EVERY year, thousands of British people convert to Islam. Estimates of how many vary a lot, but in 2011 a study concluded that the total number of converts in the United Kingdom might exceed 100,000 and that about 5,000 had made that choice the previous year, with women exceeding men and the “white British” share of fresh converts amounting to around half. Whatever their own religious views, people are curious about unusual spiritual journeys: when, in 2013, Cambridge University produced a study of British women who had embraced Islam, it was downloaded more than 150,000 times.
When conversions come to public attention, it is usually for one of two reasons. Either the people involved are celebrities or closely connected to celebrities; Tony Blair’s sister-in-law is one example. Or else they are the subject of police attention as suspects in jihadi violence. But the great majority of converts are neither famous nor in any way prone to violence, they are simply products of a cosmopolitan age where all kinds of cultural experiences, whether through travel, social life or simply surfing the net, are available to all kinds of people, and the results can be surprising.
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