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"Islamic Conversion: History & Theology"

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Per

spectives
Marcia Hermansen
The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion
Edited by Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian

Print Publication Date: Apr 2014 Subject: Religion, Religious Identity, Islam
Online Publication Date: May 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195338522.013.027

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter provides a broad historical overview of processes of conversion to Islam in

diverse regions including the Middle East, Africa, South and South East Asia, and the
contemporary United States. In addition, religious and theological elements of conversion
to Islam including rituals, doctrines, and key concepts such as dawa (inviting to Islam)
are explained and illustrated. Specific dimensions of conversion to Islam such as mass
conversions, internal and personal embrace of enhanced commitment and piety, positions
on apostasy, and how modernity impacts conversion patterns and processes are also ad
dressed.

Keywords: Islam, conversion, Islamic conversion rituals, United States, conversion in Islamic history, theology of
conversion, Islam, dawa

ISLAM, with its claim to finality, completeness, and universality, is a missionary religion.
Like Christianity, Islam has spread all over the world and has been embraced by popula
tions from widely varying regions and racial backgrounds. Muhammad (570‒632) was
recognized as Prophet and successfully formed and ruled over a community within his
lifetime. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian tribes followed his leadership, both
religiously and politically. Under his first four successors, known by Sunni Muslims as the
“Rightly Guided Caliphs” (632‒661), the political domination of Islam rapidly expanded
outside of the Arabian Peninsula. Under the second Caliph, Umar (ruled 634‒644), Mus
lim armies seized Jerusalem from Byzantine control (636) and defeated the Persians (637)
and the Egyptians (641). The majority of people living in these territories eventually con
verted to Islam. In more far-flung regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and
Southeast Asia, the process of conversion took place in later periods and through various
processes that will be discussed later in this chapter.

The process of “Islamization” was a complex and creative fusion of Islamic practices and
doctrines with local customs that were considered to be sound from the perspective of de
veloping Islamic jurisprudence. As historian Richard Bulliet has demonstrated based on
the evidence of early biographical compendia, in most cases this process took centuries,
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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

so that the stereotype of Islam being initially spread by the “sword” and by forced conver
sions is a false representation of this complex phenomenon.1

Although competition during the medieval period between Islamic and Christian power
across the Mediterranean led to the polemic that Islam was a religion spread by violence
and forced on subject populations, analysis of the historical evidence indicates that the
process of Islamization was much more gradual. Large-scale conversions followed the ini
tial conquests in the Middle East by centuries, peaking in Iran, for example, in about 875,
some two hundred and thirty years after the initial conquests, according (p. 633) to
Bulliet’s estimate.2 As might be intuitively expected based on sociological observations of
other new religious movements, conversions to Islam within the Prophet Muhammad’s
immediate circle and even subsequently seem to have initially taken place at two opposite
poles of society. On the one hand, the new faith attracted individuals from the higher lev
els of society, who would benefit most from maintaining good relations with the con
querors and who may have had the time and resources to consider the existential ele
ments of a new message. Alternatively, conversions occurred among those who were the
poorest and most socially disadvantaged, who thereby had the greatest likelihood of ad
vancing through identification with the faith of the new ruling classes and the least to
lose by no longer adhering to the status quo.

Theology and Rituals of Conversion

Theologically speaking, inviting (da’wa) others to the Islamic faith is supposed to be part
of Muslims’ religious obligations. The Qur’an commands, “Invite to the way of your Lord
with wisdom and beautiful preaching” (16:125). Unlike Christians, however, until recently
most Muslims have not seen personal witnessing or systematic missionary activities as
something that they need to pursue as individuals or support through donations to specif
ic proselytizing institutions.3

In the earliest biographical dictionaries that compiled data on the first Muslim genera
tions, such as the Tabaqat of Ibn Sa’d (ca. 845), two distinct terms are usually combined
to refer to a person’s becoming Muslim—bay’a (a person took allegiance to the Prophet)
and aslama (a person accepted Islam). This demonstrates a recognition that conversion
was a socio-political as well as a faith commitment. In fact, the word “Islam” itself is a
verbal noun signifying “the act of accepting or submitting to the will of Allah.”4

Today, many English-speaking converts to Islam prefer the term “revert,” since Islamic
theology features the idea that all souls have recognized God in pre-eternity in an episode
known as the Primordial Covenant (Qur’an 7:131). Important in retrieving this memory of
acknowledging Allah are both perceiving and reflecting on the signs of God disclosed
both in the natural world and in the revealed messages transmitted through the series of
Prophets sent to all nations. Remembrance (dhikr), return (rija), and repentance (tawba)
all are important theological concepts in Islam and represent the means for reconnecting
with the ultimate truth.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

Islam acknowledges the prophetic nature of the messages revealed to Moses and Jesus,
and therefore adherents of the other Abrahamic traditions are known as the “People of
the Book.” A person from a Jewish or Christian background who becomes Muslim could
be thought of as completing or perfecting their previous faith, rather than radically de
parting from it, according to the Muslim perspective of religious supersession. A well-
known saying (hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad affirms that every child is born accord
ing to a sound original nature (fitra). Commentaries have equated this original nature
with “Islam.” From this perspective, every child and, in a broad sense, (p. 634) every cre
ated thing in the universe is generically “muslim” in the sense of necessarily submitting
to God, whether consciously and voluntarily or involuntarily.5

Since there is no “original sin” doctrine in Islam, the ceremony for entry into the religion
consists of the simple recitation of the profession of faith (shahada), “There is no God but
God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God” in the presence of two witnesses. Once a
person becomes a Muslim, he or she is considered to be free from (previous) sin. Since
there is no original sin to be washed away, the baptismal motif is not operative. It is, how
ever, recommended that the full ritual bath (ghusl) should be performed before conver
sion, most probably as a ritual preparation for subsequent prayer.

The Qur’an criticizes those who reject Islam after they become Muslims by saying, “If
Muhammad dies, are you going to turn on your heels (to leave Islam)?” (3:144). Abu Bakr,
the first caliph, struggled against members of Arab tribes who broke their promises and
agreements to the Muslim polity and the Prophet after his death in a series of engage
ments known as the Wars of Apostasy (Ridda Wars). On this basis, the death penalty is
prescribed in Islamic law6 for those Muslims who become apostates, although this is not
stipulated in the Qur’an. Many contemporary Muslim scholars hold that these punish
ments were not concerned with a person adopting another religion due to a change of
heart, but that they had arisen in specific historical contexts where apostasy would be
considered treasonable.7 It is therefore argued that in modern times such punishments
for apostasy and restrictions of freedom of belief should no longer apply, and, in fact, in
most Muslim societies these are not an aspect of contemporary state laws. In the few
countries where they continue to be in force, such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, their
rare invocation leads to human rights outcries from around the world, including on the
part of many Muslims who deem them incompatible with the basic Qur’anic injunction
that “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256).

Conversion, Identity, and the Expansion of Is

lam
Conversion to Islam has occurred in vastly differing regions and epochs and continues un
til today, the general claim being that Islam is currently the fastest growing of the world’s
religions.8 This is probably due to higher fertility rates and to successes in areas where
Christianity and Islam are competing for converts from indigenous religious, for example,

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

in Africa. While conversions to Islam in Europe and America receive attention and scruti
ny, the numbers are not so high as to dramatically impact global growth.9

Historically, the reasons for conversion span many factors, including social and economic
motivations and inducements as well as matters of personal conscience that are difficult
to assess from our modern perspective. What is clear is that historical, geographical, and
social factors have played major roles in making histories of conversion to Islam distinct
and not amenable to any one simple and universal explanatory paradigm.

The gulf between pre-modern and modern elements and the diverse regional his
(p. 635)

tories of conversion are issues that I would like to briefly address at this point. The topic
of the history of conversion to Islam is often colored by political and ideological stances
because conversion is so closely linked to identity. In an age of nationalism and conflict
along ethnic and religious lines in many parts of the world, past conversions may at times
be stigmatized in national narratives as having been a betrayal, a collaboration with for
eign conquerors, or a contamination of true origins.

In the case of Iran, a movement known as the “shu’ubiyya” arose in the Abbasid period
(750‒1258) that asserted a Persian identity as opposed to an Arab one. The concept of a
“Persian” Islam as distinct from an Arab one continues to the present time, playing into
Iran’s distinctive Shi’a identity but also influencing reconsideration of whether the glori
ous Iranian past is obscured by embracing the later Arab Muslim conquest.

An even more anti-conversion tone arises in regions such as India and the Balkans, where
some accounts of the process of conversion to Islam may stress violence, coercion, and
the foreignness of Muslims. Conversely, Muslim accounts of these conversions may elide
aspects of the process that de-emphasize the attractiveness and pull of the new religious
identity among local populations.

The history of conversion to Islam has generally been studied in specific and regional con
texts.10 While this study is worthwhile, attempting to synthesize their conclusions is un
likely to provide a seamless and universal account of pre-modern practices and histories.
When we move to contemporary instances of conversion to Islam, we likewise encounter
great regional disparity. In particular, the conversions that are occurring in Europe and
the Americas need to be understood primarily in terms of the social and psychological di
mensions of conversion that are studied across religions in the contemporary period11
and secondarily in the context of patterns in the history of conversion to Islam.12

The History of Conversion to Islam

An early account of conversion to Islam is that of the close Companion of the Prophet,
Umar ibn al-Khattab (ca. 581‒644). Umar was a strong and socially respected Meccan
who initially rejected Muhammad and his teachings and spoke of silencing the Prophet
until he was informed that his own sister had become a Muslim. Umar then rushed to her
house in anger but on entering heard her reciting some of the revelations contained in

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

the Qur’an. This is said to have moved Umar’s heart to the point that he joined the new
movement and became a staunch supporter. This and other narratives that tell conversion
stories of individual Companions of the Prophet indicate that individual change of heart
and transformation due to the power and impact of the Islamic teachings was definitely
recognized by pre-modern Muslims as an element in conversion. A person’s being among
the earliest to convert was recognized socially and economically during the reign of the
Umar (634‒644) through an institution known as the divan in which payments (p. 636)
arising from the wealth derived due to conquests, tribute, and spoils of war were distrib
uted according to the primacy of an individual’s having accepted Islam.

