Woman Helps Over 1,000 Belgian[s] Converts to Islam

WORLD BULLETIN: 'Prejudices stem from not being introduced to real Islam properly,' said Veronique Cools, a 25-year-old Belgian convert to Islam.

Veronique Cools, a 25-year-old Belgian convert to Islam, has has helped over 1,000 people who have accepted Islam in the past 8 years.

Cools, who accepted Islam herself at a very young age after being influenced by her Muslim friends and researching into the religion, turned her home into an Islamic center for Belgian Muslims seeking to learn more about their religion. » | World Bulletin/News Desk | Saturday, July 12, 2014

Now Google BANS Express Story about George Osborne’s ‘Muslim’ Brother

The article detailed how Dr Osborne had converted
to Islam to marry his then wife

DAILY EXPRESS: A STORY published by the Daily Express five years ago detailing the marriage of Chancellor George Osborne’s brother to a Muslim bride was today censored by Google.

Express.co.uk was today informed that an article published about Dr Adam Osborne on December 7, 2009, has been removed from Google’s search listings.

The 300-word piece detailed how the Chancellor’s younger brother, now 38, had converted to Islam in preparation for his marriage to Bangladeshi-born Rahala Noor, his plastic surgeon girlfriend of 14 years.

The article explained he had been studying the Koran and was praying five times a day and had been given the name Mohammed for the ceremony.

The piece, which did not allow reader comments, still exists on Express.co.uk.

However, it does not appear on Google when a user searches for ‘George Osborne, brother, Islam, Express’ or any variation of those terms.

Bizarrely, the original story, which had been broken by the Mail on Sunday in much greater depth the day before, still appears on Google’s results for MailOnline.

Versions of the article by the Daily Mirror, the Independent and other newspapers also still appear. » | Ted Jeory & Dion Dassanayake | Thursday, July 03, 2014

‘Bergdahl Has Converted to Islam and Now Describes Himself as a Mujahid’: Bombshell Docs Allegedly Describe Soldier’s Time in Captivity

THE BLAZE: U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl converted to Islam while held captive by the Taliban and declared himself a warrior for Islam, secret documents obtained by Fox News allegedly say. The reports which were prepared based on purported eyewitness accounts, indicate that Bergdahl, released over the weekend after being held for five years by the Taliban, declared himself a “mujahid” toward the end of his captivity and even at times fraternized openly with his captors, Fox News reported.

According to the reports, Bergdahl’s status with his captors changed over time. After he once escaped his captors for five days, he was recaptured and placed in a metal cage, the documents reportedly say. At other times, he appeared to maintain a friendly relationship with them. (+ video) » | Oliver Darcy | Thursday, June 05, 2014

Ibrahim Hewitt: My Journey to Islam

Related »

Son of Distributor of Anti-Islam Film Fitna Accepts Islam

Iskander with his father, Arnoud.

KHALEEJ TIMES: Arnoud van Doorn's son, Iskander Amien De Vrie, was one of the 37 people who converted to Islam during the Dubai International Peace Convention.

The son of Arnoud van Doorn, the famous Dutch policy maker and distributor of an anti-Islam film Fitna that caused unrest in 2008, surprised the audiences at the three-day Dubai International Peace Convention by 
embracing Islam.

Arnoud’s son, Iskander Amien De Vrie, was one of the 37 people who converted to Islam during the convention.

“I bear witness that there is no God to be worshipped but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is his worshipper and last messenger,” said Iskander in his Shahadah (testimony) to become a Muslim.

…

“I saw my father become more peaceful after converting to Islam. That’s when I realised there is something good in this religion and it made me change my perception of Muslims. I started studying the Holy Quran and going through lectures of important scholars,” said Iskander in an interview with Khaleej Times. » | Muaz Shabandri | Monday, April 21, 2014

My Journey, My Story, My Islam: Ex-Hindu (September 2013)

Interview with Rap Artist Turned Muslim

A growing number of rap artists are leaving the bad boy hip hop lifestyle for a more spiritual one. ¶ The Canadian Dawah Association says that an increasing number of rappers this year have embraced Islam or acknowledged they had in the past. ¶ Amir Junaid Muhadith, better known by his stage name, Loon, talks to Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan about his spiritual journey.
Watch the video here

White Muslim Convert Planned to Steal Bodyguard's Gun and Murder Prince Harry for Having 'Blood On His Hands'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A white Muslim convert planned to disarm a royal bodyguard and use the gun to kill Prince Harry in an attack he had named Operation Regal.

