By Madeleine Sultán Sjöqvist
For my thesis in the sociology of religions, I have interviewed (ethnically) Swedish women who have converted into Islam. All the women are, or have been, practising religious Muslims. At the time of the interviews, my informants were 20–50 years old; they were married, or had been married, to Muslim men, both secular and practising. Several of them had been divorced once or more. Some of them had lived in a polygonal form of marriage. Their educational backgrounds vary: some have not finished their basic education, while others have studied at university level. Some have worked outside the home, while others are housewives. Most of them live in Sweden, but a few had also lived abroad and in those cases in their husbands' home countries. Some of the women had grown up in the countryside, others in bigger cities. When looking for a common ethnography, it has been difficult to find a set of shared traditional background variables for the converts. However, one common denominator is that most of them had not had any previous personal religious experiences, nor more qualified knowledge of religion in general, or of Islam and Christianity in particular.
New insights
I am interested in how religion takes its place in people’s everyday lives, in the lived experience and, above all, in how religious practice is embodied. But mine is also a study which, from a wider perspective, explores what we usually call the return of religion in post-modern society. This return means, for example, that religious groups claim a public space. From the perspective of the sociology of religions, conversion to Islam challenges theories of religion having a marginalized and private place in post-modern society. The empirical results presented in this article are mainly based on my thesis work, but is also supported by other conversion researchers within the social sciences (see e.g. McGurie 1981; Rambo 1993; Furseth & Repstad 2005; Nieuwkerk 2006; Allivei 2006 and Badran 2006).
Criticism of the West
During my interviews, I fairly soon realised that narratives of the conversion process were closely intertwined with descriptions of Muslim family life. My questions about the religious aspects of their engagement, on what the conversion process and life as a female convert in a secularised environment meant, could not be answered without the converts at the same time talking about their experiences of what it meant to live in a Muslim marriage.
Female emancipation
When converts state that Islam enables female emancipation, as long as the religion is interpreted in the right way, they very much contradict a general image of how both femininity and freedom should be perceived. When asked why they were attracted to Islam, converts often refer to values of freedom. They underline that Islam is the only egalitarian religion when it comes to ethnicity and gender. No political grouping, no other religion and absolutely not the Western women’s movement have understood what true female liberation means. But how do the converts perceive freedom for women in the religious world of ideas? And what is their attitude to the norm of wifely obedience? The converts’ understanding of freedom is closely related to their views of gender and family life; freedom for women is gained within the framework of the patriarchal family pattern. Femininity and masculinity can hardly be imagined without being placed in a social family order where the genders are seen as different and hierarchically ordered, and where characteristics and tasks are classified on the basis of gender. In addition, women lacking a social position within a family are regarded as an anomaly. However, to understand the converts' perception of freedom for women in a patriarchal family constellation, a few words must be said about their critical views of Western society. Western society is described as hostile to women and children. In Western society women are forced to run between home, day-care, school and working life. Combining a functioning everyday life with two working careers is seen as impossible; it is simply unfeasible to achieve a happy marriage and healthy children if both parents are forced to work outside the home. Furthermore, Western women are considered to be fixated on their looks and their bodies are seen as sexualized. The negative effects of life in Western society are obvious: women are stressed, burnt-out and ill. They become shattered and must give up their children. Western men are perceived as being more interested in their own hobbies such as sports and alcohol than in thinking about the well-being of their families. The converts say that in their contact with Islam, they find a language in which they can express their experiences as women. They also get a context where thoughts on and experiences of gender and family are not seen as something odd, but where their criticism is taken seriously and recognized. Among Muslims, a woman’s tasks in the home are valued as highly as a man’s occupation. They claim that through the religion they find themselves in a context that speaks of the rights of women. For the first time in their lives, they feel free. They say that they can be women on their own terms. They do not have to be as men in working life and they get a husband who is family-oriented. They do not have to stress. The converts say that they have won the lottery. In Muslim family life and in Muslim society women only have to do what women are assigned to do. They neither must, nor should, take over the tasks of men. The converts thus experience Muslim life as a zone of freedom. As women and Muslims they can influence their everyday life. However, it is an influence that is largely based on them being able to show that they are “good Muslim women”.
Equality, liberty and obedience
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| Foto: iStockphoto |
Contrary to values of equality and freedom, norms of wifely obedience are not mentioned when converts motivate their religious engagement. On the whole, the converts regard Islam as a guarantee for women’s rights and liberty. The norm of obedience is rather a problematic issue for them. There is no uniform interpretation among the converts as to what attitude Muslim women should take on the question of obedience. It is obvious that the issue is a topical one, for the informants talk often and at length about what obedience means. In narratives on Muslim family life, questions of gender equality, women's freedom and wifely obedience take a lot of space. Despite many attempts, the converts do not come to terms with the combination of the three dominating images of the doctrinal contents of the religion: Islam is a guarantee for the freedom of women and equality between the genders, but at the same time, wives must obey their husbands. So what are the converts' attitudes to obedience? Some think that they simply must obey; a Muslim cannot and should not question the norms of God. Many refer to a longer perspective: they will get their reward in Heaven. The more perseverance in obedience they can show on this side of death, the better will be their position in Paradise. Others think that men only have the right to “the example of the word, not the hand”. This rule of conduct is based on the belief that it is the “nature” of men to be rational, while women are emotional. He should teach her to be reasonable; but the reverse situation does not exist.