In the time of the Prophet Muhammad, once initial political successes had been achieved
and the Prophet became the ruler, first in Medina and then in all of Arabia, incentives to
conversion were offered. For example, financial payments were given to those Arab tribes
and individuals who had newly embraced Islam. According to Islamic tradition, these pay
ments were given in order to “incline their hearts to Islam.”13

H. A. R. Gibb categorized three degrees of conversion in this early period: “total,” “for
mal,” and “enforced.”14 The formal element of Bedouin tribal allegiance to the new faith
is alluded to in a Qur’anic passage (49:14) that enjoins the tribal Arabs, “Do not say ‘we
have accepted faith’; rather say ‘we have accepted Islam’, for faith has not yet entered
your hearts,” thereby distinguishing true inner faith, or iman, from the formality of “Is
lam.”

Once Muslim empires were in place with substantial non-Muslim Dhimmi populations,15
there were also financial “penalties” for not converting in the form of two special tax
structures, the jizya, a “head” tax required only of adult non-Muslims, and the kharaj, an
additional tax on land-holdings of adult non-Muslims. These elements of pre-modern Is
lamic rule have become polemicized in some recent studies. One contention is that “dhim
mitude” was an oppressive and restrictive regime that persecuted non-Muslims.16 The
contrasting position is that living under Islamic rule was relatively benign for pre-modern
minority communities since they could own property, secure employment and education,
enjoy freedom of movement, and so on. According to this latter view, the tax structure
was ultimately equitable since Muslims alone served in the army and paid the zakat to
support the services of the governing body such as military protection, public works, and
security, but the zakat was not levied on the non-Muslim population.

In the newly conquered territories in Iraq, Iran, and Egypt, Muslim soldiers and adminis
trators at first lived separately from the local populations in garrison towns that eventual
ly became centers of a new Islamic civilization. Converts in these areas had to initially es
tablish a relationship of being a client (wali) of an Arab patron and his tribe. These early
client converts to Islam were known as mawali. This system lasted into later Umayyad
times (661‒750), when Umar the Second (717‒720) abolished the tax on the mawali and
put more effort into increasing, rather than deterring, conversion.17 By the Abbasid peri
od (post-750), the designation of mawali no longer applied because by this time a power
ful and critical mass of the Muslim population was derived from non-Arab roots.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

In other regions where early conversions to Islam occurred, such as Islamic Spain (al-An
dalus), the institution of mawali was much less common. This is because most of the con
quering Muslim armies came from Berber rather than Arab stock, the conquerors did not
live in separate garrison towns, and Maliki fiqh18 (the prevalent legal code) considered
converts to be clients of the entire Muslim polity (umma) as opposed to specific Arab
tribes.19

Mass conversion—which occurred when a chief, king, or feudal leader joined the religion
—was common in the pre-modern era. As in the history of early Christian (p. 637) expan
sion in Europe, a charismatic figure, preacher, or saint might be credited with providing
convincing evidence through miracles of the superiority of his God and faith. In Central
Asia, for example, DeWeese has mined hagiographies to recover the historical elements of
conversion behind the legends of charismatic Turkish Babas who brought many tribes in
to Islam.20 In the South Asian Punjab, the Sufi saints are likewise credited with conver
sion of the local tribes en masse.21 In another South Asian example, the Sufi Muinuddin
Chishti (d. 1236), whose shrine in Ajmer, Rajasthan, remains a pilgrimage site for both
Muslims and Hindus, is described in one hagiographic narrative as besting the local Hin
du court magician, Ajai Pal, in a dual of magical powers, thereby leading to the conver
sion of much of the local populace. In Southeast Asia, oral epics feature accounts of the
nine founding saints (wali songo), who are credited with the conversion of the local popu
lace to Islam, often through triumphing in similar duels of supernatural powers.22

Conversion in Diverse Regions

Despite the diversity and complexity of local situations, it may be helpful to consider sev
eral broad patterns of conversion across the Muslim world. Conquered early by smaller
Arab Muslim armies, Iran, North Africa, and the Middle East witnessed very high rates of
conversion over the centuries. Bulliet’s mapping of conversion patterns in regions such as
Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Spain onto graphs so as to make visible the historical periods
of maximum growth corresponding to a phenomenon known as an “innovation curve” has
been replicated or confirmed by scholars of other geographic areas. For example, it has
recently been argued that conversions in Spain as well as the expansion of Islam to the
Balkans during the period of Ottoman rule in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries share
some common patterns with Muslim outreach in the central Islamic lands.23 The expan
sion of Islam to the further reaches of Indonesia and Malaysia and to the west and east
coasts and sub-Saharan region of Africa took place more gradually and later, after the
thirteenth century, and during this period the important agents of conversion were
traders, scholars, and Sufis.

The largest numerical concentration of Muslim population today is in South Asia (India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh). A central question for students of conversion in this region is
the resistance to conversion of much of the population of today’s India, even in areas that
were under Muslim rule for long periods. These instances where conversion to Islam
failed to occur may also shed light on its processes and successes.24

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

India also problematizes the nature of conversion itself. The oscillating interaction of Is
lam with indigenous Indian elements has been captured by contrasting Mughal royalty
such as Akbar (d. 1605) or Dara Shikoh (d. 1659), who respected indigenous customs and
attempted to find common ground, to the Mughal king Aurangzeb (d. 1707), who harshly
imposed taxes on non-Muslims and rejected and condemned their customs. At the lower
ends of South Asian society, many pre-modern groups seem to have (p. 638) practiced in
synthetic ways a blend of Islam and Hinduism, observing some Islamic rituals or using
Muslim names yet celebrating Hindu festivals and deities or observing Hindu food taboos.
It is now argued that colonial practices such as census taking began to raise challenges
to these complex and diffuse identities that caused concern among emerging communal
nationalisms in the subcontinent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.25 These, in turn, inspired movements such as shuddhi or purification aimed at
bringing lapsed Hindus who were gravitating to Islam back into the fold. In turn, Muslims
such as Muhammad Ilyas (d. 1944) and Khwaja Hasan Nizami (d. 1955) engaged in coun
terinitiatives of tabligh—propagation of the faith. Tabligh movements attempted to instill
basic tenets and practices of Islam and to teach Islam by humble example to the members
of tribes and castes who were not particularly firm or clear about their Muslim identity
and Islamic norms and practices.

I will now review some of the preeminent theories of conversion to Islam in India. As pre
viously noted, the nature of conversion to Islam in South Asia is a topic hotly contested by
historians, in part due to its contemporary relevance for competing Muslim and Hindu na
tionalist narratives of identity.

Richard Eaton, an American expert on South Asian Islam, describes four main models
that have been posited to explain conversion to Islam in South Asian history.26 These are:
immigration theory, Islam as a religion of the sword, a religion of patronage, and a reli
gion of social liberation. Immigration theory constructs Muslims as outsiders who were
not part of the original and authentic South Asian region. In this case, it is their diffusion
in the region that is the source of today’s Muslim population. The epitome of the conver
sion by the sword theory is associated with Muslim figures such as Sultan Mahmud of
Ghazni (d. 1030), who is blamed for the destruction and plunder of the temple at Somnat,
thus symbolizing Islam as alien to and dismissive of local Indian traditions.27 The usual
Pakistani Muslim narrative, in contrast, is of Mahmud as a heroic ghazi or fighter for the
faith. Ironically, among Indian Muslims themselves there is a special respect given to
those who are descended from Arab, Afghan, or Iranian stock, embodied in the idea of be
ing from the “noble classes” (ashraf) as opposed to being descended from indigenous con
verts known as the “inferior classes” (ajlaf), who are viewed as descendants of local popu
lations whose ancestors had converted. The patronage explanation for conversion to Is
lam in South Asia construes it as a social process that occurred over time due to mone
tary and other favors extended by Muslims to those who joined the faith. Finally, the mod
el of Islam as a religion of social liberation highlights the conversion of members of the
lower castes who were seeking upward mobility. Eaton doubts that this explanation is

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

valid in earlier historical periods since such results do not seem to have been achieved by
converts.

The pull of upward mobility or protest against the Hindu caste order inspired some mass
conversions from Hinduism in the twentieth century. For example, there is the well-known
conversion of untouchables to Buddhism within the Ambedkar movements, as well as
smaller movements among Muslims in South India who embraced Islam in the early
1980s.28 Peter van der Veer has argued that these conversions were seen as threatening
and helped fuel subsequent Hindu fundamentalism (Hindutva).29

In his study of the expansion of Islam in Bengal, Eaton presents conversion to Is
(p. 639)

lam as a process of gradual incorporation of the rice-cultivating peasantry into a cultural

framework associated with the religion, rather than conversion arising from domination
by a foreign regime that was imposed on them by a central empire. Rather, assimilation
to Islam occurred gradually and in a manner that “seeped” into the region, as Islamic
symbols became identified with local understandings of the sacred and superhuman cos
mos.30

Central Asia
After most of the Muslim lands were conquered, remarkably within a generation, by the
Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan (d. 1227) and especially of his grandson, Hulagu Khan
(1265), Mongol leaders and the entire culture assimilated toward Islam, the religion of
the conquered. In this case the assimilative power of Islam was such that the descendants
of the Mongols embraced the religion and contributed to new flourishing of civilizations
under rulers such as Tamurlane (ca. 1336–1405) and his descendants the Timurids (1370–
1526) in Central Asia and the Mughals (1526‒1857) in South Asia.

The spread of Islam by these Turkish-speaking populations was perhaps the most geo
graphically widespread of all; the Turks carried Islam with them from the Balkans to
South Asia and China.

Turkey and the Balkans

The heart of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, did not fall to the Muslim Ottomans
until 1453. Before that, however, waves of Turkic nomads who had been immigrating into
Anatolia since the battle of Manzikert in 1071 gradually displaced the indigenous popula
tion, most of whom were Christians. Scholars estimate that Anatolia had become over
whelmingly Muslim by the sixteenth century.31

A further observation is that in Anatolia and the Balkans there was more friction between
Muslim and Christian populations than elsewhere, and as a result the numbers of “social
conversions” were lower. Anatolia was initially settled by Turkish Muslim nomads who
were disruptive of the established order. Conversions there that arose through what Ne

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

hemia Levtzion terms “colonization by nomads” are perceived as having been less grad
ual and more socially traumatic than those that occurred within the borders of an estab
lished Islamic government.32 A word invoked for the context of conversions in early Ana
tolia, but that applies in certain other regions as well, is “frontier.” The hypothesis is that
the nature of conversions on the frontiers of expanding spheres of Islamic influence is sig
nificantly different from those occurring within stable boundaries. After the first cen
turies, however, Islamic civilization in Anatolia had stabilized and developed institutions
that could prove attractive to new converts and provide them with new social networks
(p. 640) and support. Examples of these institutions are charitable endowments (waqf),

mystical orders, and the schools and authority of Muslim scholars (ulema).33 At the same
time, official Christian representation and social support institutions were under pressure
and receding, making the continuity of Christian life in this region more difficult.

