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by Nick Compton
At first she tried to resist. She did not want this to
happen. She was not that sort of person. After all, there
were no gaps in her life, no spiritual ache, she did not
need support or direction. But she kept reading and it kept
making sense.
'I had absolutely no expectation or desire to end up
where I am,' she says. 'It was almost with trepidation that
I kept turning the pages and the trepidation just increased.
I kept thinking: "OK, where's the flaw? Where's the bit that
doesn't make sense?" But it never came. And then it was
like: "Oh no, I can see where this is leading. This is
disastrous. I don't want to be a Muslim!"
Caroline Bate is 30 years old, blonde, blue-eyed and
pretty, with a soft Home Counties accent. She has a degree
from Cambridge (she studied Russian and German before
switching to management studies) and works for an investment
bank in the City. She is Middle England's dream daughter or
daughter-in-law. And though she has yet to make her formal
declaration of faith in Allah and the prophet Mohammed - a
two-line pledge called the Shahada - she considers herself
Muslim. She ticked the box on a form recently. It felt good,
she says.
Caroline is not alone. Though data is hard to come by,
several London mosques have been reporting an increase in
the number of converts to Islam, especially since 11
September. Like Caroline, many of these converts are from
solid middle-class backgrounds, have successful careers,
enjoy active social lives and are fundamentally happy with
their lot.
This is not a new trend, however. Matthew Wilkinson, a
former head boy of Eton, became Tariq, when he converted to
Islam in 1993. Jonathan Birt, son of Lord Birt, late of the
BBC and now the government's transport guru, converted in
1997. The son and daughter of Lord Justice Scott also
converted and Joe Ahmed Dobson, the 26-year-old son of the
former Health Secretary Frank Dobson, has recently and,
somewhat reluctantly, emerged as the voice of new Muslim
converts in Britain. But it is a trend that has been pushed
along by recent events. So far it has gone largely
unnoticed, as the press concentrates on some of the more
colourful characters that 11 September has thrown
up.
Since 11 September, the luridly painted poster boys of
British Islam have been radical clerics such as Abu Hamza
al-Masri, the steel-clawed, milky-eyed so-called 'mad
mullah' of Finsbury Park mosque. Here are Victorian
villains, fiendish emissaries of some ancient and foreign
evil, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie.
Their followers are blank-eyed drones like Richard Reid,
packing his high-tops with high explosives. Or James
McLintock, the 'Tartan Taliban'. There are lost boys,
dislocated and dysfunctional, petty thieves preyed on in
South London prisons and young offenders' institutions by
fakir Fagins who forge an untempered anger into a righteous
ire and provide it with a target. (Three imams working in
British prisons have been suspended since 11 September for
making 'inappropriate remarks' about the terrorist
attacks.)
But that is a sideshow, a compelling melodrama played out
beyond the fringes of Islamic culture in this country. And
while it might be stretching a point - and answering
caricature with caricature - to insist that a demure English
rose is the exemplar of the modern British convert to Islam,
Caroline Bate is certainly more representative than Richard
Reid.
Talking to recent Muslim converts, it is striking how
similar the descriptions of their embrace of Islam are. Most
were introduced to Islam, and Islamic history and teaching,
by friends. And, given that Islam is not generally a
missionary faith, these were gentle introductions. For most,
conversion was born of curiosity, an attempt to better
understand the people around them.
Caroline first started reading about Islam last April. A
school friend she has known since she was 11 was marrying a
Tunisian, a Muslim. 'My best friend was marrying into a
different culture so I wanted to know more about it,' she
explains. 'I came at it from more of a cultural perspective
than a religious one. But the literature that I picked up
just stimulated me. And Islamic teaching made perfect,
logical sense. You can approach it intellectually and there
are no gaps, no great leaps of faith that you have to
make.'
Roger (not his real name) is a doctor in his
mid-thirties. About a year and a half ago, he started
talking about Islam to Muslim colleagues at work. 'All I had
ever heard about Islam in the media was Hezbollah and
guerrillas and all of that. And here were these really
decent people whom I was beginning to get to know. So I
started to ask a few questions and I was amazed at my own
ignorance.' He became a Muslim a couple of months
ago.