Ashraf Islam, 31, formerly known as Mark Townley, confessed to police he had "advanced plans" to kill the Prince the day after he was arrested in May.

Belfast-born Islam was held the day after Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered in Woolwich, and said the fourth in line to the throne “had blood on his hands” after two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

He spent 10 days in Thailand building up his fitness, carrying out research on the internet and refining his plans, before flying to London to carry out the attack.

But he began to feel “scared and nervous” and walked into Hounslow police station in west London, where he confessed the murder plot.

He pleaded guilty to one count of making a threat to kill when he appeared before magistrates on May 25, two days after giving himself up. » | Gordon Raynor, Chief Reporter | Friday, September 20, 2013

Muslim Converts In Mexico Make Up A Diverse, Fast-Growing Community

FOX NEWS – LATINO: MEXICO CITY – When Moroccan national Said Louahabi arrived in Mexico City in 1994, he and fellow Muslims had to attend religious services at the Pakistani embassy because there were no mosques or Islamic centers.

“I started looking for Muslims and a mosque when I first arrived,” Louahabi, an English teacher, told Fox News Latino. “At the time, we met at the Pakistani embassy, and there were only about 80 people — most of us were foreigners.”

Now, Louahabi prays alongside hundreds of other Muslims — foreigners and Mexicans alike — at the three-story Muslim Community Educational Center in the city’s upscale Anzures neighborhood.

Friday prayers at the Islamic Center are given in Arabic and Spanish. The crowd is diverse: Mexican converts to Islam, expatriates, embassy staff from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and Central Asia. The Islamic Center even fields a soccer team.

The mosque was packed at a service just before the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, this year falling in July.

Many Mexicans who converted to Islam say they’ve been impressed with the religion’s growth in Mexico.

“I used the Internet and books to learn about Islam,” said Mexican convert Alexander Huttanos, an airline pilot who goes by his Islamic name, Ahmed Abbas. “Islam has come a long way in Mexico.”

He actually spent quite a bit of time researching different beliefs and faiths before making a final decision. » | Bernd Debusmann | Monday, July 29, 2013

Latina Converts to Islam Growing in Number

WOMENSENEWS: NEW YORK -- For Zainab Ismail, a Bronx-born Hispanic woman, the turning point came in March 2009 after a wedding ceremony at a Catholic church.

"For some unknown reason, obviously now I know it was Allah--God--putting that thought and feeling in my heart, I no longer wanted to be Catholic. I didn't know what I wanted to be but I no longer wanted to be Catholic," Ismail recalls.

Less than three months later, Ismail embraced Islam and converted in June 2009.

"As a Latina, you are raised, if you got it, to show it, to flaunt it as much as possible," says Ismail, 44, raised in a Puerto Rican Catholic family.

Now she shows very little of her skin. Instead she wears the hijab, the Islamic veil or headscarf.

Since the 9/11 tragedy, the Hispanic community in the United States has witnessed a significant rise in conversions to Islam, especially among women, says Imam Shamsi Ali, a Muslim scholar and imam of the 96th street mosque in Manhattan, on the border of the city's Upper East Side and Harlem. They are "mostly educated, young and professional women."

Although 9/11 incited bias and discrimination against Muslims, many non-Muslims, who some had never heard about Islam, also started to question the meaning of the religion, explains Ali.

The percentage of new female converts to Islam in the U.S. has increased 9 percent since 2000, from 32 percent to 41 percent, according to the 2011 U.S. Mosque Survey, which interviewed leaders at 524 mosques across the country. Latinos--men and women--accounted for 12 percent of all new converts in the United States in 2011.

In 2006, the number of Hispanic Muslims was estimated at about 200,000 by the American Muslim Council, which has not provided any new figures since then. » | Hajer Naili | WeNews correspondent | Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Guantanamo Guard Converts to Islam, Demands Release of Detainees

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Terry Holdbrooks was deployed to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to guard detainees. The Phoenix, Ariz., resident has become a devout Muslim and an unlikely advocate for the prisoners’ rights.

Death threats are just another part of life for Terry Holdbrooks Jr.

The ex-U.S. Army employee converted to Islam in 2003, inspired by the faith of the Guantanamo detainees he was charged with watching. Since then, he says he has lost his friends, received violent threats, and been labeled a “race traitor” online.

But he hasn’t gone quietly. The 29-year-old has done his fair share of media and has even signed on for a job as a speaker for the Muslim Legal Fund of America. Now the devout Muslim is racking up frequent flyer miles and touring the country with what he calls the “truth about Gitmo.”