Conquest of the Balkans

The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans took place over a century in two main phases,
1352‒1402 and 1415‒1467.34 According to Anton Minkov, today’s nationalist historians
from the region frame their narratives of these events according to two main paradigms.
On the one hand, certain Christian histories of the region have described the Ottoman
conquests as nationalist “catastrophes” accompanied by oppression and demographic col
lapse. Others have seen the Ottoman legacy more favorably in terms of its bringing to the
region the benefits of stability. Factors such as the “blessing” of a relatively low jizya35
made the pacification and eventual assimilation of the local population to Islam and Ot
toman traditions easier. Conversion seems unlikely without contact with Muslims, and it
is clear that Turkish immigration into the region occurred as well. Who these immigrants
were is also contested—Sufis, craftsmen, and scholars probably presented a favorable or
less coercive face of Islam, while unruly Turkish nomads seem likely to have been alienat
ing forces.

Another Ottoman institution that highlights the ambivalent narratives of conversion in

these regions is the devshirme, a regular levy of (mainly) Christian youths, particularly
from the Balkans, who were taken from their birth families, converted to Islam, and
trained to become members of the elite Janissary corps surrounding the Sultan. These
children were guaranteed the best education and social mobility, but this practice could
also be construed as the most oppressive of practices and tantamount to brainwashing
and forced conversion to Islam. The levy of as many as eight thousand youths occurred
about every seven years and had practically ceased by the middle of the sixteenth centu
ry, although the Janissaries were finally abolished in 1648.36

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

Later Conversions: Southeast Asia and Africa

Southeast Asia

The spread of Islam to Southeast Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia occurred relatively late
but was quite pervasive, especially in the case of Indonesia. The inception of Islamic
(p. 641) influences in South East Asia occurred during the thirteenth to fifteenth cen

turies.37 In these cases, a primary factor was the trade engaged in by Arab travelers and
merchants from Yemen who undertook long voyages across the Indian Ocean. Among rea
sons given for the success of these conversions are the prestige of literacy, the inclusive
nature of Islamic racial categories, and Muslim marriage laws and customs.

Arab traders often maintained two households with wives and families both in Yemen and
the East Indies, multiple marriages being allowed in Islam. The cultural capital of know
ing the Arabic language and having Arab descent was considered especially prestigious in
South East Asia, and many Malay families still trace their lineages and maintain strong
connections to the Hadramaut region of Yemen. In Indonesia, Islam adapted to local prac
tices and traditions, incorporating a synthesis that has been termed “normative mystical
piety.”38 Legends and oral epics suggest gradual conversion that involved acceptance by
the rulers first and only later assimilation of the local populace.39 It has also been noted
that in later periods, conversion to Islam increased in the face of Dutch colonialism due to
the fact that Islam provided grounding for indigenous solidarity and resistance, while the
Dutch in some cases were seen as promoting Christianity.40

Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, as in Southeast Asia, Islam was carried to local populations who
had been largely animist through the activities of traders and scholars. Patterns of con
versions along the East and West coasts of Africa varied. Levtzion characterizes conver
sions in West Africa as usually proceeding peacefully through Africanization and disper
sal. The degree of formal Islamization varied, resulting in “uneven” results ranging from
rapid conversion and acculturation to Islamic norms in the cities to nominal allegiance
and scattered Islamic practice in more remote areas.41 Even the nineteenth-century re
vivalist jihads were more about reforming Muslims than converting animists. Among ex
planations for Islam’s success in Africa are its integrative power and racial inclusiveness.
William Byden, an American Christian of Caribbean origin and African descent, was sent
to Africa in the late 1800s as part of a Christian missionary society initiative. He devel
oped a great sympathy for the presence and institutions of Islam in Africa and described
how the lack of racial barriers in learning and authority incorporated and empowered
Africans in a way that was absent from contemporary Christian institutions.42

In the eleventh century, significant numbers of inhabitants began converting to Islam on

the East Coast of Africa, most intensively in coastal trading areas like Mombassa and
Zanzibar. Arab traders intermarried with the local populations and became the elites of a
Swahili culture that fused Arab Islamic and African elements. It was only in the nine
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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

teenth century that Islamization spread inland. Arab immigrants from Hadramaut and
Oman in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries carried with them literate Islam and
shari’a-based practices to East Africa. Colonial policies of the Portuguese and the British
complicated affairs by respectively discouraging Islamic practice or attempting to regu
late them.43

Robin Horton, in his essays on African conversions, describes them as arising

(p. 642)

from a cognitive process by which individuals tend to convert as a result of social devel
opments that promote comparison between the relative coherence of their own beliefs as
compared to others. In such cases, the system with greater explanatory force will be pre
ferred.44 For example, scholars following the theories of Max Weber and Clifford Geertz45
have analyzed conversions to Christianity as related to the greater “logical coherence” of
major literate world religions in comparison with “traditional” local religions. This theory,
by extension, could also apply to modern conversions to Islam in Africa.

Horton further refined this line of argument by positing that the difference between the
two kinds of religious systems lies not in their relative degrees of rationality but in the
narrower focus of the primal religions, which he relates to the “pre-modern social situa
tion [where] most events affecting the life of the individual occur within the microcosm of
the local community…[which is] to a considerable extent insulated from the macrocosm of
the wider world.”46

In the specific case of colonial and modern Africa, conversion to a world religion such as
Islam or Christianity involves the extension of social, economic, or political relations in
the course of colonialism and integration into the world economy. As the boundaries of
small tribal societies are weakened (as by integration into larger political systems, the de
velopment of broader commercial networks, and dramatic improvements in communica
tions), according to Horton and others, more and more people come to adopt universalist
doctrines which provide ready-made answers to the intellectual challenges of the macro
cosmic system.47

One question raised by this model is at what historical point does this explanation for con
version based on the need for a more integrative religious view become operative, since a
similar argument has been suggested for Muhammad’s success among the urban Mecca
ns who were no longer satisfied by the haphazard animism of previous Arabian tribal
codes. Today, scholarly and popular discussion about unity versus diversity in material
and ideational expressions of Islam and the persistence of pre-Islamic indigenous cultures
continues, acquiring increased urgency in the face of modern trends toward scriptural
ism,48 monocultures, and “identity-Islam” movements.49

Internal Conversions
In addition to conversion across faiths, we must consider “internal conversions”—changes
of heart, interpretation, and level of commitment within a single faith tradition. Most of
the early conversion literature, the writings of William James, assumed this perspective,
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in the sense that most of his subjects went from being Protestant to being “reborn” or
“revived” within the same Protestant context.

In the case of Islam, a number of internal conversion narratives fit this category. Among
Sufis, in particular, the call to leave the world is a significant, if not altogether (p. 643)
common, trope. Ibrahim ibn Adham was said to have been a king in Central Asian Balkh.
While out hunting one day he heard a call—“Were you made for this?” Rather like the re
nunciation account of the Buddha, he packed up and left his wealth and family behind to
follow the path of ascetic Sufism.50

The famous Muslim scholar al-Ghazzali (d. 1111) authored one of the rare autobiographi
cal accounts of internal conversion in Islam. He was a prominent professor of theology
who was struck with existential doubt to the point at which he became afflicted with a
mysterious ailment that left him unable to speak. He then set out in search of truth, ulti
mately finding it among the Sufis and their practices.51

In contemporary Muslim societies, the return to piety and extent of religious revival is
quite remarkable. In fact, revivalist movements began affecting local traditions of Islamic
practices in the late eighteenth century and acquired greater reach due to increased fa
cility of travel and communication and a shared resistance to colonialism through the
nineteenth century. By the late-twentieth century, vast mobilizations of individuals to sup
port Islamic organizations or parties, or simply to enact changes in their own daily lives
in the name of religion, are apparent almost everywhere among Muslims. Some of these
changes of heart involve attraction to Sufism,52 some to pietistic movements such as the
Tablighi Jamaat, and others to Islamist movements and parties.53

The modernization theorists of the 1950s and 1960s who argued for an inevitable trajec
tory of secularism in developing Muslim societies were left behind in the wake of the
Iranian revolution of 1979. The continued emergence of successful political Islamization
movements in the 1980s, some top-down and some popular, indicates the vitality of inter
nal conversion mechanisms in today’s Muslim societies.

Evidence of this internal conversion is the large number of Muslim women—many educat
ed and upwardly mobile—who have adopted forms of a global Islamic (shar’i) dress. Cul
tural capital for today’s young Muslims is likely to include manifestations of piety and
mastery of fiqh and other discourses of “authentic” Islamic knowledge that were margin
alized or unknown in their parents’ and grandparents’ cohorts. Explanations for these
changes include responses to modernity and postmodernity, resistance to Western neo-
imperialism, and the impact of access to mass literacy and university education.54

Conversions to Islam in the West

Conversions of Europeans and later of Americans to Islam could only happen through ac
tual contact with Muslims in pre-modern times, and this began to occur in the case of
England through encounters with the Ottomans, hence the former pejorative expression

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for conversion to Islam—to “turn Turk.”55 Accounts of these early conversions have been
studied by Nabil Matar, especially the captivity narratives of English seamen and others
who fell into the hands of pirates around the Mediterranean. Surprisingly, there was a de
gree of anxiety in seventeenth-century England about Englishmen turning (p. 644) “rene
gade” in quest of upward mobility, since the Ottomans were seen as potentially more re
warding of enterprise and as being very welcoming to converts.56

Other early forms of contact continued during the colonial period (late eighteenth to
twentieth centuries) and, although few, a number of notable cases of conversion to Islam
took place, often among privileged Europeans who were stationed in the Muslim world or
traveled there. These seem to have increased in number in the twentieth century and,
based on a handful of conversion narratives from this period, some of the motivations for
conversion included becoming disaffected by the nature of colonial rule over Muslim soci
eties combined with the feeling that as Europeans, the converts could influence the direc
tion of Muslim dealings with Western colonial powers more effectively—for the benefit of
Muslims.57

Muhammad Asad, author of the classic conversion account, Road to Mecca, was originally
an Austrian Jew who initially lived in Saudi Arabia, later became the first representative
of Pakistan to the United States, and mastered Arabic to the extent that his translation of
the Qur’an is one of the most respected in English. He comments on the perplexity of oth
er Westerners when they realized that “my activities at the United Nations made it obvi
ous that I identified myself not merely ‘functionally’ but also emotionally and intellectual
ly with the political and cultural aims of the Muslim world in general.”58 Another example
of someone who admired and wanted to help Muslims is the later American convert,
Maryam Jameelah, who as a child in the 1940s wrote in her diary, “I am saving the pic
tures and books which Daddy gave me on my birthday so I can go to Egypt or Palestine
and keep the Arabs like they are instead of copying us.”59 Other pulls toward converting
that are mentioned include a sense of the beauty of Muslim societies, cultures, and even
individuals, along with respect and admiration for the teachings of Islam.60

In the colonial period, contact with Muslims occurred because “Europeans went there,”
and convert narratives of this period convey the sense of “passing” and even “surpassing”
due to the converts’ more direct access to Western power and knowledge. In more recent
postcolonial, accounts, conversions more likely occur because “they (Muslims) come here
(to the West),” providing opportunities for relational contacts as friends, teachers, or
spouses. A shift occurs in the nature of American and European converts after the colo
nial period. Western converts’ accounts reflect the new mobility of the period, in terms of
new resources available to the middle classes that opened the possibility of travel to exot
ic locations.