For these new converts, embracing Islam is usually a
covert operation. They quietly read, talk, listen, learn.
The hard part is coming out, declaring your newly acquired
faith to friends and family, and, in some cases at least,
facing up to fear, scepticism and even loathing.
Caroline insists that the coming-out process has not been
too painful. 'The reaction has been pretty much what I
expected. I've had everything from "Do you know how they
treat women?" to "Wow, great timing!" But your friends are
your friends and I expect them to deal with it.'
Others have had a harder time. Eleanor Martin, now Asya
Ali (or some other combination of these names, depending on
the circumstance), was a 24-year-old TV actress when she met
Mo Sesay. She had a regular role as WPC Georgie Cudworth in
BBC's Dangerfield during the mid-Nineties and Sesay, who
later starred in Bhaji on the Beach, was also a Dangerfield
regular. Sesay is a Muslim.
'Mo was such a kind man, just a good person. He wanted to
know me as a person, there was nothing else going on. And I
thought, well, here is this really decent guy and he is a
Muslim. And the image I had of Islam was of men beating up
women and going round in tanks killing people.
'The thing is we both had regular parts on the show, but
they weren't very big parts, so we had a lot of time to sit
in the caravan and talk. He really opened my
eyes.'
Eleanor finally converted in 1996. 'I wasn't sure I was
going to until the last minute and then it just felt as if
everything had fallen into place and there was no other
option.'
At first she kept her conversion secret. 'I was afraid of
an adverse reaction from friends and family. I was really
worried about what my father would say.' Her father was a
devout Christian. A former radiotherapist, he had taken
early retirement to go into the priesthood. But
circumstances forced Eleanor's hand. A few months after she
converted she met a Muslim African-American actor, Luqman
Ali, and they decided to get married. 'I went home and said:
"I've got some news. I'm getting married and I'm a Muslim."
My mum was great. My dad said: "I think I'm going to get a
drink now."
'It took Dad time. He went to see his spiritual adviser,
a nun, whose brother happened to be a convert to Islam, and
that helped. And he's great now, too. He's just happy that
I'm following a path to God.'
Roger, meanwhile, has yet to tell family or work
colleagues of his conversion. 'I worry it will affect my
career prospects,' he admits. 'I know first-hand how little
people understand Islam. I know there is prejudice based on
ignorance. A couple of years ago, if someone had told me
they had converted, I would have thought they were odd. I
don't want people to think I am an oddity or a curiosity
because I don't think of myself like that.'
Most converts acknowledge that living in an ethnically
diverse city has made conversion easier than it might have
been elsewhere. Stefania Marchetti was born and raised in
Milan but came to London to study in 1997. She converted to
Islam from Catholicism in April last year. 'It would have
been far more difficult for me to convert in Italy,' she
admits. 'The Italian media is very anti-Islam and generally
Italians think that Muslim men are all terrorists and all
Muslim women are slaves.'
Certainly Karen Allen, a 28-year-old scheduler for Sky TV
from Stoke Newington, has enjoyed a relatively smooth
transition period. She converted to Islam last June and soon
started wearing the traditional headscarf or hijab. 'When I
first started wearing the hijab to work, there were a few
jibes about Afghanistan and stuff, but people are fine now.
They say things like: "That's a nice one you're wearing
today."
'I think it might be more difficult outside London, but
here there are a lot weirder things to look at than
me.'
What is especially striking about this stream of converts
to Islam is that the majority seem to be women. Some suggest
that twice as many women as men are turning to
Islam.
Batool Al Toma, who heads the New Muslim Project at the
Leicester-based Islamic Foundation, which offers advice and
support to recent converts, suggests this might be
exaggeration, but admits that female converts are in the
majority. 'A lot of people seem to think that women are more
susceptible to Islam. I think it's largely because a lot of
people are obsessed with the idea of an educated, liberated
British woman converting to Islam which they feel subjugates
and represses them in some way. We just get a lot more
attention I suppose and that sparks people's interest.'