“Gitmo was supposed to be a cushy deployment since we were just going to babysit detainees,” Holdbrooks said. “But it changed me.”

The Phoenix, Ariz., resident spent the year between 2003 and 2004 guarding U.S. military prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was often given the job of escorting detainees to interrogation rooms. He says he witnessed atrocities committed by his fellow American soldiers that he never thought were possible. (+ video) » | Carol Kuruvilla | New York Daily News | Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Ex-Islamophobe to Produce Film on Islam, the Prophet
From Darkness to Light
RADIANCE VIEWS WEEKLY – EXTRACT: …[Arnoud van] Doorn repented for his involvement in the blasphemous film. “It was unfortunate that I did not make any efforts to know what really Islam is and who the Prophet is before blindly believing in the misinformation campaign being unleashed by the anti-Islamic forces. When I came to realise that it was not Islam, I decided to study about the religion and that led to my conversion,” he said. “Now, I am really enjoying the beauty of Islam and am extremely delighted in Allah’s great blessing to guide me onto His path. It is an explicable experience for me,” he said adding that his former colleagues in the Freedom Party are angry at his acceptance of Islam, which is still a bête noire for them. “The party stands against Islam and its spreading in Europe. Some of them now consider me as a traitor.”

The 46-year-old has continued on The Hague Council as an independent candidate since splitting from Wilders’s party. Doorn, who now serves as a regional adviser at the City Hall in The Hague, filed a formal application to the mayor of the city to allow him to perform prayers obligatory for Muslims during his working hours.

Doorn has a message to those who oppose his reversion to Islam. “Let me tell them that this is my personal decision and I see a new life in Islam that I don’t want any way to give it up. I happened to see on social networking sites several comments, expressing feelings of antagonism and hatred toward me,” he said adding that all these sprang out of ignorance, contempt and animosity against Islam and the Muslims. He also thanked all those who supported him and commended him for beginning a new life as a Muslim. Referring to his visit to the holy land, Doorn said: “Had anybody mentioned me about visiting the land of the two holy mosques earlier, I would have called him a lunatic.

“But what happened now is realisation of a dream and it is still unbelievable for me that I am now in the holy city that hosted the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him).” He continued saying: “I couldn’t control my feelings when I stood in front of the grave of the Prophet as well as in Rawdah Sharif, near the pulpit used by the Prophet. When I prayed at Rawdah Sharaif, my eyes were full of tears as I had the feeling that I am in a part of the Paradise.” … Read on and comment » | Majed Al-Sugairi | Undated

Muslim Converts: Changing My Religion

THE ECONOMIST: A British strand of Islam is emerging as more people become converts

MUSLIM converts have an image problem. A handful, like Richard Dart, a Dorset native jailed last month, have been implicated in terrorism. Samantha Lewthwaite, who was married to Germaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 bombers and himself a convert, is wanted by Kenyan police in connection with an alleged bomb plot.

Even without the taint of extremism, women are sometimes pitied for joining a religion accused of oppressing them. Despite these concerns, converts, for the most part peaceable, propel Islam’s transition from an immigrant religion to a home-grown one.

Calculating convert numbers is tricky. The census in England and Wales only asks about people’s current religion. Mosques do not record conversions centrally, and some new believers keep their conversions quiet. But using census data on race and religion, and questionnaires issued to mosques, Kevin Brice, a researcher at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, reckons around 5,200 Britons turn to Islam every year, bringing the total number of converts to about 100,000.

Proselytising has little do with it. A handful of Muslim groups hand out tracts in the street. But most are more concerned with issuing press releases condemning extremism than wooing converts, says Leon Moosavi, an expert on Islamic conversions at Liverpool University.

Those who embrace Islam tend to do so after years of contact with Muslims. Reasons vary. Some, mostly women (who make up around two-thirds of new believers), want to marry a Muslim. Others are fed up with the bawdiness of British society. Many speak of seeking a sense of community. Batool al-Toma, an Irish-Catholic convert who runs the New Muslim Project in Leeds, was attracted, she says, by the spirituality of Islam and the warmth of relationships she saw among Muslims. Read on and comment » | Norwich | Saturday, May 18, 2013

Islam in Canada: Islamic Converts Add to Muslim Community in Windsor
CBC NEWS | WINDSOR: Number of Muslims in Canada is set to triple by the year 2030


While many religions are dealing with flat or shrinking memberships in Windsor, the local Muslim community is growing . Numbers are up due in part to converts.

