An interesting take on Lauren Booth's conversion to Islam
 

Tony Blair's sister-in-law has joined a growing number of independent, educated, middle-class, western women who have chosen to convert to Islam.

Much as it pains me to link anybody to the Daily HateMail, the analysis in the Femail section (yes, really. Can you hear my teeth grinding?) is very interesting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...=feeds-newsxml

It's written by a 'Born Muslim' woman who rejected Islam. I found it compelling reading, but there are bits that just made me want to bang my head against a wall. Then again i tend to feel like that when i hear people explain their reasons for accepting any religious faith :P

Some really interesting perspectives though.

No wonder you turned Socialist, Dana -- you needed another religion, and you didn't think anything Christian would do it.

Couldn't see that, myself...

It's because the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi isn't around to lead rich kids anymore.

Ah!

*chuckles*

I was raised as a socialist. Well... that's not strictly speaking true: Mum is and always was a 'socialist' though she would not have used that word to describe herself until about 10-15 years ago. Dad was always more of a mix of liberal and conservative.

As for Christianity and socialism: historically a lot of Christians (particularly amongst the Methodist, Presbytarian and Anglican communions) here are socialists. There is a strong socialist core to working-class cultures that hasn't completely vanished. Yet. The two are heavily intertwined.

I was exposed to religion as a kid, but ours was not a religious household. Dad only rediscovered his faith in the latter years of his life, he'd comprehensively rejected his catholic upbringing when I was growing up. Mum's side of the family are CofE, but again not particularly religious. She is now a confirmed atheist and has been for around 20 years.

Jesus' own teachings (I'm not going to get into arguments about whether or not the man actually lived and spoke) are profoundly socialist in nature: many of the priests and vicars I know (and encounter in my community work) are socialists.

I wouldn't have read the article if you hadn't recommended it, Dana, but at the end of the day aren't the allegedly liberated women converts to Islam in the article simply looking for permission not to follow the crowd? It's a shame they can't just decide for themselves, no?

I totally agree Limey. That was one of the things that had me banging my head against the wall :P

Someone tells me they feel they have made a connection with God, or Jesus or whatever higher power they believe in: that I can accept. I think it's unlikely to be an actual connection with the Divine, as I don't believe in such a thing, but I don't particularly look down on them for it.

People who give as their reason all this stuff about acceptance, and recovering a simplicity in life, and western life being empty etc. I just think none of what they say they're 'escaping' is peculiar to being without faith, and none of what they say they seek is peculiar to having faith.

I found the reasoning of the converts seriously frustrating. Particularly the idea of turning to Islam as a feminist move. Women are not equal in the Koran. The Koran states that they are equal in God's eyes, and that they have equal rights to happiness and fulfilment in marriage: but they are placed in a subservient position to their fathers and husbands and the modesty requirements are inherently sexist.

Yes, ok, in the context of its historical setting it was profoundly liberal and progressive in its view of women: but that was a millennium ago.


[eta] It reminds me a little of that American movement that was big a few years ago, where highly educated career women re-established 'traditional' family roles and handed over control of the finances and final decisions on family matters to their husbands as heads of their households.

Don't forget place as well as time. This stuff makes me crazy as well since I am personally familiar with the power of these "viruses" to subvert rational thought.

Also a good point.

Mohammad, methinks.
Not unlike the Judeo-Christian teachings, before the Reformation. Even after the Reformation, it was a slow progression until the 20th century. Remember women have been voting less than 100 years.

I do remember. *smiles*. And I have a similar opinion on the gender politics of Christianity. The development of an entirely masculinised creed from something that began in a much more gender balanced form is fascinating to me. Especially the way it went from an acceptance of female worship and female agency within the early Church, through to wholly masculine with women and female aspects of the Godhead expunged from official expressions of the creed, and then into a growing acceptance of women (though only to a point) and a more inclusive approach.

The reason the Koran is less misogynistic than the Bible is partly because so much of the bible was written 1000 years before the Koran was even thought of, often relating stories that were themselves survivals of much older cultural products. And partly because the editing process of the early 'church Fathers' and their medieval counterparts enshrined only those portions of the collected texts which would become the bible, that fitted their own understanding of God's word.

"spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy"

What an ignorant knucklehead. Equating awakening with morphine. Let's hope she ODs.

lawl

Or at least she gets itchy and constipated.