Reasons why I think Islamic conversion is becoming so popular in the West
Apologies if I don't sound coherent, I am high on prescribed medications rn
1} Western individualism to Islamic communalism: I should state that imo there's no society or society group in the world that is exactly good, but the Muslim bloc is clearly worse than others. I feel many Westerners, especially North Americans, see the hyperindividualism of their culture and are attracted to the hypercommunalism of Islam. In Islam we're taught to correct each other and essentially be police to each other, which is ultimately damaging for your mental health.
But if you are from a culture where no one cares about you other than immediate family, that also affects your mental health. I think people have a natural flaw tendency to reach for the total opposite of their problems, not realizing that opposite of a bad thing can still be another bad thing. Grass is greener until it's not.
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2} Double-sided coin of female sexualization: Westerners have a hypersexualized treatment of women especially in what women wear. Women's clubbing outfits are often hypersexual, advertizements lean into "sex sells" and ofc a radical hookup culture that can ultimately lead to loneliness. And ofc a pornography epidemic leading to dehumanization of (mostly) women (but also gay males, esp gay male bottoms) and a culture of (mostly) female vulnerability being as easy to access as Wikipedia.
The radical banning of all these things in Islam again is a grass is greener problem, but what westerners don't understand is that the hyperconservative and covered clothing women are expected to don in Islam belongs to the same essence of hypersexualization → women's bodies are treated as commodities in the eyes of men.
To quote Arianna Kyanne “Many think that modesty culture and hypersexuality culture are two vastly contradictory things, and often think that weaponizing one in response to the other is some type of rebellion or system-breaking act, without realizing that modesty culture and hypersexual culture are two sides of the same misogynistic coin; it all revolves around the notion that your sexuality is your worth as a woman, and if not used correctly under patriarchal systems, you are then deemed as useless or invaluable.” Western "reverts" (especially the women amongst them) see becoming Muslim as a rebellion against hypersexuality when it is in fact the same thing.
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3} Cleanliness: This might be a bit of a reach but I feel that western culture, particularly stemming from Europe, has an underpinning "shame" around them on the basis of uncleanliness. Europe has been ravaged again and again by infectious disease, with rats, epidemics, and pandemics having a long time problem in European society. Europe also has a few factors affecting its relationship with disease:
→ It has a temperate climate where disease can live in surface or on exposed food for longer, as opposed to MENA societies which have long been able to use the Sun as a disinfectant.
→ It has urbanized differently to other societies where it's cities and major towns were packed tightly together with damp, small alleys and no major roads.
→ European colonizers have killed a gigantic amount of Native Americans due to sheer disease, things that they'd developed immunity to that they've now exposed to people who don't live in that kind of dirty living space.
Now MENA is not immune to disease and also has an underpinning shame, however the illogical Western "revert" is not consciously thinking about these things, only subconsciously. There is emphasis on health in the west being an institution-based system (hospital, doctor, clinic, etc), with little in the way of home remedies for minor illness (as opposed to many other societies which have emphasis on traditional medicine, either alongside or precedent above scientific medicine). I'm not saying which is better, just saying it's there.
I think Islamic converts become attracted to the idea of not eating pig, using bidet instead of just toilet paper, fulfilling wudu, and also how many predominantly Muslim cultures have a strong home-medicine practice, and other parts of religious cleanliness. I think it appeals to them significantly.
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4} Lovebombing and community aspect: It's no secret how much Muslims pour out affection and warm welcome to converts and I think that's one of the strongest reasonings. Along with the fact that Muslims are religiously entitled to lie about the contents of the Qur'an or hadiths in order to attract a convert, and the "good deeds" you get for bringing someone to Islam, it means pre-existing Muslims are motivated to sweet-talk interested people or newcomers to win their conversion.
Lovebombing is a common cult tactic but soon the convert is held to strict expectations. Eventual apostasy amongst converts is a well known phenomenon but I cannot find a source on what the % is (the oft-quoted 70% within a year seems to be just some guy's opinion and not a statistic). However what is worrying is that apostasy doesn't automatically mean you leave behind the radical nature Islam instills in you. The urge to police others, to justify violence based on philosophy, to stick to strict maladaptive routines, and to continuously radicalize in any chosen philosophy, doesn't automatically go away. Matter of fact, cult like behaviours instilled by Islam may be used further on an ex-convert if they have not deconstructed this.
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5) Racial "blindness": As far as I'm aware, there's no islamic laws that are applied differently depending on ethnicity, race, or skin colour, say opposed to forms of Hinduism where caste matters, and in Christianity where certain denominations are associated with specific races or ethnic groups, have different teachings, and often have beef with each other.
This is extremely appealing to the western Islamic convert as race is taken extremely seriously in the west. Both for the oppressed races (black, brown, champagne) and the oppressor race (white), as the former see this as "finally! a religion that accepts me regardless of the colour of my skin," which is why there's so many African American converts imo, and a long history of Islamic conversion amongst AA's at that. And the white converts see it as an opportunity to ‘shake off’ some of their status as an oppressor, as they now believe in a religion that purportedly thinks every colour is the same.
The issue with this is two-fold. On the oppressed group's side, they're actually trading in one abuser for another, as Islamic colonization has long been going on and indeed the Arab nations still partaking in the Transaharan/Red Sea slave trade, one of the longest going slave trades in human history (afaik only superseded by the Korean slave trade).
The ignoring of Arabia's continued oppression of Africa and indeed UAE in particular trafficking south Asians, is extremely harmful to these groups as they are silenced on a global discussion level. This is not to forget how places like Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan, retain a racial inferiority complex, often jokes made about these groups trying to say they're not black, or claim Arab significant ancestry when it's not there. When you add in that Islam believes only Arabic is spoken in Jannah, it becomes clear that Islam is not a colourblind religion.
On the other hand, white converts see their entry into Islam as a shedding of their position as an oppressor group in Western society. Reminder that the west sees Islam as the "POC" religion and therefore non-defamabke. Take in the "Tumblr model," which has 5 stages, and can happen for better or worse.
a → Tolerance: wanting to support a Group (possibly for uninformed or wrong reasons)
b → Glorification: Associates Group with positive traits
c → Appropriation: Real or perceived proximity to the aforementioned traits, therefore considers self similar to the Group
d → Fanaticism: Perception of proximity to the traits increases; considers self part of the Group
e → Intolerance: believes true Group members embody the aforementioned traits, not necessarily the criteria for the Group
These "reverts" all ended up at D and many at E, telling others around them that Islam is such a peaceful and gentle religion, or a feministic religion (💀) which then reinforces this model for other westerners.
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Let me know if you feel there are other key factors to western Islamic converts, and let me know if you have an ideas of what can be done to stop this train of idealization of Islam!