If she does not change her mind, he has the right to makes decisions over her head, even if this goes against her will. The question as to whether men may use violence or not when correcting their wives, is, however, a much debated question within Muslim societies. Others think that women must use their cunning to achieve influence. Another strategy is to conduct a theological discussion with the husband. Or rather, use the Koran to show that equality and the principle of joint decisions are the gist of the “actual” divine message, not that of women’s obedience. Here, the convert can gain influence by joining forces with the Koran, since even if the wife cannot make a decision over her husband’s head, the husband must bow to the Koran. A further strategy is to claim that the concept of freedom has another meaning in Islam than in the “West”, and that the issue is more of a problem for Western people than for practicing Muslims.
Views about how obedience should be interpreted do not seem to be uniform among converts. They have many strategies in their everyday experience with their husbands who want to decide things above their heads. Those who claim that the religion carries values of equality and freedom tend to defuse analyses of gender and power; this is obvious in the conversion narratives. The way in which converts manage to combine liberty, equality and obedience in their everyday life is, in my opinion, from a wider perspective related to the question of gender and power. There is no doubt that converts perceive of Islam as a guarantee of true female emancipation and equality; but at the same time in their marriages they encounter problems with how they can acquire influence over their lives, marriages and daily lives. Equality that is based on the genders as different but complementary, as equal but hierarchically ordered, seems to challenge the converts in a more fundamental way than their husbands do. Even if they think that Muslim marriage is liberation from the “battle of the genders”, the question of obedience and influence is a central issue among the converts.
Narratives of the conversion process
Very generally speaking, narratives of the conversion process start with descriptions of how the converts met warm and considerate Muslims. These are portrayed as totally different from the stereotypical prejudices that the converts think characterise Western culture. As the friendship and love relations develop, they describe how they change their own racist and xenophobic perception of “the other” as well as their view of Western society. The relations trigger their curiosity about Islam, and they say they wish to deepen their knowledge of the religion. The narratives of the conversion also contain comparative elements. The converts told me that they compare the Muslim view on family, women and men as well as the position of religion in society, with Western culture. Since we here encounter the perspectives and descriptions of those who already believe, it is perhaps not surprising that Islam is portrayed in more positive words than Western culture. The descriptions of the decision to convert are often dramatic. The converts explain how evil powers tried to drive them away from Islam, how old friends and relatives mocked them, how they were tried in their faith in all possible ways. These horrors are followed by descriptions of how God spoke to them; he appeared before them and made his will known to them. They talk about meetings with angels and how on a deeper level they realised that Islam is the absolute “Truth”. These experiences are portrayed as so strong and so decisive that there was no other alternative than to decide to become a Muslim. When the decision had been made, they describe how they changed many everyday practices: from eating habits, ways of dressing and make-up to the decoration of their homes, and what form contacts with non-Muslims should take. The main way of confessing one’s faith, showing that one has taken a stance is to publicly announce in some way that one has become a Muslim. In general, this is done by the convert starting to wear Muslim dress in public places. By taking the bus, shopping in a mall or picking up the children from day-care dressed in Muslim clothes a woman shows that she has chosen Islam.
Interestingly enough, this official rite has a marginal place in the narratives of conversion; it does not seem to function as a signifying marker for religious transition. In my opinion, narratives of dressing practices work well in a post-modern society, where identity is commonly perceived as being one with the body, or as something that can be worn on the body. Change in dressing practices functions well as a marker of a changed affiliation, or of a “new” identity. The religiosity that the Western converts seek and the rites that arise spontaneously seem to primarily focus on a religious expression that can legitimate everyday life in that they embody the religious engagement.
The function of the narrative
When converts talk about their conversion, these narratives have functions on several levels. On an individual level, the narrative should make comprehensible for the convert herself what has happened and she should be able to create meaning in her personal history. The narrative should also function in relation to the new religious context: by means of her description, the convert should pass as a serious convert, her story must be “right”. In addition, the narrative should function in relation to the old context. The religious affiliation should be understandable in relation to parents, siblings, colleagues and friends. Last but not least, the narrative should also have a missionary function – it should attract more followers.
Notes
Allievi, Stefano (2006): ”The shifting Significance of the Halal/Haram Frontier: Narratives on the Hijab and Other Issues”.
In: Women Embracing Islam. Gender and Conversion in the West. Karin van Nieuwkerk, ed., Austin: University of Texas Press.
Badran, Margot (2006): “Feminism and Conversion: Comparing British, Dutch, and South African Life Stories”. In: Women Embracing
Islam. Gender and Conversion in the West. Karin van Nieuwkerk, ed., Austin: University of Texas Press.
Furseth, Inger & Pål Repstad (2005): Religionssociologi – en introduktion. Malmö:Liber.
McGurie, Meridith (1981): Religion The Social Context. 4.e uppl. Belmont CA mfl: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Nieuwkerk,
Karin van (2006): “Gender, Conversion and Islam: A Comparison of Online and Offline Conversion Narratives”. In: Women Embracing
Islam. Gender and Conversion in the West. Karin van Nieuwkerk, ed., Austin: University of Texas Press.
Rambo, Lewis (1993): Understanding Religious Conversion. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Sultán Sjöqvist, Madeleine (2006): ”Vi blev muslimer” Svenska kvinnor berättar. En religionssociologisk studie om konversionsberättelser.
Uppsala: ACTA Universitatis Upsaliensis
