THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: AUSTRALIAN women who convert to Islam often find themselves with a foot in two camps and a tent in neither. A Muslim community may be very welcoming, but converts often find ethnic and language barriers difficult.
And, though they find themselves acting as spokeswomen for their new faith because they are more confident with the language, more certain of their entitlement to be heard, and are less likely to be inhibited by a perception that Muslims are negatively stereotyped in the culture at large, they are not always popular with Muslims, or non-Muslims, when they speak out.
So said Jamila Hussein, an academic who lectures in Islamic studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, who converted to Islam in 1988.
New research by Swansea University on behalf of Faith Matters showed that over the past decade the number of converts to Islam in Britain has risen from 60,000 to 100,000 - a big jump - and that 5200 people converted last year alone, among them Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of the former prime minister, Tony Blair.
While there is nothing like the same sort of conversion rate in Australia, it is an under-the-radar phenomenon that brings with it unheralded problems that converts must rely on themselves to face. >>> Matt Buchanan | Tuesday, January 11, 2011
