PETER FORD
Posted on 12/26/2005 6:41:01 PM PST by jailbird
Why European women are turning to Islam
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
PARIS – Mary Fallot looks as unlike a terrorist suspect as one could possibly imagine: a petite and demure white Frenchwoman chatting with friends on a cell-phone, indistinguishable from any other young woman in the café where she sits sipping coffee.
And that is exactly why European antiterrorist authorities have their eyes on thousands like her across the continent.
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NO, LISTEN: When Mary Fallot converted, her surprised co-workers asked if she had a Muslim boyfriend. Actually, she explained, she was drawn to Islam by the answers it provided. PETER FORD |
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Ms. Fallot is a recent convert to Islam. In the eyes of the police, that makes her potentially dangerous.
The death of Muriel Degauque, a Belgian convert who blew herself up in a suicide attack on US troops in Iraq last month, has drawn fresh attention to the rising number of Islamic converts in Europe, most of them women.
"The phenomenon is booming, and it worries us," the head of the French domestic intelligence agency, Pascal Mailhos, told the Paris-based newspaper Le Monde in a recent interview. "But we must absolutely avoid lumping everyone together."
The difficulty, security experts explain, is that while the police may be alert to possible threats from young men of Middle Eastern origin, they are more relaxed about white European women. Terrorists can use converts who "have added operational benefits in very tight security situations" where they might not attract attention, says Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm.
Ms. Fallot, who converted to Islam three years ago after asking herself spiritual questions to which she found no answers in her childhood Catholicism, says she finds the suspicion her new religion attracts "wounding." "For me," she adds, "Islam is a message of love, of tolerance and peace."
It is a message that appeals to more and more Europeans as curiosity about Islam has grown since 9/11, say both Muslim and non-Muslim researchers. Although there are no precise figures, observers who monitor Europe's Muslim population estimate that several thousand men and women convert each year.
Only a fraction of converts are attracted to radical strands of Islam, they point out, and even fewer are drawn into violence. A handful have been convicted of terrorist offenses, such as Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" and American John Walker Lindh, who was captured in Afghanistan.
Admittedly patchy research suggests that more women than men convert, experts say, but that - contrary to popular perception - only a minority do so in order to marry Muslim men.
"That used to be the most common way, but recently more [women] are coming out of conviction," says Haifa Jawad, who teaches at Birmingham University in Britain. Though non-Muslim men must convert in order to marry a Muslim woman, she points out, the opposite is not true.
Fallot laughs when she is asked whether her love life had anything to do with her decision. "When I told my colleagues at work that I had converted, their first reaction was to ask whether I had a Muslim boyfriend," she recalls. "They couldn't believe I had done it of my own free will."
In fact, she explains, she liked the way "Islam demands a closeness to God. Islam is simpler, more rigorous, and it's easier because it is explicit. I was looking for a framework; man needs rules and behavior to follow. Christianity did not give me the same reference points."
Those reasons reflect many female converts' thinking, say experts who have studied the phenomenon. "A lot of women are reacting to the moral uncertainties of Western society," says Dr. Jawad. "They like the sense of belonging and caring and sharing that Islam offers."
Others are attracted by "a certain idea of womanhood and manhood that Islam offers," suggests Karin van Nieuwkerk, who has studied Dutch women converts. "There is more space for family and motherhood in Islam, and women are not sex objects."
At the same time, argues Sarah Joseph, an English convert who founded "Emel," a Muslim lifestyle magazine, "the idea that all women converts are looking for a nice cocooned lifestyle away from the excesses of Western feminism is not exactly accurate."
Some converts give their decision a political meaning, says Stefano Allievi, a professor at Padua University in Italy. "Islam offers a spiritualization of politics, the idea of a sacred order," he says. "But that is a very masculine way to understand the world" and rarely appeals to women, he adds.
After making their decision, some converts take things slowly, adopting Muslim customs bit by bit: Fallot, for example, does not yet feel ready to wear a head scarf, though she is wearing longer and looser clothes than she used to.
Others jump right in, eager for the exoticism of a new religion, and become much more pious than fellow mosque-goers who were born into Islam. Such converts, taking an absolutist approach, appear to be the ones most easily led into extremism.
The early stages of a convert's discovery of Islam "can be quite a sensitive time," says Batool al-Toma, who runs the "New Muslims" program at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, England.
