Talk Islam » conversion

Okay, this is not a memoir about convert …

Andrea Useem — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:21:26 +0000

Okay, this is not a memoir about converting to Islam, but this 30-something woman’s story about embracing Jewish law really brought up a lot of questions for me about a modern woman’s relationship to traditional religious law.

section of an interview with sf author j …

razib — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:51:22 +0000

section of an interview with sf author john c wright on his christian conversion:
I knew the Christians were evil in theory; I could not explain how so much unique good came from them.

Greatly daring, I attempted an experiment in prayer, addressing a Supreme Being I knew with deep certainty did not and could not exist. My prayer was quickly and awfully answered.

A miracle occurred. I suffered a supernatural experience and found all the foundations of my carefully examined and rigidly logical philosophy swept away as if by a tidal wave of blazing and supernal light. A great and powerful spirit visited me.

The whole thing was as simple and astonishing, as easy to explain and as hard to explain, as falling in love.

I am one of those rare creatures whose belief in the supernatural is due to empirical considerations. My mysticism is entirely scientific. Alas, the second step in the experiment, when the miracle occurs, cannot be reproduced before the eyes of skeptics.

Tom Junod profiles the John Walker Lindh …

thabet — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:53:09 +0000

Tom Junod profiles the John Walker Lindh.

willow — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:13:09 +0000

For months now I’ve been reading Tariq Nelson’s thoughtful commentary on Muslim marriage in general and convert marriage in particular. Anyone with half a brain who has read these and other essays must notice a pattern: young, naive converts being pressured into marriages with woefully unsuitable partners. I just read Hijabman’s open debate on the subject, and if I was a camel and it was a straw…well, you know the rest.

So for any new convert who might be reading, I am going to share a philosophy that worked wonderfully for me: for the first several months after your conversion, stay out of the Muslim community. Just stay away. You are too vulnerable to distinguish the people who want to help you from the people who want to exploit you. Right now, you should be focused on your relationship with God. This is precious, precious time that you will never get back. It’s terrifying, and for that reason you may be tempted to seek out people who will comfort you. Don’t. This part is meant to be terrifying. This is the time when you can truly feel God running toward you as you stumble toward Him. Don’t waste it on a bunch of bitter voyeuristic old aunties. You are in a state of spiritual purity that you will never achieve again, unless by some unlikely miracle you turn out to be a saint. Sit with it. Pray with it. Be alone with it. It’s the best gift you will ever give yourself.

After things have sorted themselves out and you’ve learned to see with your new eyes, join the community. By this time you will know through and through what kind of Muslim you are, and you’ll be able to see the nitpickers and snake-oil salesmen for who they are. You’ll be able to make real friends and good marriages.

This is your rebirth, and you have to be your own midwife. Tough it out. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.

All right, let’s go there. In another t …

willow — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:31:08 +0000

All right, let’s go there. In another thread Andrea suggested we devote a discussion to white converts–what we mean, what we hijack, how we’re useful or not. I will observe something that will make me unpopular among others of my ilk: a lot of educated white converts (in other words, ones who grew up with a certain amount of implicit cultural authority) use their conversion as an excuse to analyze subjects with which they have no experience: honor killing, arranged marriage, poverty. They function, and to a certain extent see themselves, as religiously privileged anthropologists. There is a reason for this that is understandable: one wants to simply tack a Muslim identity on to one’s existing identity, which gives one a comfortable cushion of implied expertise.

The problem, besides a level of inherent obnoxiousness, is that this muddles up existent identity politics. In the West, Islam is deeply tied to ideas of race, cultural identity and immigration. When white converts come in, rhetorical guns blazing, to talk about Who Muslims Are and Are Not, the narrative gets skewed. Thirty years of postcolonial activism, meant to take the Muslim/non-western narrative out of the hands of white scholars and put it back in the hands of the people who live it, becomes confused. The unspoken bottom line is this: to some people, the fact that white Muslims exist is very inconvenient.

My solution: we, educated white converts, have to accept that we don’t get a unified cultural identity. We just don’t. Not this generation. If we work hard, our kids will. We no longer fit seamlessly into the white majority and we can’t tack ourselves on to the immigrant/emergent American/British community, because *we’re not from there*. (Hello? White dude in the thobe with the fake foreign accent? I’m talking to you.) We are, for now, identity-less. Rather than denying it, moaning about it or getting a martyr complex about it, we should accept it, poke our heads up and see how this can be useful.

Next: How to Be White, Muslim and Vocal Without Co-opting Everything