In terms of class analysis, it is clear that European converts to Islam in colonial times
were usually privileged males. Although they were perhaps considered eccentric for
“turning Turk” by their class equals back home, they still had a voice that would be heed
ed.

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Even in postcolonial conversion accounts we find a certain nostalgia for the authentic,
traditional Orient. There is no longer an external “elsewhere” for Western Muslim travel
ers of the late-twentieth century. They are positioned in a world that is both hybridized
and politicized along West versus Islam lines, as well as within a Muslim community that
is itself increasingly self-aware of its complexities arising through immigration and inter
nal cultural and ideological diversities.

In the later conversion accounts, there is increased emphasis given to the impor
(p. 645)

tance of reading Islamic literature that has become available in translation. Other rea
sons cited for embracing Islam in later convert testimonials of Westerners prominently
feature hearing the Qur’an recited in Arabic, the call to prayer, or reading the Qur’an in
translation and becoming convinced of its truth.

Researcher Larry Poston characterizes the conversion process to Islam as one of head not
heart, a gradual process, in which a person may feel they had always been Muslim. Con
version to Islam often follows a long period of reflection and seeking. According to sur
veys of converts and convert literature undertaken by Poston, many converts rejected
their upbringing or environment in their teens but only formally converted to Islam in
their late twenties or thirties.61

Conversion to Islam in the United States

According to a survey conducted in the 1990s among a sample of Muslims in Los Angeles,
“a significant number of Muslims in the United States are opposed to any aggressive pur
suits to convert others to Islam.”62 They may draw support for this from the previously
mentioned Qur’anic injunction, “There should be no compulsion in religion” (2:256).

Some reasons for this reluctance to proselytize might be a negative view of earlier Christ
ian missionary activities in Muslim societies, fear of scorn and rejection on the part of
Muslims who see that certain Christian missionary groups such as the Jehovah’s Witness
es have a negative image in the United States, or Muslim immigrants’ feelings of being in
adequately informed or inarticulate and hence unable to properly expound Islamic teach
ings.63 While the converted American may be perceived by immigrant Muslims as most
equipped to further spread the message of Islam, American traditions of freedom of con
science may compete with notions of promoting exclusivistic truth. For example, I am re
minded of a speech given at a Muslim youth seminar by a young American Muslim whose
father is a Euro-American convert married to a woman from a Muslim society. The daugh
ter spoke with great passion of the inability for her Muslim friends of immigrant back
ground to understand why she did not preach Islam to her American Christian grandpar
ents. She therefore needed to explain to them in Islamic terms how poor manners
(adab)64 and failure to respect elders would be evidenced by such behavior.65

In general, African American Muslims are more likely to attempt to teach others about Is
lam. According to Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, this is due to the fact that most African Ameri
cans “converted to Islam at the hand of organizations that actively proselytized; hence
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their introduction to Islam and their religious education was most influenced by active
da’wa.”66

Significant exceptions to a general lack of systematic Muslim missionary activity

(p. 646)

in the United States are efforts made by Islamic movements such as the Ahmadiyya and
various Sufi orders, which have made greater inroads, proportionate to their size, in the
American population. From this we can conclude that organized activities in spreading Is
lam do have an impact on conversion. From the 1990s until the present, organized da’wa
activities in the United States have increasingly been engaged in by specific Muslim orga
nizations.

In terms of impact on mainstream American culture, conversion to Islam receives some

attention through African American celebrity conversions such as those of Malcolm X, Ka
reem Abd al-Jabbar, or Muhammad Ali. Such celebrity conversions, combined with the
somewhat negative publicity generated by the activities and pronouncements of figures
such as Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, who is usually characterized by the
media as a “Muslim” leader, led many Americans in the 1970s and 1980s to perceive Is
lam in America as a religion primarily identified with the black community. On the one
hand, this supported an identification of Islam with political protest and minority status.
On the other hand, it reflected an indigenization of Islam that made it difficult for Ameri
can politicians and opinion-makers to impose restrictions on the immigrant or converted
Muslim populations within the United States.

In a study focusing on Islam and African Americans, Richard Brent Turner writes, “Islam
has become an increasingly significant element of the African American experience. As
the commodification process popularizes elements of Islamic culture among non-Muslims,
Islam could indeed prevail in black America in the twenty-first century.”67 A prominent
African American scholar of Islam, Sherman Jackson, has given voice to the changing role
of African Americans and, by extension, of indigenous and convert Muslims, in shaping
the practice of Islam in America. Jackson criticizes in particular the actions and attitudes
of Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrant Muslims who seek to impose their cultural
practices and attitudes on the indigenous community.68 At present, a lively debate is on
going among American Muslim intellectuals on this topic.69

As far as concerns the immigrant Muslim community in the United States, which is still at
this point the majority of American Muslims, the conversion of mainstream America to Is
lam is an aspiration but not an expectation. In many immigrant Muslim communities
across the United States, converts, whether white or African American, are not highly vis
ible participants. British Islamic activist Khurram Murad at one point criticized those im
migrant Muslims who are content with preserving their own cultural identity as a minori
ty by asking, “Why should any non-Muslim ever consider becoming part of a minority cul
ture?…Have new Muslims found an appropriate place in Islamic organizations or on any
Islamic platforms during the last 25 years?”70

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However, since 9/11, especially in the United States, this pattern has been changing, with
increasingly visible public leadership coming from converts, whether white or African
American, including figures such as Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Ingrid Mattson, and Zayd
Shakir.

One reason for the lower visibility of converts within the immigrant community is that
African Americans tend to constitute their own congregations and to feel less (p. 647) wel
comed by mosques dominated by immigrants, where language, cultural practice, and
clothing may reflect a specific ethnic identity.71 In addition, Muslims of American back
ground play a larger role in American-based institutions that interface with Muslim iden
tity, such as by serving as prison chaplains or military chaplains, teaching the new gener
ation of Muslims in Islamic schools, or in some cases teaching Islamic Studies at Ameri
can Universities. On occasion, American Muslims of both African and Euro-American
backgrounds have served as Imams for immigrant-based mosques.72

Converts to Islam are generally welcomed by the Muslim community. In terms of the re
ception of converts, some may feel that Euro-Americans receive an especially positive re
ception from the immigrant community, and it may be observed that certain immigrant
ethnic groups are particularly impressed by converts, for example, traditional Afghans,73
while others may be more guarded in their enthusiasm. From the perspective of the world
Muslim community, conversions to Islam in the West demonstrate the vibrancy of Islam,
and there are increasing moves toward an institutionalization of da’wa activities, for ex
ample, through the founding of da’wa centers in Saudi Arabia and in Houston.74

An influential piece written in 1988 by Khurram Murad of the Islamic Foundation in Eng
land pointed out the need for specific da’wa strategies in particular environments. For ex
ample, in America, Muslims should not present Islam as new or different but rather as a
continuity of the Judeo-Christian heritage. Murad suggests that in terms of criticizing cul
tural practices, common ground, such as disapproval of drug use, should be stressed
rather than divisive issues such as the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.75 Which issues
are “common” is not entirely obvious. As an example, community concerns such as drug
use and gangs were suggested to one American Muslim presenter as appropriate for dis
cussion with a mixed Muslim/non-Muslim audience at a da’wa dinner. Further suggestions
made about common issues, for example, that Muslim should join some evangelical Chris
tian groups in picketing abortion clinics, were perceived by American Muslims to be less
judicious. This is due to the fact that the conservative Christians identified with such ac
tivities were least likely to be amenable to conversion to Islam or sympathetic to Muslims,
while many liberal Americans would find such activities objectionable.

Conversion to Islam in the West has been studied by Larry Poston76 and Ali Köse,77 who
focus primarily on two dimensions: the activities of Muslim da’wa toward this end and the
profile of populations that have been attracted to Islam. Considering who might choose to
become Muslim is useful for Muslim strategists in terms of where to direct their efforts.
From the point of view of the sociology or the psychology of religion, besides joining cults
or New Religious Movements, Islam and perhaps Buddhism are the major conversion

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choices of contemporary Americans. Köse concludes that the profile of converts to Islam
through Sufism may be closer to the profiles of those attracted to New Religious Move
ments (i.e., they will involve more emotive reactions and a sense of spiritual crisis). Both
Köse and Poston have seen non-Sufi conversions to Islam as being more intellectually and
reflectively based. While Islam as a choice for African Americans has distinctive cultural
and political aspects, it also must have an important personal (p. 648) and psychological
component. Similarly, it would be wrong to overlook the element of cultural protest in Eu
ro-American conversions to Islam.78 In African Americans’ self-perception, Islam is clearly
associated with their historical travail. According to GhaneaBassiri, “Islam is believed to
have served throughout African American history as a progressive movement that helped
alleviate the conditions of slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States.”79 He
continues, “For most African-Americans, Islam is not a matter of personal faith alone but
a matter of the social, economic, and political empowerment of African-Americans.”80

Poston’s study, Islamic Da`wah in the West, draws on paradigms of conversion such as
those of William James and Erik Erikson, as well as studies of the maturation of moral
reasoning, finding that in contrast to the sense of an adolescent “snapping” in what were
essentially re-conversions to Christianity, particularly in revivalist contexts, most converts
to Islam are adults in at least their late twenties who have spent a long period, since ex
periencing a loss of conventional faith in adolescence, pursuing serious study and reflect
ing on existential issues.81

In my own writings relative to conversion to Islam, I considered American Muslim

women,82 conversion narratives to Islam from the 1920s to the 1990s,83 American Sufi
movements,84 and the challenges described by convert mothers in America who are rais
ing their children as Muslims.85 One aspect of my findings was the importance of what
might be termed the surrounding generational or cohort influence on conversion, so that,
for example, the type of female American becoming Muslim in the 1970s (individualistic,
spiritual seeker, Sufi-oriented) would differ from the cohort of the 1980s (young, married
to a student from the Middle East, likely to adopt conservative Islamic dress).86 Thus, the
prevailing currents both in the Muslim World and in Western societies play a role in de
termining attraction to alternatives such as conversion to Islam, together with elements
of organized da’wa and the individual social and psychological backgrounds of converts.

