Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-6qszs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-23T16:18:25.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Conversions to Islam

from Part II - Asserting Agency in Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2025

By
Vanessa Vroon-Najem
Edited by
Masooda Bano
Masooda Bano
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

Vanessa Vroon-Najem reviews the growing scholarship on women’s conversion to Islam in the West. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork with Dutch female converts to Islam, she demonstrates how initial conversions often stem from the appeal of classical Islamic reasoning on gender norms. Over time, these women learn to respect core values while making adjustments on secondary matters, enabling them to engage with a wider society that remains skeptical of their newly acquired Muslim identity.

Keywords

Female convertsEuropeDutchwhite womenconversions to Islam
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam , pp. 195 - 213
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Select Bibliography

Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others.” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3 (2002): 783–790.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmad, Attiya. “Explanation Is Not the Point: Domestic Work, Islamic Da‘wa and Becoming Muslim in Kuwait.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 11, nos. 3–4 (2010): 293–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avishai, Orit. “‘Doing Religion’ in a Secular World. Women in Conservative Religions and the Question of Agency.” Gender & Society 22 (2008): 409–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, Yasin. “Conversion to Islam: The Qur’anic Paradigm.” In Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies, ed. Lamb, Christopher and Bryant, Darroll, 151–166. London: Cassell, 1999.Google Scholar
Jouili, Jeanette. “Beyond Emancipation: Subjectivities and Ethics among Women in Europe’s Islamic Revival Communities.” Feminist Review 98 (2011): 47–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival.” Cultural Anthropology 16, no. 2 (2001): 202–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahmood, Saba The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
McGinty, Anna Mansson. Becoming Muslim: Western Women’s Conversions to Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moors, Annelies and Vroon-Najem, Vanessa. “When Islamic Marriage Travels to the Netherlands: Convert Muslim Women (Re)Signifying the Marriage Guardian and the Dower.” In Muslim Marriage and Non-Marriage: Where Religion and Politics Meet Intimate Life, ed. McBrien, Julie and Moors, Annelies, 223–247. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nieuwkerk, Karin van ed. Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion in the West. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Rogozen-Soltar, Mikaela. “Striving toward Piety: Gendered Conversion to Islam in Catholic-Secular Spain.” Current Anthropology 61, no. 2 (2020):141–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin Books (2003).Google Scholar
Tarlo, Emma. Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith. New York: Berg, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vroon-Najem, Vanessa. “Muslim Converts in the Netherlands and the Quest for a ‘Culture-Free’ Islam.” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 186 (2019): 33–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zebiri, Kate. British Muslim Converts: Choosing Alternative Lives. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×