Converting to Islam

As far as I can tell it’s just a coincidence that  Slate has an article on how to convert to Islam the same day that an al-Qaeda video calling for Americans to convert is making headlines.  The Slate piece came about because Steve Centanni, the Fox reporter held hostage in Gaza, said he wasn’t sure if his forced conversion to Islam was official.

I’m not sure what he meant unless he actually wanted to convert and was looking for outside validation.  Otherwise who can tell you whether you’ve converted or not?

Thinking about that question brought back memories of Muslims who, in fact, told me I had become a Muslim after saying the shahadah, the central Islamic creed.  The first time it happened I was teaching English at a language center in Istanbul.  I was leading “conversation club” in the canteen when one of the students asked me to repeat after him.  It was Arabic, but I knew what it meant, and I stumbled through it just to be a good sport.  I wasn’t expecting him to tell me I was a Muslim when I finished.  Other students were put off by the guy saying I had just converted, and I simply questioned any kind of conversion that lacked sincerity.

The most recent experience happened on the day of the World Cup Final in Berlin.  I was walking around one of the fan areas set up with shops and food tents when I ran into a couple of nice guys from Tunisia selling clay pots.  After they learned I was studying Islam but wasn’t a Muslim, one of them asked me to repeat after him.  I knew exactly where this was going, but I went along anyway.  After I’d said the shahadah, he grasped my hand and said, “Now you’re a Muslim.  That’s it.”

Really?

You got to admit the bar seems lower for becoming a Muslim than for becoming a Christian.  Just compare the “Romans Road” approach used by evangelical Christians and what it suggests about human nature with the two simple statements of Islam.  On the other hand, the shahadah on its own doesn’t deliver quite the explanatory payoff that some scholars think is important to conversion.

Of course conversion is more complicated than reciting a creed, and there’s a sizable literature that addresses this in sociology.  However, I don’t think there’s much out there on conversion to Islam.  I’ve seen a book by Carolyn Rouse on African-American Muslim women and there’s another book on Western women converts soon to be released, but does anyone have any other leads?