Women Converts: Transformations, Knowledge Perspectives and Narratives

Initially interested in the broader topic of women’s status in Islam, I began this research with the intention of challenging anti-Islamic stereotypes that often emerge from the mainstream media coverage of events in which Muslims are involved. Sometimes these associate subordination with every single Muslim woman, the veil with oppression, and pinpoint polygamy to be luring in the shadow of every Muslim marriage. The topic of conversion creates the necessary space for deconstructing such biased depictions of Islam, of Muslim women and particularly of those who deliberately embrace a religion which they have perceived as women oppressive, before discovering it and experiencing it themselves. This book is the outcome of a research project that tackles the topic of Islam conversion in two dissimilar frameworks, inside which I nevertheless discovered generally similar mechanisms that prompt these experiences, as well comparable motivations among converted women and the similar routes they followed inside Islam. Nonetheless, these appeared to be distinct in specific aspects, specifically related to local social or cultural dynamics.