Young. British. Female. Muslim.

[Liibaan]

From left: Sukina Douglas, Catherine Heseltine, Aqeela Lindsay Wheeler, Catherine Huntley and Joanne Bailey.

 

 

Young. British. Female. Muslim.

TimesOnline, Saturday, 12 June 2010

 

Thousands of young British women living in the UK decide to convert to Islam - here are some of their stories

 

 

Sarah Harris

 

It’s a controversial time for British women to be wearing the hijab, the basic Muslim headscarf. Last month, Belgium became the first European country to pass legislation to ban the burka (the most concealing of Islamic veils), calling it a “threat” to female dignity, while France looks poised to follow suit. In Italy earlier this month, a Muslim woman was fined €500 (£430) for wearing the Islamic veil outside a post office.

 

And yet, while less than 2 per cent of the population now attends a Church of England service every week, the number of female converts to Islam is on the rise. At the London Central Mosque in Regent’s Park, women account for roughly two thirds of the “New Muslims” who make their official declarations of faith there – and most of them are under the age of 30.

 

Conversion statistics are frustratingly patchy, but at the time of the 2001 Census, there were at least 30,000 British Muslim converts in the UK. According to Kevin Brice, of the Centre for Migration Policy Research, Swansea University, this number may now be closer to 50,000 – and the majority are women. “Basic analysis shows that increasing numbers of young, university-educated women in their twenties and thirties are converting to Islam,” confirms Brice.

 

“Our liberal, pluralistic 21st-century society means we can choose our careers, our politics – and we can pick and choose who we want to be spiritually,” explains Dr Mohammad S. Seddon, lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Chester. We’re in an era of the “religious supermarket”, he says.

 

Joanne Bailey

Solicitor, 30, Bradford

“The first time I wore my hijab into the office, I was so nervous, I stood outside on the phone to my friend for ages going, ‘What on earth is everyone going to say?’ When I walked in, a couple of people asked, ‘Why are you wearing that scarf? I didn’t know you were a Muslim.’

 

“I’m the last person you’d expect to convert to Islam: I had a very sheltered, working-class upbringing in South Yorkshire. I’d hardly even seen a Muslim before I went to university.

 

“In my first job at a solicitor’s firm in Barnsley, I remember desperately trying to play the role of the young, single, career woman: obsessively dieting, shopping and going to bars – but I never felt truly comfortable.

 

“Then one afternoon in 2004 everything changed: I was chatting to a Muslim friend over coffee, when he noticed the little gold crucifix around my neck. He said, ‘Do you believe in God, then?’ I wore it more for fashion than religion and said, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ and he started talking about his faith.

 

“I brushed him off at first, but his words stuck in my mind. A few days later, I found myself ordering a copy of the Koran on the internet.

 

“It took me a while to work up the courage to go to a women’s social event run by the Leeds New Muslims group. I remember hovering outside the door thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ I imagined they would be dressed head-to-toe in black robes: what could I, a 25-year-old, blonde English girl, possibly have in common with them?

 

“But when I walked in, none of them fitted the stereotype of the oppressed Muslim housewife; they were all doctors, teachers and psychiatrists. I was struck by how content and secure they seemed. It was meeting these women, more than any of the books I read, that convinced me that I wanted to become a Muslim.

 

“After four years, in March 2008, I made the declaration of faith at a friend’s house. At first, I was anxious that I hadn’t done the right thing, but I soon relaxed into it – a bit like starting a new job.

 

“A few months later, I sat my parents down and said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ There was a silence and my mum said, ‘You’re going to become Muslim, aren’t you?’ She burst into tears and kept asking things like, ‘What happens when you get married? Do you have to cover up? What about your job?’ I tried to reassure her that I’d still be me, but she was concerned for my welfare.

