From Melbourne Age / Sydney Morning Herald
CHANGING your religion is a dicey business, especially when
fundamentalism - in its many guises - threatens to polarise
communities and lead to violence and death. Yet being part of a world
that lives in fear of more terrorist bombings and al-Qa'ida has not
stopped conscientious individuals from taking the plunge from
Christianity to Islam.
Peter Barnett, a former editor at Radio Australia, found his
conversion to Islam was a process of osmosis. Having been a foreign
correspondent in many Islamic countries, he found himself increasingly
impressed by its logic and totality. He also noted the gulf between
its message and the misconceptions he had harboured for many years.
His conversion took place in Jakarta, where a liberal Muslim
intellectual was his mentor. He asked Barnett if, as an Anglican
Christian, he had studied the Bible, suggesting it was a good
preparation for Islam.
On his return to Australia, Barnett's son Adam asked if anything
significant had happened in Indonesia. "Well, I became a Muslim,"
Barnett said matter-of-factly.
It was at the time of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing and Barnett
realised he faced a basic misconception about Islam and violence.
Among the bonuses of his conversion was "becoming part of an extended
Islamic family -- friendship with a vast cross-section of the
community in Australia and abroad". The calibre of young Muslims
struck him most, "intelligent, dedicated and concerned", with no
confusion between their faith and their loyalty to Australia. Barnett
also recognises the contrast with "Muslims who drive you up the
wall".
"There's the lunatic fringe that advocates terrorism," he says.
"Also
elements from the Middle East who have brought their cultural hang-ups
and harsh interpretations of the faith. As a Muslim, I abhor all forms
of terrorism that lead to the cost of human life. Islam believes that
to kill one person is as if you killed the whole of mankind. So no
matter what motivations impel someone to use terror tactics, it is
completely against Islam."
Despite the intense scrutiny of Islam since September 11, 2001, and
the difficult times it has imposed on Australian Muslims, Barnett
rejoices in the completeness of life Islam has brought him, with
"order, joy and satisfaction".
Sue Carland is a Melbourne mother in her mid-20s, married to an
Australian of Egyptian descent, with a one-year-old daughter. She was
interested in Islam even as a teenager. Involved with her local
Baptist church, she "couldn't shake a gnawing feeling of
uncertainty"
despite Bible study and attending services. She wanted "a sense of
fulfilment, certainty and peace". She wondered whether God was to be
found in only one faith or all of them. And she faced that ultimate
question: "Could I ever really know God or would he-she-it remain ever
elusive? But I certainly believed Islam was something I wanted to stay
far away from. My superficial understanding perceived Islam and
Muslims as backward, misogynistic, pagan, illogical and completely
foreign. I had no desire to pursue Islam in the slightest."
Although it confronted her in books, magazines and on television, the
Islam being fed to her was often unreliable. "When I looked beyond
personal prejudices, cultural manifestations, deliberate distortion
and people speaking beyond their field of knowledge, I found a faith
that is profoundly grounded in logic, spirituality, egalitarianism,
social justice and personal connection with God," Carland says. "And
the more I learned about Islam, the more it resonated within me."
Expecting there would be resistance from her Anglo-Saxon family and
friends, she wondered how accepting Islam would affect her future
life. Would she get a job if she decided to wear the hijab (veil)?
At 19 and in her second year at university, Carland believed Islam to
be true and wanted to live as a Muslim.
"I couldn't deny who I felt myself to be simply to keep those close to
me happy," she says. "In many ways it felt like coming out of the
closet as a Muslim." Though she has never regretted her decision,
family reaction was disapproving or angry and her first year after
converting was arduous and often lonely.
Carland believes she speaks for all the Muslims she knows when she
says: "I condemn all forms of terrorism. Any sane person must think
such acts atrocious, whatever ideology tries to justify it." Female
terrorists should be condemned as well as men, without distinction.
As for female circumcision, which Carland has studied carefully, it
seems to belong to sub-Saharan tribes and has been practised by
Christians as well as Muslims. "I find it sad that Muslims should be
painted with the same brush when mutilation of any sort, even of the
dead, is condemned by Islam," Carland says. "Unfortunately, the
Western mind-set tends to attribute such practices as another way of
condemning Islam."
(Wayne) Imran Earl is also in his mid-20s and has been a Muslim for
three years. Born in Australia and brought up in western Sydney, where
he met many Muslims, Earl was reared in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Yet he felt his Orthodox faith failed to answer what happened to you
when you died and the principles of right and wrong. After studying
Islam carefully, he found it made more sense to him. "It became a way
of life," he attests.
His conversion led to a fracture in relationships. At first his
parents were shocked. But now his mother is so impressed by her son's
change in all aspects of his life that she is asking questions about
Islam.
Earl works with a building company, where only two others are Muslims,
and his boss and his mates accept him. He met his wife through the
Muslim community and rejoices in their 10-month-old daughter.
It is informative that many Muslim converts derive from Christian
roots, confirming the Muslim belief that the Koran and Islam are
corrections of the Christian and Jewish scriptures.
Isabel Jackson is no exception. In her 40s and a Muslim for about two
years, she prefers the word "revert" to "convert" because
it assumes
that she has been restored to the innocent life God originally
intended for everyone. "I find Islam the most normal thing
imaginable," she says.
Jackson had a Dominican Catholic education, which left her open to
discovery, and her path to Islam began when she sought a viable code
of behaviour.
Studying research method with Third World and mostly Muslim women, she
had developed a strong feminist stance, but found these Muslim women
resistant to Western feminists trying to save them by insisting on
rights that were already enshrined for them in the Koran. Post
September 11, Jackson found the world more deeply aware of Islam,
which led to her own investigation of the faith.
"I had always had faith and wondered what people meant when they said
they didn't believe in God, but I was disenchanted with the church,"
she says.
Looking up "I" for Islam in the phone book, she rang a centre where
she was introduced to Islam's core beliefs about family, women and
property. She experienced a confirmation of what she had always felt
intuitively.
Jackson was married in her 20s -- it ended in divorce -- and she was
envious of the Muslim men she saw on TV lining up in prayer. She
turned for help to a female Muslim friend, who suggested: "Just say
the Shahada -- 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and
Mohammed is the messenger of Allah."' She confesses: "I couldn't get
to say it fast enough. I was relaxed and happy."
Jackson also found that she could abandon her vegetarian practice of
12 years when she understood the humane way halal butchering is done.
Many of the things that had been part of her life in her 30s, which
Islam rejects, she found made abundant sense, like abstaining from
alcohol. She also wears the hijab proudly, finding it an entree to
dialogue with many people on matters of faith.
If its appearance at a job interview causes irritation or comment, she
knows she would not want to work with bigots anyway. Now employed as
an arts officer with a local council, she has Fridays off and can go
to the mosque for the prayers she finds so unifying and exhilarating.
These four converts to Islam share a heartening normality. Perhaps the
most telling aspect of their conversions is the happiness of joining a
vibrant and growing community of Muslim believers.
James Murray is The Australian's religious affairs editor.
http://www.theage.com.au/
http://www.smh.com.au/
It is usually born muslims who do not appreciate Islam....