Islam Female Converts
In a new book titled Why Christian Women Convert to Islam, Rosemary Sookhdeo says that 30,000 Christians have converted to Islam over the last decade, the majority of them women. In their formative years they get disillusioned with Christianity, discover the simplicity of Islam, and under a blossoming romance, convert. Or perhaps a mid-eastern boyfriend converts to Christianity, and then, after marriage, converts back under severe pressure from family. There may be persuasion that Islam and Christianity aren’t really all that different at their cores. Be careful. The two are very different.
Although there may be a growing moderate Islam women’s movement, the numbers are infinitesimal. The Islamic families these converted Christians marry into are highly likely to be intensely patriarchal, in ways that they’ve never even imagined.
Perhaps another reason why more Muslim men marry Christian women than the other way around is that Islam forbids Muslim women from marrying Christian men. See James Arlandson’s article The Truth about Muslim-Christian Marriages, and if you want to get even more alarmed, read his article, Women Are Inferior to Men in the Quran. Anyone who is familiar with the freedom (especially between the genders) that Christ offers, should not give it up for this type of religiously mandated bondage.
And it still amazes me why any Christian complementarian would want to be anywhere even near this Muslim ballpark.
It is strange to me when I hear people outside of the faith of Islam talk about the issues as if they are so sure they know what is going on in a Muslim community or family. I was born Muslim but my mother was originally British Christian and married my father who is a Muslim from India. This is in the late 60’s and early 70’s, long before the trends this article is talking about.
I bet you will find that the men who marry Christian women or converts are much less egalitarian than others contrary to your comments. That may be an over generalized statement from my part. Arab men tend to be more rigid with their wives than India men from the Subcontinent. That might have to do with generations of Colonialism with Britain. However, I think you will find that the women marry Muslim men because they are treated with love and respect. Muslim men take the bond of Marriage seriously.
You can check out http://www.HotConflict.com where we talk about the Hottest issues from a Muslim point of view.
Saleem makes an excellent point. Not all Muslims are Arab. I’m sure the articles I refer to assume that and that was certainly the direction that I was aiming my comments. We all need to be reminded that many other cultures have adopted Islam and not all of them have as extreme patriarchal approach as seems to be common in the middle east if that is true. It would be good to hear your interpretation of the Qur’an’s passages mentioned.
That said, I wonder if perhaps you misspoke or misunderstood me. The point of my post was that Muslims tend to be quite non-egalitarian so it’s hard to imagine how they could get even less egalitarian. And your parents’ story seems to confirm the pattern of a Christian woman marrying a Muslim man, which is so much more common than the other way around. Doesn’t the Qu’ran forbid Muslim women from marrying Christian men? What’s so egalitarian about that?