 

“Contrary to what most people think, Islam doesn’t oppress me; it lets me be the person that I was all along. Now I’m so much more content and grateful for the things I’ve got. A few months ago, I got engaged to a Muslim solicitor I met on a training course. He has absolutely no problem with my career, but I do agree with the Islamic perspective on the traditional roles for men and women. I want to look after my husband and children, but I also want my independence. I’m proud to be British and I’m proud to be Muslim – and I don’t see them as conflicting in any way.”

 

 

Aqeela Lindsay Wheeler

Housewife and mother, 26, Leicester

“As a teenager I thought all religion was pathetic. I used to spend every weekend getting drunk outside the leisure centre, in high-heeled sandals and miniskirts. My view was: what’s the point in putting restrictions on yourself? You only live once.

 

“At university, I lived the typical student existence, drinking and going clubbing, but I’d always wake up the next morning with a hangover and think, what’s the point?

 

“It wasn’t until my second year that I met Hussein. I knew he was a Muslim, but we were falling in love, so I brushed the whole issue of religion under the carpet. But six months into our relationship, he told me that being with me was ‘against his faith’.

 

“I was so confused. That night I sat up all night reading two books on Islam that Hussein had given me. I remember bursting into tears because I was so overwhelmed. I thought, ‘This could be the whole meaning of life.’ But I had a lot of questions: why should I cover my head? Why can’t I eat what I like?

 

“I started talking to Muslim women at university and they completely changed my view. They were educated, successful – and actually found the headscarf liberating. I was convinced, and three weeks later officially converted to Islam.

 

“When I told my mum a few weeks later, I don’t think she took it seriously. She made a few comments like, ‘Why would you wear that scarf? You’ve got lovely hair,’ but she didn’t seem to understand what it meant.

 

“My best friend at university completely turned on me: she couldn’t understand how one week I was out clubbing, and the next I’d given everything up and converted to Islam. She was too close to my old life, so I don’t regret losing her as a friend.

 

“I chose the name Aqeela because it means ‘sensible and intelligent’ – and that’s what I was aspiring to become when I converted to Islam six years ago. I became a whole new person: everything to do with Lindsay, I’ve erased from my memory.

 

“The most difficult thing was changing the way I dressed, because I was always so fashion-conscious. The first time I tried on the hijab, I remember sitting in front of the mirror, thinking, ‘What am I doing putting a piece of cloth over my head? I look crazy!’ Now I’d feel naked without it and only occasionally daydream about feeling the wind blow through my hair. Once or twice, I’ve come home and burst into tears because of how frumpy I feel – but that’s just vanity.

 

“It’s a relief not to feel that pressure any more. Wearing the hijab reminds me that all I need to do is serve God and be humble. I’ve even gone through phases of wearing the niqab [face veil] because I felt it was more appropriate – but it can cause problems, too.

 

“When people see a white girl wearing a niqab they assume I’ve stuck my fingers up at my own culture to ‘follow a bunch of Asians’. I’ve even had teenage boys shout at me in the street, ‘Get that s*** off your head, you white *******.’ After the London bombings, I was scared to walk about in the streets for fear of retaliation.

 

“For the most part, I have a very happy life. I married Hussein and now we have a one-year-old son, Zakir. We try to follow the traditional Muslim roles: I’m foremost a housewife and mother, while he goes out to work. I used to dream of having a successful career as a psychologist, but now it’s not something I desire.

 

“Becoming a Muslim certainly wasn’t an easy way out. This life can sometimes feel like a prison, with so many rules and restrictions, but we believe that we will be rewarded in the afterlife.”

 

Catherine Heseltine

Nursery school teacher, 31, North London

 

“If you’d asked me at the age of 16 if I’d like to become a Muslim, I would have said, ‘No thanks.’ I was quite happy drinking, partying and fitting in with my friends.

 

“Growing up in North London, we never practised religion at home; I always thought it was slightly old-fashioned and irrelevant. But when I met my future husband, Syed, in the sixth form, he challenged all my preconceptions. He was young, Muslim, believed in God – and yet he was normal. The only difference was that, unlike most teenage boys, he never drank.