In the United States, conversion to Islam covers a broad range of populations, and ele
ments of race, class, gender, and cohort come into play. Common to African American and
Euro-American conversions would be what I term an element of cultural protest against
the dominant American system. For example, African Americans may find through conver
sion to Islam a means to reject alien values dictated by the white-dominated society, while
white Americans may convert in part as a response to secularization, anomie, lack of au
thenticity, and so on. The political role of the United States in Middle Eastern affairs and
negative media portrayals of Islam and Muslims have ironically made Islam appeal to a
small segment of the population who identified sympathetically with Iran during the
hostage crisis, with the Palestinian uprising, or with Iraq during the first Gulf War.87 The
attacks of 9/11 shifted the paradigm in certain ways. While some sources claim a rise in

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conversions, presumably due to a greater awareness of Islam after it became a major me
dia focus in the aftermath of the attacks, others predict a decline in conversions due to
the stigmatization of Muslim identity in the broader culture.

Aminah McCloud has studied African American converts to Islam.88 She argues
(p. 649)

that African Americans have either followed accommodationist or separatist ideologies

with regard to the dominant American culture. The separatists are further characterized
as either favoring a “Back to Africa” or a “nation within a nation” position, and it is ulti
mately this latter group that has been most drawn to conversion to Islam.89 McCloud ar
gues that “conversion to Islam fits within the orientation of the ‘nation within a nation’
movement….It is clear that this religion promised a new identity, a feeling of ‘somebodi
ness’ denied by the dominant culture, a liberation from Christian domination and from
relegation to insignificance. The new adherents shed Christianity, which they perceived
as the root of their oppression in its glorification of suffering and promise of redemption
in the hereafter.”90

For the smaller numbers of Euro-Americans, the process of conversion to Islam has been
largely mediated though immigrants from the Muslim world and their literature and insti
tutions. While converting to Islam may be understood as a rejection of modernity or main
stream American culture and values, creating a mythology of cultural return is rather
more difficult for this group, and for this reason adopting cultural aspects of Islamic iden
tities may be more problematic. For example, changing names is less common among
whites, perhaps due to the sense of discomfort with a foreign-sounding name and the
repercussions on a person who could otherwise pass as a member of the dominant cultur
al group defining themselves as otherwise.

In the case of Hispanic Americans, the choice of Islam may be constructed as “returning
to the Andalusian heritage.” For Hispanics on the East Coast, conversion has often been
mediated through the African American community, an example being the Dar al-Islam
movement from which a Hispanic group, Alliansa Islamica, separated about thirty years
ago. Like the original Dar, the group is both shari’a and Sufi oriented. Since 9/11, Hispan
ic Muslims have received a greater share of media attention than previously. Their num
bers have been estimated at about 70,000, and they are served by several websites and
publications.91

Mass Conversions
Although the spread of the great religions often occurred through mass conversions in
which tribes or peoples followed their leaders or authority figures into a new faith, this is
rather rare in modern times. Interestingly, I can think of several instances of mass con
versions in American Islam. The most famous is the “mainstreaming” or embracing of
Sunni theology and practice on the part of the majority of the members of the former Na
tion of Islam that took place under the leadership of Warith Deen Muhammad (d. 2008) in
1977. Many anticipate that the same will eventually occur in the Farrakhan branch of the
movement, and in fact his statements since the 1990s seem to be a preparation for such a
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movement. One African American movement, the Nubian Islamic Hebrews, converted en
masse first to Islam and subsequently to Judaism, suggesting that (p. 650) the mass con
version phenomenon may be a feature of African American movements rather than attrib
utable directly to Islam.92 In at least one case known to the author, many Euro- and Asian
American members of a martial arts “dojo” in the San Francisco Bay Area followed their
teacher in converting to Naqshbandi Sufism and Islam in the 1990s.

Styles of Da’wa
Khurram Murad cites three levels of da’wa activities:

(1) organized macro—supported by governments

(2) organized macro—supported by institutions
(3) micro-da’wa carried out by individuals.93

Larry Poston characterizes da’wa activities as either “lifestyle” or “activist,” while Köse
uses the categories “introverted” or “extroverted” to clarify similar distinctions. Lifestyle
(indirect da’wa) is exemplified in a statement quoted in Poston’s study: “Let us take Islam
to the west not by pulpit preaching and mailing Islamic literature but by doing what Mus
lims ought to do, living, drinking, eating, sleeping, and behaving as Muslims are enjoined
to do.”94

On the other hand, activist preaching95 (extroverted da’wa), from the perspective of immi
grant Muslims, could include almost any Muslim activity, such as the presentation of in
formation about Islam though call-in phone lines, radio and television programming, pub
lications, mosque open-houses, or more formal interfaith dinners or dialogues. Some of
these media are directed to both Muslims and non-Muslims; some are specifically de
signed as outreach to the non-Muslim American community.

Institutionally, there is no one central organization dedicated to da’wa work, although

some Islamic centers may have special committees designated for this purpose. A number
of private individuals and groups have acted to set up their own committees, and some
centers have sponsored da’wa workshops. For example, the Muslim Community Center of
Chicago, an urban and ethnically diverse center, formed a da’wa committee in the 1980s
that is composed of members from the immigrant community and of American Muslims of
Hispanic, Euro-American, and African American backgrounds. The budget had only been
$100 per year. This was increased to $1,000 annually in the 1990s.

Activities undertaken include the production of pamphlets and, on one member’s initia
tive, a telephone hotline. This person placed ads in the Chicago Sun Times and the Chica
go Tribune with lines like, “Do you know that Mary is the most revered woman in Islam,”
with the telephone number “888-yes-Islam.” These advertisements generated some 15‒20
calls per week in the 1990s. The member had long phone conversations with the callers
and classified interlocutors as either inter-faith types, or argumentative, noting that for
each type one must have a repertoire of responses. This real estate agent/da’i (p. 651)

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(missionary) claims, “I could close five or six conversions right now,” but he prefers for
persons to take their time and feel really committed. An interesting aspect of the ongoing
activities of the committee is the discussion concerning which of two styles works in
drawing persons to Islam, constructed by the maintainer of the phone line as “Ahmed
Deedat”96 vs. a more Americanized interfaith approach. Some Muslims like the idea of
quoting chapter and verses in debates in which scripture and its claims are the main
ground of convincing the other. However, it is clear that this approach is the least likely to
influence large members of people, since Americans who are oriented to Bible study and
debate will be more strongly committed to a conservative interpretation of Christianity.

Numerically, most Euro-Americans who accept Islam do so through marriage, usually be
tween female Americans and male Muslims. Stefano Allievi refers to such conversions as
“relational.”97 The wife’s conversion is not a requirement of the religion, although Muslim
husbands naturally are gratified if their wives adopt the Islamic faith. Other modes of
da’wa in the form of informational and relational outreach take place on college campus
es and have come to include Islamic Awareness Week—sponsored nationally by campus
chapters of Muslim Student Associations (MSA)—Ramadan dinners, Id dinners,98 and lec
tures sponsored by campus MSAs.99

Islamic programs have also sponsored cable television programs, ranging from simple
public-access talk shows to full-scale production services such as the Los Angeles-based
Islam TV, whose weekly programs were syndicated worldwide.100 Individual Muslims have
made efforts such as buying one minute of radio time weekly in order to propagate the
faith. Beginning in the 1980s, testimonial video tapes became available by catalogue.
Among the titles of such videos are Islam My Choice by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Nancy
Ali—an Ex-Nun, Pathways to Islam, and My Life as a Muslim. With the rise of YouTube, a
broader selection of convert testimonials has become available, as have counter-Islamic
polemic videos and sites.

Rituals and Formalities of Conversion to Islam

In America, Islamic centers provide locations for conversions to take place in the sense
that they issue certificates that enable persons to acquire visas in order to perform the
Hajj. Sometimes a conversion takes on ceremonial aspects with the entire mosque con
gregation on a Friday acclaiming a new Muslim. In the case of a female this would be dif
ficult, since she could not come to the front of the male section of the prayer hall. There
is some evidence of a ritualization of conversion on the part of African American congre
gations in the form of “shahada rebirth celebrations.”101 One such celebration in Boston
was held in order for the community to express gratitude for twelve new conversions.102
In a Muslim society, the state is likely to become involved in the conversion (p. 652)
process. For example, in Egypt, a convert must obtain a conversion certificate from offi
cials at al-Azhar as well as register with the government, since conversion might entail
other legal aspects, such as changes in inheritance and personal status law.

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Sufi groups of what I have termed the “hybrid” variety—requiring adherence to Islamic
ritual while appealing to Americans103 —may combine conversion with initiation into a
Sufi order. One such leader was criticized for inviting primarily non-Muslim audiences at
talks given to Americans to join in reciting the profession of faith (shahada). The idea was
that even if the participants did not realize it, formally they were becoming Muslims.

The role of Islamic ritual is important in the conversion experience, and non-Muslims are
often attracted to join in activities such as dhikr (chanting pious phrases or names of God)
sessions, prayer, and fast-breaking (iftar) dinners in Ramadan. One prison chaplain ex
plained that inmates would often initially watch Muslim prisoners at prayer, then join the
rituals, and finally ask to formally make the profession of faith.

