Conversion Stories and The People Who Love Them (or don’t)

Assalamu alaikum, Aaminah has posted a series of questions dealing with converts and their stories, which I’ll attempt to answer below:

1. Do you personally enjoy hearing/reading conversion stories, or could you kinda take ‘em or leave ‘em? If so, are there particular reasons that you feel as you do? Has your like/dislike changed over your time of being Muslim?

When I first became Muslim, and shortly before that, when I started studying/learning about Islam, I enjoyed reading conversion stories, because I liked seeing how others came to Islam. However, after a while, after I began to become more comfortable in my skin as a Muslim, my interest in conversion stories waned. I think, at first, I needed some sort of validation, that I wasn’t the only one searching, and ultimately finding, Islam. However, now when I think about it, I’m not sure that many conversion stories, at least many of the ones you see out there, really apply to me. I wasn’t some extremely evangelical Christian, who only at first learned about Islam/the Qur’an to “convert” Muslims to Christianity, only to become Muslim themselves. Or the gang member, drug user, or otherwise “bad” person, who found Islam and turned their life around.

My story I think was more gradual, and when I look back on it, I think Islam was always there in me, I just didn’t know it at the time. Now I can look back and see the stepping stones that Allah put in my path which inevitably led me to Islam. I wouldn’t say I like or dislike conversion stories now, I just don’t find much use for me, i.e., they’re really not as inspiring to me, and not to discount anyone’s particular story or situation, but for me, I’ve read/heard so many, that it’s kinda like, you’ve seen/read one, you’ve seen/read them all. And they just don’t do anything for me spiritually/inspirationally anymore.

2. Do you ever want to ask a “born” Muslim: “So, you were born into a Muslim family, what’s your story” or “So what’s your story about how you chose to live Islam”?

Not really, unless, of course, the topic somehow came up in conversation, or I really knew the person and felt comfortable asking them. I’ve never wanted to ask a complete stranger these questions, though, probably because I feel uncomfortable getting asked these questions myself and thus feel uncomfortable doing that to anyone else. Also, I’d imagine that the same things that bring converts to Islam, are much the same things that bring “born Muslims” back to Islam, i.e., fulfillment, a desire to follow God’s commandments, the only difference is perhaps that “born Muslims” probably know more about Islam coming in than a convert, they just have to make the conscious desire to practice the religion. Although as I’m not a “born Muslim” I can’t say that for sure.

3. Do you like telling your own story? What do you like or dislike about telling it?

I used to like telling my story, it kinda felt good to be fawned over, to hear the (primarily) sisters say things like, “Mashallah”, etc. However, now it makes me feel like I’m being put on display, like I’m being asked to perform, to be a spectacle, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Because the “fawning over” didn’t normally last long, and then it would morph into “so tell us what you were like *before* you were Muslim”, kinda like, we’ve put you up on this grand pedestal, now we wanna go and knock you off. ’cause they’d (or some I should say), would ask about the boyfriends I’d had, or they’d make comments about the “bad” things in America. And even if they didn’t, after I’d given my conversion story, I’d think to myself, “well, if they really knew the kind of person I was, both now and before I was Muslim, they’d probably think differently about me”. I mean, what can you think that other sisters think about you when not five minutes after you’ve said your Shahadah, they’re telling you you have to get married in order to “avoid committing zina”. What kind of person do they think I am if they say things like that? Obviously not one who can keep their legs closed, because “you know how American women are”. And now that I am married, the questions now are, “are you going to have kids”, “how come you’re not pregnant yet”, etc. So I find that many times, conversion stories end up leading to other questions that I don’t feel comfortable answering and that frankly I don’t feel are anyone’s business anyway.

4. Have you ever refused to tell your story? Why?

No, I can’t say that I have, but probably I should have, and perhaps I’ll try that next time I’m asked.

5. Do you find it different, or that you react or feel differently, being asked by a fellow convert versus a “born” Muslim to share your story?

Hmmm, I don’t think I can remember the last time that a convert, outrightly, asked me about my own conversion story, and I think if they did, it just came up in the normal course of the conversation, and it just didn’t have the “tell us your story for our own amusement” feeling to it that it does when “born” Muslims ask. So my reaction is a bit different, I don’t feel uncomfortable, because I feel that converts are coming from the same place I am, so we can relate on some level.

6. Do you ever wish that you could change the story you’ve told? Do you ever feel compelled to “update” it? Do you have different “versions” you tell depending on the audience?

Yes, I wish I could update my story, but how I’d do it, I don’t know. So much has changed since my initial conversion, I’m just not the same person I was before. And I don’t feel so “new” as a Muslim, I mean, I don’t even think of myself, most of the time anyway, as a “new Muslim”, I’m just a Muslim now, which kind of makes my conversion story feel irrelevant now. My conversion to Islam was just part of the pattern of my life.

As far as giving different versions of it, well, it depends on how the people around me are reacting, if I feel uncomfortable or they don’t seem interested, I give the “short” “taking a class in African history and researched Islam as part of the class” version, but if they seem interested, or I don’t feel put on display, I might explain the story in a bit more detail, as well as my experiences afterword.

7. Do you ever regret having told your story? Why?

Sometimes, because then I feel like I have to be “better” than the people who asked me, because I “found” Islam. Which makes me afraid that someone will “discover” my flaws and point them out for all the world to see. I mean, when I tell my story, I get the “oh she knows the truth, think of all the people who don’t”, or “she knows the truth, now she can go back and tell her family” or “oh have you told your family about Islam?”, as if I’m going to say “no I haven’t, I wanted to keep it a secret all to myself.” And then they seem disappointed when I tell them that yes, I’ve told my family, but no, they’re not Muslim, and again, I don’t think it’s any of their business anyway, but I feel boxed in so I feel like I have to answer something. But I get the feeling that as a convert, and especially as a woman, we can’t “mess up”, we can’t “do anything wrong”, because I think many times, our Islam is questioned/questionable to some to begin with. If our faith ebbs after accepting Islam, if we for some reason stop praying, etc., then you hear “oh she was a liar, she only became Muslim to get something from us”, etc. And then I’m like, well, I’d better not mess up because what are they going to think about or say about me?

8. Is it different for women versus men? Who asks you more often? Who gets asked more often? Are the connotations or feelings involved different depending on gender?

You know, many of these questions I’m not sure I have the answers to. I’ve tended to get asked my conversion story by women, primarily. Muslim women for inspiration or a sense of pride that “this American from Indiana would eventually come to Islam”. And non-Muslim women, it usually turns out, so they can “witness” to you, or otherwise attempt to convert you *back* to Christianity. I’ve not been asked by many men or at least any that I can remember at the moment. Although my husband, who’s laid back anyway, has the feeling that Allah gave me an open mind, because He knew that would allow me to find Islam anyway, despite that I lived in the MidWest, USA, and had no contact with Muslims. Though even that is tinged with “Mashallah, look at how amazing that is, that someone like you could find Islam”, which doesn’t bother me because he’s my husband and he’s not condescending about it, he just looks at it in the context of “Allah guides whom He wills, and He guided you, Mashallah, so Alhamdulillah for this”.

In general, I really don’t like talking about my conversion story too much because for me, it’s “old news” and most of it I don’t think applies to me anymore. I mean, I’m getting to the point where I’ve been Muslim for so long that I can hardly imagine my life before it. Although obviously, I still have memories of my “pre-Islam” life. It’s just that the “dividing line”, between before and after my conversion, that used to be so perceptible, has kind of blurred a bit. So my conversion to Islam doesn’t feel like this monumental change that it did when I went through it. It feels more like a gradual climb, not a seismic shift.