 

“A year later, we were head over heels in love, but we quickly realised: how could we be together if he was a Muslim and I wasn’t?

 

“Before meeting Syed, I’d never actually questioned what I believed in; I’d just picked up my casual agnosticism through osmosis. So I started reading a few books on Islam out of curiosity.

 

“In the beginning, the Koran appealed to me on an intellectual level; the emotional and spiritual side didn’t come until later. I loved its explanations of the natural world and discovered that 1,500 years ago, Islam gave women rights that they didn’t have here in the West until relatively recently. It was a revelation.

 

“Religion wasn’t exactly a ‘cool’ thing to talk about, so for three years I kept my interest in Islam to myself. But in my first year at university, Syed and I decided to get married – and I knew it was time to tell my parents. My mum’s initial reaction was, ‘Couldn’t you just live together first?’ She had concerns about me rushing into marriage and the role of women in Muslim households – but no one realised how seriously I was taking my religious conversion. I remember going out for dinner with my dad and him saying, ‘Go on, have a glass of wine. I won’t tell Syed!’ A lot of people assumed I was only converting to Islam to keep his family happy, not because I believed in it.

 

“Later that year, we had an enormous Bengali wedding, and moved into a flat together – but I certainly wasn’t chained to the kitchen sink. I didn’t even wear the hijab at all to start with, and wore a bandana or a hat instead.

 

“I was used to getting a certain amount of attention from guys when I went out to clubs and bars, but I had to let that go. I gradually adopted the Islamic way of thinking: I wanted people to judge me for my intelligence and my character – not for the way I looked. It was empowering.

 

“I’d never been part of a religious minority before, so that was a big adjustment, but my friends were very accepting. Some of them were a bit shocked: ‘What, no drink, no drugs, no men? I couldn’t do that!’ And it took a while for my male friends at university to remember things like not kissing me hello on the cheek any more. I’d have to say, ‘Sorry, it’s a Muslim thing.’

 

“Over time, I actually became more religious than my husband. We started growing apart in other ways, too. In the end, I think the responsibility of marriage was too much for him; he became distant and disengaged. After seven years together, I decided to get a divorce.

 

“When I moved back in with my parents, people were surprised I was still wandering around in a headscarf. But if anything, being on my own strengthened my faith: I began to gain a sense of myself as a Muslim, independent of him.

 

“Islam has given me a sense of direction and purpose. I’m involved with the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, and lead campaigns against Islamophobia, discrimination against women in mosques, poverty and the situation in Palestine. When people call us ‘extremists’ or ‘the dark underbelly of British politics’, I just think it’s ridiculous. There are a lot of problems in the Muslim community, but when people feel under siege it makes progress even more difficult.

 

“I still feel very much part of white British society, but I am also a Muslim. It has taken a while to fit those two identities together, but now I feel very confident being who I am. I’m part of both worlds and no one can take that away from me.”

 

Sukina Douglas

Spoken-word poet, 28, London

 

“Before I found Islam, my gaze was firmly fixed on Africa. I was raised a Rastafarian and used to have crazy-long dreadlocks: one half blonde and the other half black.

 

“Then, in 2005, my ex-boyfriend came back from a trip to Africa and announced that he’d converted to Islam. I was furious and told him he was ‘losing his African roots’. Why was he trying to be an Arab? It was so foreign to how I lived my life. Every time I saw a Muslim woman in the street I thought, ‘Why do they have to cover up like that? Aren’t they hot?’ It looked oppressive to me.

 

“Islam was already in my consciousness, but when I started reading the autobiography of Malcolm X at university, something opened up inside me. One day I said to my best friend, Muneera, ‘I’m falling in love with Islam.’ She laughed and said, ‘Be quiet, Sukina!’ She only started exploring Islam to prove me wrong, but soon enough she started believing it, too.