Sufi Movements
There are a number of Sufi movements operating in the United States, and these provide
one source of conversions to Islam. Sufism has had an ambivalent reception in main
stream Islamic institutions, such as the Islamic Society of North America, due to its dis
paragement by supporters of more austere and literalist interpretations of the religion,
and due to what is perceived as less rigorous enforcement of shari’a behaviors on the part
of Sufi followers. In fact, some New Age Sufi movements are not even nominally
Islamic.104 Sufi activities might be thought of as broadly contributing to conversions to Is
lam through their greater interface with mainstream American culture. For example, in
what I term “the sphere of translation” (i.e., arts and intellectual life) activities of Sufi
groups include psychology, holistic health, dance, music, literature, poetry, and publish
ing. In what I have termed “the sphere of sites and ceremonies” (which take place in
Muslim spaces, including mosques, Sufi centers, and shrines) there is broader outreach
to the non-Muslim American population.

Within the sphere of translation, the influence of the universalist or “perennialist” Sufi
movements, that is, those advocating a transcendent unity of religion rather than exclu
sively Islamic identity, is broader in mainstream Western culture, although a visit to any
“metaphysical” or New Age bookstore will reveal the increasing volume of works by Is
lamic Sufis and their disciples. The Islamic-oriented Sufi movements favor translations
and commentaries on classical Sufi texts,105 while the perennialist Sufi movements favor
quest narratives,106 teaching stories, and transpersonal psychology.107

(p. 653) Post-Conversion Support Groups

Convert support groups have been one of the neglected areas of Islamic da’wa. It should
be noted that, unlike in Judaism and most Christian denominations, Muslims have re
quired little pre-conversion instruction. Thus, the follow-up is even more crucial. For ex
ample, every six months the Islamic Foundation in Villa Park, a Chicago suburb, holds in
structional classes in the Islamic prayers oriented to converted adults. This center has
sponsored a Qur’an study group for new Muslims for thirty years in which the scripture is
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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

read and discussed in English in an open way, promoting questions about both belief and
practice. Examples of such questions could be the permissibility of deducting zakat on in
come tax. This more critical and open style of religious study is clearly in contrast to
more traditional Islamic educational styles of rote memorization in Arabic and reading
from classical interpretations. Issues of authority, whether related to the authority of the
Arabic language or of particular classical or modern commentators, arise as members
proceed past the initial level of new convert and become more aware of the interpretive
diversity within contemporary Islam. Support groups seem to work best when run by con
verts themselves, assuming that the city or Islamic center is large enough to support such
a group. In one such group observed at the Islamic Foundation, Villa Park, Illinois, many
of the participants were inter-married couples where the spouse had accepted or was
considering accepting Islam.

It should be noted that the Muslim community with which converts associate immediately
after conversion may be crucial in shaping their attitudes to practice and doctrine. For ex
ample, a female convert who is surrounded by more liberal or “cultural” Muslims may
feel comfortable about her identity as a Muslim despite not wearing a head scarf. If, soon
after conversion, she is surrounded by a community emphasizing that strict forms of Is
lamic dress are essential, she will assume that this form of dress is a requirement.

Integration into the Muslim community in America may be difficult for single converts,
perhaps more difficult for women than for males. The single convert is not likely to find
marriage facilitated by becoming Muslim. One member of Chicago’s Muslim Community
Center da’wa group emphasized the importance of social as well as religious support and
encouraged activities such as pizza parties and inviting new Muslims to share Id celebra
tions with Muslim families. On the other hand, inducements to convert, such as providing
jobs or financial support, were frowned upon.

As the Muslim community in the United States becomes larger and more well-estab
lished, the varieties of da’wa may come to compete with each other. Studies in the sociol
ogy of religion108 have described denominations as competing for market shares of the
population, and even if that characterization seems rather instrumental, one does have to
recognize that there are bound to be affinities between certain groups of Muslims, their
ethnicity, class, and ideological perspectives, and the groups of Americans most likely to
respond to their style of presenting and practicing Islam.

Beginning in 2005, the Islamic Circle of North America, an offshoot of the conser
(p. 654)

vative Jamaat-i Islamic movement, took on the project of reaching out to potential con
verts and facing the challenges of “retention.”109 As part of this initiative, a phone hotline
for potential converts was set up, a continuing series of “Revert Workshops” were held in
the Chicago area, and, most prominently, a series of billboard and bus advertisements
were mounted beginning in 2007.

The phone line strategy (1-877-why-Islam) was said to have resulted in twenty conver
sions in 2006. In order to answer inquiries on the telephone line, personnel are taught or
ganized response strategies. For example, the ideal qualities of a respondent are said to
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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

include: the person should be married, be a “revert” themselves, speak good English, and
have good pronunciation of the requisite Arabic terms. Once contact is made, the person
in charge of da’wa follow-up should ideally be the same sex and age as the inquirer, have
more or less the same educational level, and live in the same area.110 Instructions for
da’wa interactions are sprinkled with the insights of social psychology that enjoin efforts
to make the prospective revert “comfortable,” “build confidence,” “bond,” and provide
“effective mentoring.” Once “face to face contact” is made, the respondent should look
the person in the eye, have a friendly smile, say “as-salam alaikum,”111 and be their usual
self—affect should be neither too flat nor overly emotional. They are also advised to not
come across as being “too opinionated.” Sociable acts, such as taking the person out for
samosas (Indian snacks), are recommended.112

Another initiative on the part of the Islamic Circle of North America is a periodic “Revert
Conference” convened to discuss issues faced by new Muslims. A workshop that I ob
served, held at a local mosque, included an interactive session focusing on problems that
the mentored revert might face. Predictably, females who wanted to wear modest dress
(hijab), despite family objections, were instructed in a set of rationales. Scriptural proofs
included citing Paul’s injunctions in Corinthians as proof that female veiling is universally
enjoined by religion. An interesting discussion ensued over whether cultural comparison
as a proof for the value of the practice could be a risky strategy. There are indeed fewer
rapes in Saudi Arabia—Is this a convincing argument that gender segregation protects
women, or does it present an apology for restrictions imposed on women in the name of
religion?

In general, reverts’ relations with the non-Muslim family are to be based on Islamic
norms of respect, and a low-key lifestyle da’wa is advocated. For example, a revert should
aspire to demonstrate that conversion has made one a better person and that one can still
participate in normal activities such as joining in laughter, caring about baseball, and so
on. An outspoken African American revert suggested that “one should never miss a da’wa
moment”; for example, avoiding shaking hands with a member of the opposite sex would
provide an opportunity to explain how respectful Muslim men are of women. In terms of
asserting that Islamic values are universal, he suggested that all good basic values, even
ones learned before conversion, could be “connected to the Deen.”113

The issue of whether to offer material support to converts is complex. The negative per
ceptions of Christian missionaries offering inducements have made people leery of
(p. 655) the stigma of “bribing” for conversions. At the same time, converting to Islam may

have real material costs to persons who might lose their jobs and circle of friends or even
family as a result of their conversion. The scenario for this seemed primarily to be those
employed in a family business, since normally an individual could sue the employer if
such religious discrimination could be proven. “Motivating” converts to get on their feet
and help themselves was ultimately deemed preferable to providing extended support
and charity.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

By far the most visible ICNA da’wa initiative is one that began in 2007 in Chicago, with
the sponsorship of billboards next to major highways and signs on city buses that stimu
lated interest in the religion and directed the public to the website, “Why Islam.” News
paper articles cited the group as claiming seven to eight conversions a month as a result
of this campaign. Chapters in other American cities such as New York and San Francisco
joined in the initiative, and other Muslim organizations joined in co-sponsoring the cam
paign.114

Finding Community and Retention

I would generalize that for the first generation of children of convert Euro-American Mus
lims, retaining Islam has been challenging. Their parents often veer between the ex
tremes of either being so rigid that the children rebel and leave home or being so tolerant
that the children decide to reassimilate to an American lifestyle, perhaps not changing re
ligion but not practicing Islam. My research indicated that for females among the early
cohort of Euro-American reverts, being married to a man from a Muslim society made in
culcating Islamic faith and practice in the next generation much easier. This is due to
some of the following factors: the presence of an extended Muslim family, the passing on
of faith in conjunction with traditions, and simple acts of everyday life. Two American
converts married to each other, especially in the early period of the 1960s or 1970s,
would have difficulty in finding an organized Muslim community at all. In cases where
one existed, the other members might be ethnically homogeneous and not perceived as
supportive or in sync with the values and interests of the convert family. Children of such
marriages often drifted away from the religion or rejected it dramatically.115 It remains to
be seen whether children of mixed marriages of immigrant and American Muslims fare
better than children from the union of two converted Americans in terms of retaining a
commitment to Islam due to the fact that the former often have Muslim family and social
izing networks. For example, I suggest that children of cross-cultural marriages are more
comfortable with American-born children of immigrants and therefore more likely to be
able to find marriage partners within the Muslim community.

In response to the threat of reassimilation, one group of Sufi-oriented American Muslims

on the West Coast engaged their children to each other in order to discourage the adoles
cent fever of dating and romance. In the African American community, Clara (p. 656)
Muhammad schools, following in a tradition founded by the wife of Elijah Muhammad,
and strong family orientations to practicing Islam are effective in retention, when they
are available.

Future Numbers and Trends

In my opinion, the overall numbers of conversions to Islam in America are stable. As Is
lam becomes more familiar to Americans, through being taught as part of internationaliz
ing the high school and college curriculum, the inclusion in public holiday calendars of

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

holidays such as “Muslim Day” commemorated in December in New York or the Muslim
World Day Parade,116 one may speculate as to whether such cultural inclusion and famil
iarity will, in fact, reduce the number of conversions or increase it. GhaneaBassiri ob
served that second and third generation American-born Muslims of the African American
community “do not share in their parents’ enthusiasm for the proselytization of a new and
unique divine message. They tend to concern themselves more with the significance and
implications of their faith for their personal lives and surroundings.”117

Muslims involved with da’wa assert that “only God can change a person’s heart.” At the
same time, Muslim organizations that take an interest in conversion increasingly under
stand that having materials and support systems available to meet the needs of new Mus
lims will play a strong role in influencing the success of further conversion efforts.

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Notes:

(1) . Richard W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Middle Period: An Essay in Quantita
tive History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). A very accessible summa
ry of Bulliet’s argument is available as “Religious Conversion and the Spread of Innova
tion,” Fathom: The Source for Online Learning, http://www.fathom.com/feature/2199/
index.html.

(2) . Bulliet, Conversion to Islam, 73.

(3) . Some would contest whether organized missionary activity was at all a part of classi
cal Islamic expansion, asserting that those few contemporary movements that are orga
nized for da’wa have modeled themselves on Christian missionary activities. On conver
sion to Islam in the classical period, see Nehemia Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam (New
York: Holmes & Meier, 1979).

(4) . Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Mentor Books,
1962), 103.

