Almost without exception, if a woman embraces Islam while involved with a Muslim man, it is assumed that she only became Muslim to please him, to keep him, for his sake. However, I have discovered that this is far from the truth. In most cases, although the partner may have been a catalyst, the women themselves researched and studied the deen independently before deciding to embrace the faith.
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When Claire met Gareth at university, for example, he told her that he was a Muslim, albeit a non-practicing one. But, one year, he came back from the summer vacation, ‘The rough time he had had with drugs over the summer had pushed him to clean up his act – to find out a lot more about Islam – so by the time I saw him again, he was doing a lot of serious thinking. We spoke a lot about spiritual things when we got together and then, slowly, he started to actually practice Islam. He would talk to me a little about the deen, but I wasn’t really interested – I had gone through my phase of thinking deeply about religion and that was more or less behind me. My attitude was, So what? Just believe whatever you want, you don’t have to go on about it. He used to encourage me to read these books but I would never read them because I felt, I am Catholic, that is what I am and that’s fine for me – it’s not like I get a great deal of solace from it but, hey, that’s what I am. I don’t want to be anything different.’
But Gareth kept talking to her about Islam, encouraging her to talk about her beliefs, explaining Islamic beliefs to her.
‘To be honest, I could see Islam was the truth but I couldn’t get away from seeing all the restrictions that it entitled as well.’
On their first visit to Gareth’s home town, he sent Claire to see another revert with his sister, who has also become Muslim. It was a disastrous visit and, on the train back to Bristol, Claire said to him, ‘Look, I’m not a Muslim, I’m not going to be a Muslim and you have to understand that. And I don’t want to talk about it again.’
‘And he said, “OK.” So that was it for quite a while. About six weeks.’ But before they spoke about it again, Claire had actually been thinking about Islam and becoming a Muslim.
‘A few things happened that made me start thinking about this lifestyle that meant so much to me. I guess I fell out of love with the clubbing and the drugs but I wasn’t talking to anyone about it – I was just keeping it all inside. Maybe I felt that accepting all Gareth was offering would be like giving up the battle – there was still that stubbornness there. My Celtic roots, no doubt! However, I was working in the university bookshop at the time and I was reading some of the books on Islam he had left in my room ages before. Then, one night, all my friends had left my flat and Gareth and I were sitting in the front room. And he asked me, so tentatively, “Do you think you are ready to become Muslim now?”
.............. ‘And the funny thing was, I was ready. And so I took my shahadah – the testimony of faith. I can’t explain why, but Allah had just changed my heart. I was now a Muslim.’
Umm Muhammad was also introduced to Islam by her partner, Abdur-Raheem, the father of her child.
‘I knew that Islam was something Abdur-Raheem was interested in – he used to speak about it occasionally – but I never realized how serious he was. Then, one day, I was coming down the High Road, fresh from one of my Saturday-morning shopping sprees, and he was coming the opposite way, He told me that he had just been to the mosque and that he had taken his shahadah. So I was like, “Oh, OK, this is what you believe.” After he became Muslim, he bought me a Qur’an.’
The more Umm Muhammad read about Islam, the more convinced she became that it was the truth – but she was loath to give up her party lifestyle and so resolved to do nothing about it. However, when her son Muhammad was born, his father decided that he wanted to practice Islam properly and he began to tell Umm Muhammad more about Islam, showing her how to pray.
‘I was still interested but I was afraid of making the move. I had begun to understand that Islam came with a lot of obligations and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to fulfil them. Also, I was afraid of no one being like me – that everyone would be older, speaking Bengali or Urdu or Arabic. I was definitely afraid to make that move. But I started to pray. I also watched the video of The Message, that told the story if the early days of Islam, and that put more things into perspective for me with regards to all that I read in the Qur’an and the hadith. Then two months after I had the baby, Abdur-Raheem decided to leave and go and live in the mosque. He didn’t want to keep living as we were so we separated. I was devastated because I loved him but I understood what he had done because I wasn’t ready to change yet. He would still come up, on a Saturday, to see Muhammad but he wouldn’t stay and spend time with me because we weren’t married. As far as he was concerned, he was going to be a Muslim now and nothing was going to stand in the way of that.’