 

“I was always passionate about women’s rights; there was no way I would have entered a religion that sought to degrade me. So when I came across a book by a Moroccan feminist, it unravelled all my negative opinions: Islam didn’t oppress women; people did.

 

“Before I converted, I conducted an experiment. I covered up in a long gypsy skirt and headscarf and went out. But I didn’t feel frumpy; I felt beautiful. I realised, I’m not a sexual commodity for men to lust after; I want to be judged for what I contribute mentally.

 

“Muneera and I took our shahada [declaration of faith] together a few months later, and I cut my dreadlocks off to represent renewal: it was the beginning of a new life.

 

“Just three weeks after our conversion, the 7/7 bombings happened; suddenly we were public enemy No 1. I’d never experienced racism in London before, but in the weeks after the bombs, people would throw eggs at me and say, ‘Go back to your own country,’ even though this was my country.

 

“I’m not trying to shy away from any aspect of who I am. Some people dress in Arabian or Pakistani styles, but I’m British and Caribbean, so my national dress is Primark and Topshop, layered with colourful charity-shop scarves.

 

“Six months after I converted, I got back together with my ex-boyfriend, and now we’re married. Our roles in the home are different, because we are different people, but he would never try to order me around; that’s not how I was raised.

 

“Before I found Islam, I was a rebel without a cause, but now I have a purpose in life: I can identify my flaws and work towards becoming a better person. To me, being a Muslim means contributing to your society, no matter where you come from.”

 

Catherine Huntley

Retail assistant, 21, Bournemouth

 

“My parents always thought I was abnormal, even before I became a Muslim. In my early teens, they’d find me watching TV on a Friday night and say, ‘What are you doing at home? Haven’t you got any friends to go out with?’

 

“The truth was: I didn’t like alcohol, I’ve never tried smoking and I wasn’t interested in boys. You’d think they’d have been pleased.

 

“I’ve always been quite a spiritual person, so when I started studying Islam in my first year of GCSEs, something just clicked. I would spend every lunchtime reading about Islam on the computer. I had peace in my heart and nothing else mattered any more. It was a weird experience – I’d found myself, but the person I found wasn’t like anyone else I knew.

 

“I’d hardly ever seen a Muslim before, so I didn’t have any preconceptions, but my parents weren’t so open-minded. I hid all my Muslim books and headscarves in a drawer, because I was so scared they’d find out.

 

“When I told my parents, they were horrified and said, ‘We’ll talk about it when you’re 18.’ But my passion for Islam just grew stronger. I started dressing more modestly and would secretly fast during Ramadan. I got very good at leading a double life until one day, when I was 17, I couldn’t wait any longer.

 

“I sneaked out of the house, put my hijab in a carrier bag and got on the train to Bournemouth. I must have looked completely crazy putting it on in the train carriage, using a wastebin lid as a mirror. When a couple of old people gave me dirty looks, I didn’t care. For the first time in my life, I felt like myself.

 

“A week after my conversion, my mum came marching into my room and said, ‘Have you got something to tell me?’ She pulled my certificate of conversion out of her pocket. I think they’d rather have found anything else at that point – drugs, cigarettes, condoms – because at least they could have put it down to teenage rebellion.

 

“I could see the fear in her eyes. She couldn’t comprehend why I’d want to give up my freedom for the sake of a foreign religion. Why would I want to join all those terrorists and suicide bombers?

 

“It was hard being a Muslim in my parents’ house. I’ll never forget one evening, there were two women in burkas on the front page of the newspaper, and they started joking, ‘That’ll be Catherine soon.’

 

“They didn’t like me praying five times a day either; they thought it was ‘obsessive’. I’d pray right in front of my bedroom door so my mum couldn’t walk in, but she would always call upstairs, ‘Catherine, do you want a cup of tea?’ just so I’d have to stop.