(5) . This is discussed in William Chittick and Sachiko Murata, The Vision of Islam (New
York: Paragon Press, 1994), 291.

(6) . There are, however, certain hadith that present the Prophet as declaring the death
penalty upon apostates. W. Heffening, “Murtadd,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1992), 7:736.

(7) . Among contemporary scholars who have discussed this are Abdulaziz Sachedina,
Mahmoud Ayoub, and Khaled Abou El Fadl. See Abdullah Saeed, Freedom of Religion,
Apostasy and Islam (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).

(8) . See, for example. “The List: The World’s Fastest-Growing Religions,” in Foreign Poli
cy Magazine (May 2007), http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3835.
Claims of which religions are the “fastest” growing are contested.

(9) . The article by Jodi Wilgoren, “Islam Attracts Converts by the Thousands,” New York
Times, Oct. 22, 2001, claimed an “expert” source as estimating 25,000 conversions a year
in the United States, a number that I believe is somewhat unrealistic. A 2007 survey by
the Pew Research Center found that the population of Muslim Americans, in comparison
to the rest of the world, is unique in incorporating a relatively large number of converts
to the religion—nearly a quarter. Almost all converts to Islam were native-born American
(91 percent), and almost three-fifths (59 percent) of converts to Islam were African Amer
ican. “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream” (Pew Research, 2007),
21, http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf.

(10) . Exceptions in this regard are the preface to Levtzion’s edited volume, Conversion to
Islam, and attempts to apply Bulliet’s statistical methodology in diverse regions.

(11) . See Karin van Nieuwkerk’s chapter in this volume.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(12) . Lewis Rambo, “Theories of Conversion: Understanding and Interpreting Religious

Change,” Social Compass 46, no. 3 (1999): 259–271.

(13) . Qur’an 8:63, 9:60.

(14) . H. A. R. Gibb, Studies in the Civilization of Islam, ed. S. J. Shaw and W. R. Polk
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), 5.

(15) . The term dhimmi referred to the non-Muslim subjects with whom Muslims were un
derstood to be in a contract of responsibility or dhimma, entailing obligations on both
sides, generally respect and cooperation on the part of the dhimmi and protection from
the Muslim rulers on the part of the Muslims. Levtzion suggests that measures that dis
criminated more strongly against dhimmi, such as enforcement of distinctive dress codes
and behavioral restrictions, were imposed under the Abbasis rule al-Mutawakkil (847–
861) and might have increased conversion rates in the central lands as a consequence.
Nehemia Levtzion, “Conversion under Muslim Domination: A Comparative Study,” in Is
lam in Africa and the Middle East: Studies on Conversion and Renewal, ed. Michel Abitol
and Amos Nadan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 2:23.

(16) . For example, Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide
(Teaneck, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2003).

(17) . Arthur Goldschmidt, A Concise History of the Middle East, 8th ed. (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2006), 75.

(18) . There are four legal schools (madhahib) in Sunni Islam. The Maliki school follows
the juristic methodology of the scholar Malik ibn Anas (ca. 711–795) and is more promi
nent in the Maghreb and adjacent African regions.

(19) . Maribel Fierro, “Mawali and Muwalladun in al-Andalus,” in Patronage and Patron
age in Early and Classical Islam, ed. Monique Bernards and John Nawas (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1995), 195–235.

(20) . Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).

(21) . David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 45.

(22) . Such stories, for example, are found in the Sejarah Malayu, ca. 1615. Accounts
from some of these epics are summarized in Karel A. Steenbrink, Dutch Colonialism and
Indonesia Islam: Contacts and Conflict 1596–1950 (New York: Rodopi, 2006), 124–128.
See also Russell Jones, “Ten Conversion Motifs from Indonesia,” in Levtzion, Conversion
to Islam, 129–158.

(23) . For example, on Spain, see Fierro, “Mawali and Muwalladun in al-Andalus,” 195–
245; on the Balkans, see Anton Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: Kisve Bahas
Petitions and Ottoman Social Life, 1670–1730 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004).
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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(24) . Richard Eaton notes the importance of this fact in rebutting claims that Islam was
forced upon India, since areas under Muslim control were not the ones with the highest
conversion rates. Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley and Los An
geles: University of California, 1997), 155.

(25) . Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial India (Delhi: Ox
ford University Press, 1990).

(26) . Richard Eaton, “Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India,” in Ap
proaches to Islam in Religious Studies, ed. Richard M. Martin (Tucson: University of Ari
zona Press, 1985), 107ff. See also Eaton, Rise of Islam, 113–123; Peter Hardy, “Modern
European and Muslim Explanations of Conversion to Islam in South Asia: A Preliminary
Study of the Literature,” in Conversion to Islam, ed. Nehemia Levtzion (New York:
Holmes & Meier, 1979), 68–99.

(27) . Eaton, “Approaches to the Study of Conversion,” 113–119.

(28) . Abdul Malik Mujahid, Conversion to Islam: Untouchables Strategy for Protest in In
dia (Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1989).

(29) . Peter Van der Veer, “Introduction” to Conversion to Modernities (London: Rout
ledge, 1995), 13.

(30) . Eaton, Rise of Islam, 305ff.

(31) . Anton Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: Kisve Bahas Petitions and Ot
toman Social Life, 1670–1730 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004), 3. Bulliet’s theory of populists vs.
conservative elitists in Iran is applied to generational shifts in convert mentalities in Ana
tolia by Minkov, 16. Conversions in Anatolia are also discussed in Cemal Kafadar Between
Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Universi
ty of California Press, 1995), 23.

(32) . Levtzion, Conversion to Islam, 8.

(33) . Minkov, Conversion to Islam, 26.

(34) . Ibid., 28.

(35) . Ibid., 33ff.

(36) . Godfrey Goodwin, The Janissaries (London: Saqi Books, 1994), 35–36.

(37) . Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer
sity Press, 2002), 203.

(38) . Mark Woodward, Islam in Java: Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of
Yogyakarta (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989).

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(39) . Russell Jones, “Ten Conversion Myths from Indonesia,” in Conversion to Islam, ed.
Levtzion, 153.

(40) . Robert W. Hefner, “Social Legacies and Possible Futures,” in Indonesia: The Great
Transition, ed. John Bresnan (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 91–92.

(41) . Rex O’Fahey, “Islam, Society and State in Dar Fur,” in Conversion to Islam, ed.
Levtzion, 202.

(42) . Edward E. Curtis, IV, Islam in Black America (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2002), 33.

(43) . Randall L. Pouwels, “Islam in East Africa,” in Encyclopedia of African History, ed.
Kevin Shillington (New York: CRC Books, 2005), 710–711; Robert Launey, “New Frontiers
of Conversion,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, ed. Robert W. Hefner (Cam
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 6:258–261.

(44) . This discussion of Horton’s theoretical contribution has been largely adapted from
Wolfgang Gabbert, “Social and Cultural Conditions of Religious Conversion in Colonial
Southwest Tanzania, 1891–1939,” Ethnology 40, no. 4 (2001): 291–308. See Robin Hor
ton, “African Conversion,” Africa 41 (1971): 85–108; Robin Horton, “On the Rationality of
Conversion,” in Africa 45 (1975): 219–235, 373–399; Robin Horton, Patterns of Thought in
Africa and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

(45) . Clifford Geertz, “Internal Conversion in Contemporary Bali,” in The Interpretation

of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 170–189, especially p. 171.

(46) . Horton, “African Conversion,” 101; Horton, Patterns of Thought, 175; R. W. Hefner,
“Introduction: World-Building and the Rationality of Conversion,” in Conversion to Chris
tianity, ed. Robert W. Hefner (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1993), 20–21.

(47) . Horton, “African Conversion,” 102–103; Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion,”
220, 234, 381, 392–393; M. Wilson, Religion and the Transformation of Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 26–51; I. M. Lewis, Islam in Tropical
Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1980), vii‒viii, 59, 80–81.

(48) . Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).

(49) . Marcia Hermansen, “How to Put the Genie Back in the Bottle: ‘Identity Islam’ and
Muslim Youth Cultures in America,” in Progressive Muslims: On Pluralism, Gender, and
Justice, ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003), 303–319.

(50) . Reynold Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (London: Kegan Paul, 1914), 16.

(51) . al-Ghazzali, The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazzali: Al-Munqidh Min Ad-Dalal, trans.
Montgomery Watt (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007).

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(52) . Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Medicines of the Soul: Female Bodies and Sacred Geogra
phies in a Transnational Islam (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 2001)
is a work about accounts by modern Egyptian women who rediscover Islamic piety, espe
cially with Sufi influences.

(53) . Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety. The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). The struggle between adherents of Sufi-ori
ented local Islamic practice and more literalist Wahhabi/Salafi interpretations has been
ongoing around the Muslim world since the 1980s.

(54) . Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, eds., New Media in the Muslim World
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

(55) . For this expression and the early history of European conversions to Islam, see
Nabil I. Matar, “The Renegade in English Seventeenth Century Imagination,” Studies in
English Literature 1500–1900 33 (1993): 489–505; Nabil I. Matar, “Turning Turk: Conver
sion to Islam in English Renaissance Thought,” Durham University Journal 86, no. 1
(1994): 33–41.

(56) . Nabil Matar, “Introduction,” in Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption: Barbary Captivity
Narratives from Early Modern England, ed. Daniel J. Vitkus (New York: Columbia Univer
sity Press, 2001), 2.

(57) . These elements and some of the following examples are discussed in Marcia Her
mansen, “Roads to Mecca: Conversion Narratives of European and Euro-American Mus
lims,” Muslim World 89, no. 1 (1999): 56–89.

(58) . Muhammad Asad, Road to Mecca (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 1.

(59) . Maryam Jameelah, Memoirs of Childhood and Youth in America (1945‒1962): The
Story of One Western Convert’s Quest for Truth (Lahore: Muhammad Yusuf Khan and
Sons, 1989), 9.

(60) . Owen Rutter, Triumphant Pilgrimage: An English Muslim’s Journey from Sarawak to
Mecca (London: J. B. Lippincott, 1937), 116–117.

(61) . Larry Poston, Islamic Da’wah in the West Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dy
namics of Conversion to Islam (London: Oxford, 1992), 166–168.

(62) . Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Competing Visions of Islam in the United States: A Study of
Los Angeles (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), 89. However, many more Muslims in
the survey felt that active efforts should be made to convert others.