According to Mohamed Mohamed, the Imam at Windsor Mosque, approximately three people come to the mosque every month looking to convert.

"When anyone comes to us, he will be one of us. It's as simple as that," he said.

According to the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion and Public Life, the number of Muslims in Canada is set to triple by the year 2030.

It is projected that there will be 2.7 million Muslims in Canada by then, up roughly 940,000 from 2011. » | CBC News | Tuesday, May 07, 2013

White Muslim Convert Defies Judge as He Is Jailed for Terror Offences
THE INDEPENDENT: When ordered to stand, he refused saying 'I don't wish to stand up because I believe ruling and judgement is only for Allah'


Richard Dart, the middle class boy from Dorset who turned into an Islamic extremist, remained defiant to the bitter end as a judge gave him an extended jail sentence for being a dangerous terrorist today.

The 30-year-old son of teachers from Weymouth, who shocked his family when he became a militant Muslim, sat in the dock, clad in a skull cap and traditional dress, as he was sentenced after pleading guilty to preparing for acts of terrorism.

When ordered to rise by Mr Justice Simon, he refused, proclaiming: "I don't wish to stand up because I believe ruling and judgement is only for Allah.". As he was led away to start a sentence of 11 years, he nodded to a lone Islamic young man in the public gallery, his family nowhere to be seen. » | Terri Judd | Thursday, April 35, 2013

SWINDON ADVERTISER: Gang plotted to set off bomb in Royal Wootton Bassett, court is told » | Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Converts to Islam: I Love the Prophet

Ex-Christian Abdullah Drury Convert to Islam in New Zealand

Atheist Converts to Islam: London Olympics - July 2012

Canadians in Algeria Attack Went Overseas with 3rd Man
CBC NEWS CANADA: Aaron Yoon was classmate of Katsiroubas, Medlej at London, Ont., high school


A special CBC News investigation has uncovered the identity of a third member of a group of former London, Ont., high school friends now at the centre of a horrifying tale of young Canadians getting mixed up with al-Qaeda and international militants.

CBC News has learned that Aaron Yoon, now about 24, is likely the only survivor among this perverse band of brothers, two of whom died while staging a bloody attack on an Algerian oil refinery three months ago.

International intelligence sources say Yoon, a Canadian of Korean descent, flew to North Africa with three others, but wound up in jail before the al-Qaeda attack in January that killed 37 refinery workers in Algeria.

Two of Yoon’s former London schoolmates, Xris Katsiroubas and Ali Medlej, were among several dozen al-Qaeda-linked militants involved in the attack.

Sources say the two probably blew themselves up at the end of the four-day siege, but only one could be identified through DNA tests. » | Greg Weston, National Affairs Specialist | CBC News | Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Related »

I Was a BNP Activist ... and Converted to Islam
THE GUARDIAN: I hated all foreigners but feared Muslims the most. I grew up in the 1960s in Gateshead, in a predominantly white area; I can't remember seeing an Asian face there. As a family we were not religious. We only went to weddings, funerals and christenings. I was not interested in school, either. You didn't need to stay on because you were more or less guaranteed a job in the mines, steelworks or shipyards. When I was 16, all my friends were British National Party activists. It was a cool thing to do, and I joined in, too. I wanted to shock, to rebel. We would get together, drink, listen to music, chase girls and go out Paki-bashing. That wasn't a phrase we considered bad or wrong.

I remember my first time; it was a Saturday night and we had been drinking. We went into an Asian area and came across a lad of about 17. We started chanting - the usual thing, "Go back to your own country" - and then went after him. There were about 10 of us, and we kicked and punched him. When we ran away, I remember, we were laughing. I don't know what happened to him, and at the time I wouldn't have cared: I was in a group and we had camaraderie.

By the time I was 19 I was growing out of the BNP. I moved to London for work and stopped going to meetings. But I still hated all foreigners, especially Muslims. Over the next few years I became involved with people who went to Muslim meetings in Hyde Park, mainly to cause trouble.

Then, one day in 1989, I was walking past a second[-]hand book stall by the Royal Festival Hall when a cover caught my eye: it was the most beautiful picture, in the most gorgeous colours, of a building. I didn't know what the book was, but it was only 20p so I bought it. I thought I'd buy a cheap frame and have a nice picture for my wall. I had no idea until I got home that I had bought the Qur'an. » | Muhammad Islam | Saturday, September 24, 2005