 

“Four years on, my grandad still says things like, ‘Muslim women have to walk three steps behind their husbands.’ It gets me really angry, because that’s the culture, not the religion. My fiancé, whom I met eight months ago, is from Afghanistan and he believes that a Muslim woman is a pearl and her husband is the shell that protects her. I value that old-fashioned way of life: I’m glad that when we get married he’ll take care of paying the bills. I always wanted to be a housewife anyway.

 

“Marrying an Afghan man was the cherry on the cake for my parents. They think I’m completely crazy now. He’s an accountant and actually speaks better English than I do, but they don’t care. The wedding will be in a mosque, so I don’t think they’ll come. It hurts to think I’ll never have that fairytale wedding, surrounded by my family. But I hope my new life with my husband will be a lot happier. I’ll create the home I’ve always wanted, without having to feel the pain of people judging me.”

[Valenteenah.]

I loved reading this. May Allah increase our iman.

[Archdemos]

^^ Indeed, very inspiring.

[Abdulladiif Al-Fiqih]

I love reading these kind of stories too. However, every time I read reverts journies of dicovering Islam, I am amazed by the difference between these reverts and us who were born in Islam. We don't have the same passion, love, and thirst for the deen. We don't fully understand what we have (Islam) and others couldn't have it. We basically inhereted from our forefathers and never worked hard for it.

 

Everytime I read these stories, I am remindered the stories of the Sahaba when the Islam was in its infancy, what they have endured, how they were tried and tested.......one could only wish he or she lived those days

[Khayr]

“Marrying an Afghan man was the cherry on the cake for my parents. They think I’m completely crazy now

You send them the message Yvonne! Hey her choices were limited - an afghani, a paki or a somali?

 

an at least he ain't broken. The Taliban do work have money.

 

On a serious note, MashaAllah, these sisters are great spokeswomen for islam in the U.K.

[Che -Guevara]

Islam is becoming trendy-loosing its exclusivity.

[Chocolate and Honey]

I liked the stories. Specially the last one. She loved the religion BEFORE she met her fiancee.

[Hales]

Reading about how the lifes of these people changed and improved and how they saw their errors of the past, you cant help but reflect and review on how your living your life as Muslim.

Your thinking since youve already had a Muslim upbringing, you should already understand this but not admire and follow the same life they use to live.

[Aaliyyah]

Mashallah. Jazakalaah Liiban for sharing such inspirational stories. These stories put those of us who were born Muslims to shame. We take our deen for granted as if paradise is guaranteed for us. May Allah guide us all to the straight path. Ameen!

 

salaam

[Liibaan]

I agree with Abdulatif, there is striking similarity exists between the companions of our prophet Mohamed PBUH and the new muslims - the hard work and struggle to find the truth (Al-Haq), sub hana Allah, Allah guides whom He wills.

 

Aziza, Amiin to the Duca, may Allah lead us to the straight path and increase our iimaan.

 

I'm glad you all enjoyed the article, here is similar story

 

--------

 

Why one woman converted to Islam??

‘I was searching for a religion that spoke to me’

 

Zosia Bielski

 

From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Jun. 11, 2010 9:06AM EDT

 

 

“In a way, I was in the market for a philosophy.”

 

Although she’d cultivated an academic interest in Islam at university, Willow Wilson’s religious awakening really came in the hospital. She was suffering from adrenal distress, and its symptoms – including insomnia and hair loss – would last for a year and a half.

 

“Being ill had shaken something loose in my head,” the 27-year-old writes in her new memoir The Butterfly Mosque. “That so many people were well – that I had been well for so long – seemed miraculous.”

 

After she recovered, Ms. Wilson accepted a teaching position in Cairo: Her decision to convert to Islam came mid-flight, over the Mediterranean. Days later, she would meet her future husband Omar, a pious Muslim and heavy-metal aficionado, at their English-language school. He showed her markets and cafés free of Westerners, and later steered her through her first Ramadan.

 

Ms. Wilson, a first-time author, spoke with The Globe and Mail from Seattle, where she relocated to with her husband nearly three years ago.

