did not need to convert to Islam for that.
You didn’t even need to become religious at all.
Even in the faith you were grown up and abandoned without ever finding a way to live it properly.
There is a difference between having a religion and changing our lifestyle for good.
That difference is God. It’s searching and finding peace in God. Whatever the God we want to believe in.
And that is the key fact that defines living a religion. Whatever the religion.
So…. after reading about you, my dear ladies… i don’t feel convinced by what you transmitted to me.
Even the hard insistance in covering up, looks to me more as an armor to reinforce your position and resist social judgement than a real improvement in life.
One girl can be decent and discrete, and dressed as a nun, and still there will be a man looking at her disrespectfully. The habit does not make a monk, as we say in Spain.
So… all together… this is not inspirational at all. And looks more like a radical way to reinforce a personal decission on daily life values than in a true trascendental religious and spiritual liberation.
And without that, I wouldn’t even ask you to convert to my own belief.
Catholicism or whatever it could be.
Good luck you all.
Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab) 