Umm Muhammad then met a group of young Muslim women, from different races and backgrounds, who answered a lot of questions for her and invited her to their Arabic class. And then, on her birthday that year, she was out hunting for clothes as usual when she met a Muslim man at the incense stall where Muhammad’s father normally worked. He was surprised to learn that she was the mother of Abdur-Raheem’s child and unimpressed to hear that he had left the two of them. He began to ask her what she knew about Islam and was surprised at the fluency of her answers. He then suggested she go down to the mosque to speak to the brothers there. ‘They asked me what I knew about Islam and about Allah. Then they asked me, “Do you believe this to be the truth?”
‘And I said I did. And they said, “Well, what are you waiting for then?”
..............‘So then I thought, What am I waiting for? There was nothing stopping me, except getting dressed up to walk down the street. So they asked me whether I thought I was ready to become Muslim. ‘And I thought, Why don’t I just take my shahadah now? So I did.’ Aliyah met Ahmad while she was enjoying a successful career and hectic social life. But his conversion to Islam in the early days of their relationship was to prove its biggest test and a bittersweet introduction to Islam. Ahmad had taken Aliyah’s son, Jameel, to the dentist but was over four hours late coming home. Aliyah was worried sick.
‘Then he came in with a great big smile on his face – I remember it well, he was glowing,’ she told me. ‘I said, “Where have you been?” I was so worried!
‘And he said, “I’ve become a Muslim.” Just like that. He had met a brother in the park and he had talked to him about Islam. He had been so convinced that they had gone to the masjid (the mosque) together and he had taken his shahadah. I was just shocked. I was full of all sorts of emotions.
‘”What do you mean you’ve become a Muslim?” I asked. “You went to the dentist’s, for crying out loud, and now you’re telling me you’re a Muslim!” ‘He said, “Listen to this tape, listen to this tape!” and he put on a tape of Qur’an recitation. To me it just sounded like some weird Asian music. He was so high, he could talk of nothing but Islam. It was as if, within a few hours, the past six months had disappeared. I felt like I had nothing in common with him anymore.
‘And I said to him: “This isn’t going to work.”
‘Early the next morning, he went out to the mosque to pray. After that, al the Islamic things he was doing just seemed weirder and weirder and weirder to me. It was as if someone had abducted him, taken him up in a spaceship and brought him back down again as this stranger. I just felt like I was faced with a totally different person. He was so close to the mosque, he was there practically all the time and he was learning a lot from the brothers. He would come home and try to relay it to me but I just wanted to scream. Then he started saying that he couldn’t do certain things because they were...he was using these words like “haram” (unlawful) – I didn’t even understand him anymore! He started telling me that I couldn’t wear these skirts, that I couldn’t dress like that and I wasn’t having it! I remember packing my bags and standing by the door and saying, “I can’t do this. I’m not ready for this. You can’t become a Muslim and then just expect me to follow you.”
Also, I had known a Black girl who used to cover her face and she just looked like a freak to us. We used to stand there in amazement, looking at her, because she was the only person I knew in the world who dressed like that. And I just thought, You want me to be like that? No way!
‘But he persuaded me not to leave and we talked and talked. He invited me to come down to the mosque. He bought me a scarf and said I should wear it to show respect to the place. I remember holding it underneath my chin and, when I got there, a sister said, “Why don’t you pin it? It’s easier....” And she pinned my hijab for me. Then they asked me whether I was Muslim and I said no. And then we started talking. And I started to attend a lot of the Muslim events because there was something on every day – a talk, a bazaar, or something.
‘Then one day we went to an Islamic talk in one of the local schools and it was really interesting. I spoke to so many sisters that day and felt so welcome and comfortable. While we were waiting to leave, I got talking to a sister and I ended up saying to her, “I think I may want to become a Muslim, you know.”
.............. ‘A few days later, I was in the masjid and I said, “I want to take my shahada now.” So they took mw upstairs and I took the shahada and all the sisters were so happy – it was like one big party.’
As we’ve seen, sometimes a man can be a catalyst for a woman’s entry to Islam. But it is rare to find a woman who did not study the deen for herself, wrestle with it and, finally, accept it for herself.
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