 

 

 

Your memoir is punctuated by people asking why you converted to Islam. You tell your roommate you tried to be an atheist but that “it didn’t work.” What do you tell people now?

 

It really depends on why the person is asking and on what our relationship is. I was searching for a religion that spoke to me and Islam did that in a more complete way than anything else I had studied. There was a pull for me in the words of the Koran that seemed very personal.

 

When you tell your roommate Jo that Islam is sex-positive, she asks you to look around Egypt, where she says women are “hunted like animals.” How do you reconcile those kinds of questions with your faith?

 

I don’t. There are things that go on in Muslim countries that are completely out of line with the teachings of Islam. If you look anywhere in the world where people are dealing with oppression or war or poverty, you see them acting in a shocking way. If you look at Uganda with the Lord’s Resistance Army that’s sanctioning child soldiers and child marriage and committing all sorts of atrocity quoting the Bible the whole time, we can separate that because we’re familiar with Christianity. It’s less easy for us to make that separation when it comes to Islam because it’s so foreign to us.

 

 

You told your family and friends via e-mail that you’d converted, and their responses were slow in coming. You write that your parents were “supportive in a weary and slightly self-recriminating way,” as if your decision “resulted from a defect in their parenting.”

 

It was subtle. They were worried. If a member of the family moves far away and adopts a different religion, naturally your response would be, “What’s wrong with where you come from and what you’ve always believed?”

 

 

Did they think you were brainwashed?

 

If they did, they never told me. It was clear from the beginning that I wasn’t in lockstep with this new ideology or that I’d abandoned everything from my old life.

 

Your engagement came on the day you confessed to Omar that you loved him and he first held your hand.

 

Yeah. We were never going to be just boyfriend/girlfriend. That does not really exist in Egypt, not among mainstream Egyptians.

 

 

So there was no ring, just this discussion.

 

We were creating a hybrid culture as we went. If I had been an Egyptian girl from a mainstream Egyptian family we would have done the very traditional thing and he would have come to my father and said, “Here’s what I’m willing to offer your daughter,” in terms of a home or a ring. Since we were dealing with two cultures, we just had a serious conversation about what this would mean and where would we go from here.

 

 

You said you and your husband turned to the Koran whenever you had a disagreement about “gender or freedom of movement.” Did you have many of those?

 

Some, yeah. Egypt is a very different place than the U.S. on every level – psychologically, emotionally and socially. People go about their daily lives in different ways. It’s unusual for women of a certain class to do their own shopping: They’ll send maids or have delivery people. I’m used to growing up with everybody doing everything for themselves. [For Egyptians], it was strange to see someone who wanted to do as much running around and busy work as I did. Ironically, religion was the most neutral interface [my husband and I] could use to resolve those things, because it predates everything that we both know by 1,400 years. It didn’t take sides, oddly enough.

 

 

You decide to start wearing the hijab. How did your American circle receive that?

 

Pretty well. I like to co-ordinate it with my outfits and I have a lot of different coloured scarves. It’s not like I put on a sheet and started walking around silently like a black omen of death. I think that was probably a relief: It wasn’t something that was crushing my personality.

 

When you start wearing it, your husband asks you why. You tell him you wanted to give him something bigger than anything you’d given anyone before. Is that the right reason?

 

I don’t know that there is such a thing as the right reason. That’s the funny thing about religion. We can all take these symbols that are the same for everybody and yet can they mean something radically different to each person who takes them up.

 

Why did you leave Cairo?

 

I wanted to spend at least part of my adult life in my own country. I felt like I was losing touch with my friends who were the same age. We should have been at the same phase of life but they were just in completely in different places. They’d talk about sublets and going on Craigslist to find a roommate and car insurance and I’m sitting there thinking, “I don’t know about any of these things. Today I went down to the market and I bought a live chicken for lunch!” All of the adult skills that I had were Egyptian skills. I didn’t want to lose track of my American life completely.

 

This interview has been condensed and edited.