Why do Western women embrace Islam?

It's partly through ignorance of Christianity and partly through ignorance of Islam.

The recent election of a woman convert as head of the Islamic Society of North America has again raised the question of why some Western women have adopted this alien faith. Dr Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian who teaches Islamic studies at a Christian seminary in Connecticut. For many people, why she turned her back on her Catholic past is not just puzzling, but disconcerting.

Another Muslim convert, Karin Van Nieuwkerk, has explored this issue in her recent book Women Embracing Islam. She says that female converts are particularly attracted to Islamic conceptions of manhood and womanhood and to its clear moral boundaries and rules. Why take the plunge? Van Nieuwkerk's answer is -- and this is what Islam teaches -- that no one really "converts" to Islam. The real state of affairs is that people are reverting to the natural religion for which they are hard-wired, so to speak. And this is Islam.

Interestingly, Van Nieuwkerk contends that many Americans are attracted not by mainstream Islam, but by a mystical sect called Sufism which does not conform to either Qur'an or Hadith. "Sufism," she says, "is the main agent for conversion to Islam in the West." In fact Sufism was started in the Iraqi city of Basra several centuries after Mohammed by women mystics such Rabia Basri who were influenced by Christianity, as Van Nieuwkerk also points. This is the only Islamic sect that is spiritual, unlike the Qur'anic Islam whose focus is on external matters only. But Van Nieuwkerk never grapples with the real question which this fact raises: are these new converts truly Muslims if they are not following the true Islam as portrayed in the Qur'an and in the life of Mohammed?

In her book Van Nieuwkerk interviews a number of women in Western Europe who have become Muslims. They had become disillusioned with Christianity for various situational reasons. What they seem to have in common, I observed, is that they really don't know much about either Christ or Mohammed. One woman turned to Islam, for instance, because she wanted to divorce her adulterous husband, not because she saw something great in Islam or found faults in Christianity. Basically, she decided to make up her own version of religion and call it Islam.

Sometimes they show a woeful ignorance of what Christianity actually teaches. Unlike Islam, Christ taught the sanctity of marriage, ie, marriage is between one man and one woman for life. In contrast, in Islam a man can divorce a woman by pronouncing the formula of divorce three times. No particular reason is needed. Moreover, a man can marry up to four women at a time. Mohammed himself had 11 wives, 4 known concubines, and 23 known women prisoners of war whom he kept to have sex with. All this appears to contradict Mohammed’s own prohibition of adultery.

Sometimes women converts confuse Christianity and the mores of modern society. "Women regain the possibility of living according to their 'feminine nature'," Van Nieuwkerk writes. "Contrary to Western socialisation, Islam highly values motherhood and the nurturing qualities of women. Motherhood is not merely valued in Islam, but acknowledged as an important performance equal to labour and is also supported by men."

One woman converted because "in Dutch society women are obliged to earn an income and Islam permits women to stay at home and raise children". Obviously this woman had a problem with Dutch society and not with Christianity. Christ did not require women to work outside the home if they do not wish to do so. And authentic Christianity certainly values the nurturing qualities of women. In fact, if one examines Muslim esteem for motherhood more deeply, one can see the real Islam. This commandment to stay home and not to leave the home without a male relative was issued because women could not be trusted morally. That is why women are forbidden to go out alone anywhere in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia. This esteem is, in fact, a form of oppression.

Modesty is another attraction of Islam for some of Van Nieuwkerk's subjects. But to some extent this is an extension of the same mistrust. One woman became a Muslim because she thought that "hijab is liberating because it forces people to judge a woman according to her intellect instead of appearance." But in Christianity, spirituality, holiness, and purity of the heart are far more highly esteemed than outward beauty. Christ never said that women should be judged by their attractiveness. In fact, Islam tends to look only at external behaviour. Often the standard of being a good Muslim is whether one refuses to eat pork. But Christ said that it is not what you eat that makes one a bad person but how one thinks and behaves.

The hijab was invented because Muslim women are not trusted; it reassures a man that other men cannot see his wife’s or sister’s beauty. Muslim women do not hide their beauty from their husband. Sometimes devout Muslims contend that a hijab makes it easier for men to appreciate a woman's intellectual virtues, and not merely her physical charm. But, really, I ask, would a loving husband ignore his wife's intellect simply because she was beautiful?

The interest of people in the West in Islam is greater than in any other time in history in the aftermath of 9/11. But despite the publicity given to Muslim conversions, more and more Muslims are turning to Christ than ever before. A number of Protestant evangelists quote an Al Jazeera interview in 2000 with Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani, the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, an institution specialising in graduating imams and Islamic preachers. Much to the astonishment of the journalist interviewing him, Al Katani complained about the number of Muslims converting to Christianity in Africa.

Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking about, the non-Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realise that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329,882,000. Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.

As to how that happened: well there are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed...

Even in theocratic Iran, conversion to Christianity has become an issue for the regime. IPS, a reliable "third world" news service, reported in 2004 that a cleric working for the education ministry exhorted a gathering of high school students to remain faithful to Islam by warning them of apostates. "Unfortunately, on average, every day 50 Iranian girls and boys convert secretly to Christian denominations in our country," he told them. (The same IPS article also reported that Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, a prominent Shi'ite teacher, denounced the deceptions of Sufism, as well -- not good news for American converts.)

This is happening despite the capital punishment sanctioned in the Qur'an for those who leave Islam. It's good to remember that there is no capital punishment for Christians if they become Muslims; Christians believe that Christ sends rain on both Christians and non-Christians alike. Christ gives them a chance to change instead of ordering their murder. Jesus commanded his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. In my opinion, it is this love for humanity commanded by Jesus that is bringing more to Christ than the hatred expressed in Qur'an for one's enemies, especially Jews and Christians.

Statistics for conversion to Islam are very scarce. Van Nieuwkerk resorts to naming a few elite men and women who have converted, most of them through marriage. She reports that "in 2002, the Muath Welfare Trust in Birmingham reported that seventeen women converted to Islam, eight of them through marriage, while the rest, nine, came to Islam as a result of personal search."

Compared to six million Muslims converting to Christ, very few Christians convert to Islam. As noted above, many of these converts are either ignorant of the real teachings of Islam or have been scandalised by the misbehaviour of nominal Christians who hardly live up to the high standards of the teaching of Christ. For most women converts to Islam, the old saying still holds true: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

Shamim Hunt holds an MA in History of Ideas, a BA in philosophy, and a second BA in Humanities. She resides in the US and is currently a student at Westminster Theological Seminary in the M.Div program. Her email address is huntshamim@yahoo.com