EMIRATES 24|7: Experts at American University of Sharjah (AUS) and the University of Cambridge presented their insights based on the report Narratives of Conversion to Islam in Britain: Female Perspectives, which was prepared by Professor Yasir Suleiman, Project Leader and Founding Director at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, in association with The New Muslims Project, Markfield. This report was officially released at the panel for the first time.
The panel discussion was part of the two-day AUS–University of Cambridge joint conference on Perspectives on Middle Eastern Studies that brought the latest research and insight on several topics that are shaping global discussions on Middle Eastern studies.
Narratives of Conversion to Islam in Britain: Female Perspectives is based on original research done in the UK, narrating stories of women who have converted to Islam. It deals with a host of issues, including hijab, marriage, divorce, polygyny, sexuality, domestic violence, mosque provisions for female converts, the challenges facing the children of convert mothers and the role converts play as bridges between heritage Muslims and non-Muslims in society. The report is exclusively about female converts to Islam in Britain, although the converts who took part in the project came from different ethnic, national, faith and no-faith backgrounds that characterize the plurality of British society.
Introducing the report at the panel, Professor Yasir Suleiman said, “Whether a woman converts to Islam through marriage, or for some other reason, no one route into the faith is considered to be more worthy than the others and there was unanimous agreement among the participants on this issue. However, one of the consistent messages from participants in this project, British women from various faiths who had converted to Islam, was their conversion was not the result of any single theme but of various revelations. We have endeavored to describe the experience of women converts to Islam in contemporary British society and the relationship between the convert, the heritage Muslim communities and wider society is explored with reference to their political, social and religious contexts.” » | Staff | Sunday, March 10, 2013