"You are not confident of your knowledge, you are a newcomer, and you could be prey to a lot of different people either acting individually or as members of an organization," Ms. Al-Toma explains. A few converts feel "such a huge desire to fit in and be accepted that they are ready to do just about anything," she says.
"New converts feel they have to prove themselves," adds Dr. Ranstorp. "Those who seek more extreme ways of proving themselves can become extraordinarily easy prey to manipulation."
At the same time, says al-Toma, converts seeking respite in Islam from a troubled past - such as Degauque, who had reportedly drifted in and out of drugs and jobs before converting to Islam - might be persuaded that such an "ultimate action" as a suicide bomb attack offered an opportunity for salvation and forgiveness.
"The saddest conclusion" al-Toma draws from Degauque's death in Iraq is that "a woman who set out on the road to inner peace became a victim of people who set out to use and abuse her."
Me neither. France is toast. The reason for it is obvious. Good day to you as well.
Hopefully, especially the European Catholic church will correct that problem. If they do, they will be better than most of the Protestants, who for all intents and purposes are apostate and no longer true Christians.
"Christianity did not give me the same reference points."
Hmmm, this religion, that I'm going to base my life around, and stake my eternal soul on, doesn't do what I want it to. I'll try another one that I like better.
So Islam is a religion of peace and Catholicism is an incubator for peodophiles! Reading the BBC or the NYTimes or even the AGF,that is how the media portrays them. Moral Equivalency raised to the nth degree. You may even argue that no one is taught anything about religion (their own-Christian) then they simply have no reference point and thus assume that Islam is an interesting exotic novelty, like a new pet or Kaballah, scientology, etc that has been maligned by the Imperial powers of Europe in order for capitalists...well you know the jazz.
Charles Martel must be spinning in his grave!!!
She says she chose Islam because it was simple and straightforward to her. That seems to be a major reason why Islam wins converts in much of the world.
Muhammad simplified the religious ideas of his day to produce a religion that didn't have the complexities and subleties of Christianity. Of course Sufis and other mystics have a very intricate belief system, that's not true of Muhammad's core teaching.
"and women are not sex objects"
I guess they are pandering to women who like to be treated like only objects that are subject to human rights violations as a daily thing.
Can only one show me where Islam is in control of a country and the women aren't piñatas?
Reminds me of the saying: If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.
Well Islam's got rules, I guess... murder infidels, no pork, beat your wife at will...
If true (that the Euro police eye all Islamics with suspicion), I gotta give the folks across the pond at least some credit.
"For me," she adds, "Islam is a message of love, of tolerance and peace."
What a minute here. ....is Ms. Fallot the scriptwriter for the WH on all things Islamic?
It is a message that appeals to more and more Europeans as curiosity about Islam has grown since 9/11
"Any religion that has so many members that not only hate America but actually act on that hatred is a religion I must investigate." - Euro loser.
In fact, she explains, she liked the way "Islam demands a closeness to God. Islam is simpler, more rigorous, and it's easier because it is explicit. I was looking for a framework; man needs rules and behavior to follow. Christianity did not give me the same reference points."
10 Commandments not clear enough?
"A lot of women are reacting to the moral uncertainties of Western society," says Dr. Jawad. "They like the sense of belonging and caring and sharing that Islam offers."
Sharing and caring? Anyone have links to those videos of Islamic women being stoned to death in the public square for merely being accused of looking at a member of the opposite sex?
"There is more space for family and motherhood in Islam, and women are not sex objects."
No, but goats and children are. Women are objects of scorn and death.
Deep down inside, although I don't want to agree with you, I fear you are probably correct. When Europe explodes, the white Christian males will be screaming like girls in a Monty Python skit.
Exactly right. They would show the face of Christianity as a trailer-park tammy faye baker...
I think I might argue that that is part of the problem, and that the solution is more along the lines of my reply at #16.
But even if we sidestep that whole argument, the bottom line is that young [European] people [like the poor French girl in question] just aren't reading any of that stuff whatsoever.
Sorry, jailbird, your parole has been denied!
You need to look at the picture and go easier on the egg nog. She's a babe!
5.56mm
Any insight?
She must have been taught that they are the Ten Suggestions.
Well, the picture that I posted is of the Compendium, which is a lot more straight-to-the-point than the regular Catechism. However, I think you have a good point. You have a lot of Europeans going to Buddhist, Hindu, and Inca sites around the world, when their is so much culture at their doorstep. It shows that they know what Christianity is, and have rejected it.
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