The lure of Islam for women is surprising, given that the
conversion process may be even more problematic for them
than for men. There is the commonly held belief that Islam
represses women and female converts often have to deal with
recrimination from female friends who view their adoption of
Islam as some sort of betrayal. The wearing of a headscarf
or hijab (a sartorial option, it should be noted, not a
requirement) also makes Muslim women more visible than their
male counterparts.
Certainly, all the women I spoke to were quick to refute
the idea that Islam imposes a women-know-thy-place
ideology.
'The perception of how women are treated is completely
incorrect,' insists Caroline. 'Women have a fantastic
position in Islamic society.'
Indeed, many women converts talk about the adoption of
the Islamic dress code as a liberation. They see it not as a
denial of sex and sexuality but rather as an acknowledgement
that these are treasures to be shared with a loved one and
them alone. They are not hidden but rather freed from
objectification.
Asya insists that the trick is to turn preconceptions on
their head. She wears a scarf to show she is a Muslim and a
smile to prove she is happy being one.
One problem for converts is that they are caught between
two cultures. 'Young Muslims are very accepting,' says
Caroline. 'They are really happy that you have chosen to
become Muslim. The older generation are not so accepting.
For them, Islam is part of their cultural background, it's
about the country they came from and it's what binds their
communities together.'
One step towards greater acceptance came last October
when Reedah Nijabat opened ArRum, an Islamic
restaurant/members' bar/ cultural centre/social club in
Clerkenwell. Nijabat, a 31-year-old former barrister and
management consultant from Walthamstow, originally conceived
ArRum as a meeting place and networking venue for
professional first- and second-generation London Muslims.
But it has also become a focal point for many of London's
Muslim converts.
It is easy to see why. On any work evening, a mixed bag
of middle-aged Pakistani men, young couples (some Muslim,
some curious non-Muslim), kids and white British converts
chat and tuck into halal 'fusion' food. While the club
promotes Islamic culture, the vibe is a Hempel temple of
inner calm. Sufi wailing calms the nerves, while the bar
specialises in healthy juices.
For the new converts I spoke to, ArRum is a place to meet
other Muslims and somewhere to bring non-Muslim friends and
introduce them to Islam in a way that doesn't scare
them.
ArRum accents Islam's USP among the major faiths: its
openness and lack of hierarchy. And Nijabat has realised
that if there is an endemic suspicion of stuffy organised
religion among the British (and increasingly, one suspects,
second-generation British Muslims) there is great interest
in 'spirituality', whatever that might mean.
'I think that the problem has not been with the substance
of the major faiths, whatever they are, but a marketing
defect,' argues Nijabat. 'Everything we do here is about
remembrance of God and Islam, but you can get that across in
a cool way. I'm not saying anything that isn't in the Koran,
but you have to talk to people on their level.
'I'm beginning to see that there is a huge
misunderstanding and a bridge that needs to be crossed
between ethnic communities, host communities and spiritual
communities, and I think we are making a contribution to
that. You can get so hung up on the divisions and how
different we are, but it is the same God for all of us. And
we still feel that loss whether it is an American life or a
Palestinian life. A lot of people are going through a period
of soul-searching and that can only be a good
thing.'
For many, that soul-searching has led them to Islam, not
the Islam of the suicide bombers but mainstream Islam. And,
as Joe Ahmed Dobson points out, ArRum and its new converts
do not represent some kind of liberal IslamLite, a
media-friendly dilution of the real thing. Dobson and the
other new converts are orthodox, in the truest sense, and
proud.
They are also part of a project that may help all parties
see Islam in new ways. As Nijabat admits: 'You can end up
being quite defensive about it. And you can either get hung
up about it or be proactive. Opening ArRum has helped me
recognise that I can be British and Pakistani and a Muslim
and a woman. And I'm not going to be a victim in any of
this.'
Famous coverts to Allah
© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 15 March 2002
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