(63) . In the results of a survey of Muslims conducted by Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Muslims

who always tried to teach others about Islam were the ones who reported most frequently
experiencing prejudice. GhaneaBassiri, Competing Visions, 92–93.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(64) . Adab is proper behavior. On adab, see Barbara D. Metcalf, Moral Conduct and Au
thority: The Case of Adab in South Asian Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984).

(65) . Participant, Youth Seminar, Chicago Milad Conference. July 27, 1997.

(66) . GhaneaBassiri, Competing Visions, 94.

(67) . Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African American Experience (Bloomington: Indi
ana University Press, 1997), 241.

(68) . Sherman Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resur
rection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

(69) . See, for example, Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, “Islam and the Cultural Imperative,”
http://www.nawawi.org/downloads/article3.pdf.

(70) . Khurram Murad, Da’wah among Non-Muslims in the West: Some Conceptual and
Methodological Aspects (Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 1988), 15.

(71) . Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican.

(72) . For example, Bilal Hyde and Hamza Yusuf Hanson in San Jose, California.

(73) . Some years ago I personally observed elderly Afghan refugee women in the United
States requesting an American convert female to pray for them, thereby demonstrating
great respect for a person who had voluntarily chosen the religion and was in a state of
having previous sin wiped away.

(74) . The Saudi government associates a number of organizations and official organs as
“da’wa” centers. http://www.al-islam.com/articles/articles-e.asp?fname=INFO_R3_E. The
Houston organization may be viewed at the following site: http://
www.islamicdawahcenter.org/html/about_us.html.

(75) . Murad, Da’wah among Non-Muslims, 33.

(76) . Poston, Islamic Da’wah in the West.

(77) . Ali Köse, Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Converts (London: Kegan
Paul, 1996).

(78) . On the element of culture in conversion to Islam, see Hermansen, “Roads to Mec
ca,” 56–89.

(79) . GhaneaBassiri, Competing Visions, 170.

(80) . Ibid., 171.

(81) . Poston, Islamic Da’wah in the West, chs. 9 and 10.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(82) . Marcia Hermansen, “Two-Way Acculturation: Muslim Women in America,” in The

Muslims of America, ed. Yvonne Haddad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 188–
201.

(83) . Hermansen, “Roads to Mecca.”

(84) . Marcia Hermansen, “In the Garden of American Sufi Movements: Hybrids and
Perennials,” in New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam, ed. Peter Clarke
(London: Luzac Oriental Press, 1997), 155–178.

(85) . Hermansen, “Keeping the Faith.”

(86) . Hermansen, “Two-Way Acculturation.”

(87) . Stefano Allievi, who primarily studies European converts, also noted the dimension
of “political” conversions as a sub-category of what he terms “rational” conversions. Ste
fano Allievi, “Conversions to Islam in Europe,” Social Compass 46, no. 3 (1999): 243–362;
Stefano Allievi, “Converts and the Making of European Islam,” ISIM Newsletter 11
(2002): 1.

(88) . Aminah Beverly McCloud, “African-American Muslim Women,” in The Muslims of

America, ed. Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane I. Smith (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991), 177–187.

(89) . Ibid., 178.

(90) . Ibid.

(91) . http://www.latinodawah.org/; http://hispanicmuslims.com. Other estimates of this

population range from 40,000 to 200,000.

(92) . Kathleen Malone O’Connor, “The Nubian Islamic Hebrews/Ansaaru Allah Communi
ty: Jewish Teachings of an African American Muslim Community,” in Black Zion: African
American Religious Encounters with Judaism, ed. Yvonne Chireau and Nathaniel Deutsch,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 118–150.

(93) . Murad, Da’wah among Non-Muslims, 9.

(94) . Poston, Islamic Da’wah in the West, 117, quoting Imran Muhammad.

(95) . Ibid., 122ff.

(96) . Ahmed Deedat (d. 2005) was a popular Muslim preacher and aggressive debater of
South African origin who founded the Islamic Propagation Centre International in 1957,
which disseminated many books and tapes. He is most well-known in the world Muslim
community as the victor in a widely circulated debate over their respective scriptures
with the Christian evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart. This took place before Swaggart was pub
licly discredited for sexual improprieties.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(97) . Stefano Allievi, Les Convertis à l’Islam: Les nouveaux musulmans d’Europe (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 1998).

(98) . Id (Eid) refers to either of the two major Muslim religious festivals—one at the end
of the month of Ramadan and the other at the culmination of the Hajj.

(99) . I discuss the role of “convert panels” during MSA Islamic Awareness weeks in
“Muslims in the Performative Mode: A Reflection on Muslim-Christian Dialogue,” Muslim
World 94, no. 3 (2004): 387–396.

(100) . Islam TV ceased operating in the 1990s. A full-time US-based channel, “Bridges
TV,” founded in 2004, was available only by subscription and therefore unlikely to have a
da’wa outreach.

(101) . The shahada is the profession of faith in Islam by declaring that “There is no God
but God and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.”

(102) . “A Shahada Rebirth celebration,” American Muslim Journal 4 (July 17, 1992): 1.

(103) . Hermansen, “In the Garden of American Sufi Movements.”

(104) . Conversion to Islam is not expected or required in movements such as the Sufi Or
der International (Inayat Khan) and groups inspired by the teachings of Idreis or Omar Ali
Shah.

(105) . Marcia Hermansen reviews Sufi literatures in more detail in “Western Sufis and
Sufi Literatures in the West,” in Sufism in the West, ed. John Hinnells and J. Malik (Lon
don: Routledge, 2006), 28–48. A recent (1990s) trend in the literary production of West
ern Islamically inclined Sufi movements are spiritual autobiographies such as Muhyiuddin
Shakor, The Writing on the Water: Chronicles of a Seeker on the Islamic Sufi Path
(Shaftesbury, England: Element Books, 1994); and Noorudeen Durkee, Embracing Islam,
(Charlottesville, VA: Green Mountain School, 1999). An Australian example of this genre
is Amatullah Armstrong, And the Sky Is Not the Limit: An Australian Woman’s Spiritual
Journey within the Traditions (Kuala Lumpur: A. S. Noordeen, 1993); see also Maryam
Kabeer Faye, Journey through Ten Thousand Veils: The Alchemy of Transformation on the
Sufi Path (Somerset, NJ: Tughra Books, 2008).

(106) . See, for example, those produced by the Idries Shah circle, including many ficti
tious narratives of esoteric schools in the East, such as Rafael Lafort, Teachers of Gurdji
eff (London: V. Gollancz, 1968); Omar S. Burke, Among the Dervishes (London: Octagon,
1973). Also representative would be Ian Dallas, The Book of Strangers (New York: Pan
theon Books 1972); and Reshad Feild, The Last Barrier (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).

(107) . Among Sufi presses and distributors are Octagon Press, Pir Press, Threshold
Books, the Sufi Book Club, and Omega Press.

(108) . Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New York: Peter
Lang, 1987).
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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

(109) . On ICNA in the United States, see Aminah Mohammed-Arif, Salaam America: A
Study of Indian Islam in the United States (New York: Anthem Press, 2002), 171–190.

(110) . Revert Workshop PowerPoint, Islamic Foundation, Villa Park, IL, Mar. 10, 2007.

(111) . “Peace be upon you,” the traditional Islamic greeting.

(112) . Revert Workshop, Mar. 10, 2007.

(113) . Deen or Din is an Arabic term meaning “religion.”

(114) . Some of these initiatives in New York, San Francisco, and Seattle generated exten
sive media coverage and some controversy. By 2010 a message of “dispelling negativity
about Islam” supplemented the mission of da’wa in the bus and train ad campaign. http://
www.icna.org/awareness-campaign-attempts-to-dispel-negativity-about-islam/.

(115) . Marcia Hermansen, “Keeping the Faith: Convert Muslim Mothers in America and
the Transmission of Islamic Identity,” in Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion
in the West, ed. Karin van Nieuwkerk (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 250–276.

(116) . The parade has been studied by Susan Slymovics, “The Muslim World Day Parade
and ‘Storefront’ Mosques of New York City,” in Making Muslim Space, ed. Barbara D.
Metcalf (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), 204–216.

(117) . GhaneaBassiri, Competing Visions, 94.

Marcia Hermansen

Marcia Hermansen is Director of the Islamic World Studies Program at Loyola Uni
versity, Chicago where she is a Professor of Islamic and Religious Studies in the The
ology Department. She recently co-edited Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim
Women Theologians, with Peter Lang, 2013.

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Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives

Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Per­

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter provides a broad historical overview of processes of conversion to Islam in

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Theology and Rituals of Conversion

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Conversion, Identity, and the Expansion of Is­

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The History of Conversion to Islam

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Conversion in Diverse Regions

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lam as a process of gradual incorporation of the rice-cultivating peasantry into a cultural

Turkey and the Balkans

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Conquest of the Balkans

Another Ottoman institution that highlights the ambivalent narratives of conversion in

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Later Conversions: Southeast Asia and Africa

In the eleventh century, significant numbers of inhabitants began converting to Islam on

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Robin Horton, in his essays on African conversions, describes them as arising

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Conversions to Islam in the West

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Conversion to Islam in the United States

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Significant exceptions to a general lack of systematic Muslim missionary activity

In terms of impact on mainstream American culture, conversion to Islam receives some

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In my own writings relative to conversion to Islam, I considered American Muslim

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that African Americans have either followed accommodationist or separatist ideologies

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(1) organized macro—supported by governments

Institutionally, there is no one central organization dedicated to da’wa work, although

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Rituals and Formalities of Conversion to Islam

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(p. 653) Post-Conversion Support Groups

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Finding Community and Retention

In response to the threat of reassimilation, one group of Sufi-oriented American Muslims

Future Numbers and Trends

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Bulliet, Richard W. Conversion to Islam in the Middle Period: An Essay in Quantitative

Burke, Omar S. Among the Dervishes. London: Octagon, 1973.

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Gabbert, Wolfgang. “Social and Cultural Conditions of Religious Conversion in Colonial

Geertz, Clifford. “Internal Conversion in Contemporary Bali.” In The Interpretation of Cul­

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Goodwin, Godfrey. The Janissaries. London: Saqi Books, 1994.

Hardy, Peter. “Modern European and Muslim Explanations of Conversion to Islam in

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Subscriber: UC - Los Angeles (UCLA); date: 15 September 2020

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Latino American Dawah Organization (LADO). http://www.latinodawah.org.

Lewis, I. M. Islam in Tropical Africa. London: Hutchinson, 1980.

Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Per

Conversion, Identity, and the Expansion of Is

Geertz, Clifford. “Internal Conversion in Contemporary Bali.” In The Interpretation of Cul

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