Brought up as an Orthodox Christian by her mother, Aminat Kurbanova looked a picture of happiness at her wedding nine years ago - marrying the man with whom she had fallen in love at drama school.
But she converted to Islam in 2007 and three months ago walked into the house of a Muslim cleric in Dagestan, Russia, wearing a 3lb bomb, and blew herself up - killing eight people including her.
Once a stage actress, the 29-year-old mother had transformed into a Muslim suicide bomber. The blast shocked Russia but her mother Vera Saprighina insists she was ‘a kind person, not a monster’.
Kurbanova was brought up in Makhachkala, Dagestan, and gained top marks at the city’s arts and drama college - where she met her future husband Marat Kurbanov, reported the Sunday Times [£].
The couple married in 2003 and she gave birth to a daughter, Malika, two years later. In 2006 the couple were introduced to Islam by Marat’s brother Rustam - and Kurbanov converted a year later.
‘She said she had finally found the right religion for her,’ her mother Vera Saprighina told the Sunday Times. ‘Before long, both left the theatre because dancing and acting are considered un-Islamic.’
But Rustam was killed in a police house raid on suspected militants in 2008. It shocked the couple. Marat left home, never to come back, and is thought to have joined militants to avenge the death. How Russian Islamic convert kissed her daughter goodbye and blew herself up at cleric's home » | Mark Duell | Sunday, November 18, 2012
