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This article focuses on continuity in the practice of the conversion of Muslims and its social implications in Venice in the period 1750–1824. Neophytes were people of other religious confessions who converted and were baptized as Catholics. Among neophytes of Muslim origin in Venice at this time were enslaved people, formerly enslaved individuals, and free men and women, as well as others of uncertain status. While the article discerns patterns of continuity in the practice of the conversion of Muslims and the wider experience of enslaved people in Venice, it argues that significant changes occurred after the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797. These developments emerged in response to the shifting political climate and legal reforms of the Napoleonic period (1806–1814) and the post-1814 period in which Venice came under Austrian rule, culminating in a reduction in the number of neophytes and enslaved people in the city. The geographical origins of the neophytes ranged from the Ottoman Empire and its regencies to Eastern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Atlantic. Sources from Venice's Pius House of Catechumens reveal the types of work the neophytes performed and indicate how changes in ownership dictated slaves' or former slaves' trajectories before their arrival in Venice. The article also highlights how religious conversion from Islam to Catholicism was a watershed moment for individuals, one that had a major bearing on their living and working conditions and, in some cases, their social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the mass religious conversions that took place in early-modern Iberia from the end of the fourteenth century had enormous consequences, one of which was the increasing racialisation of religion. Jewish and Muslim minorities were forced to receive baptism, and although in principle the Church made no distinction among people who had been baptised, in practice the presence of large numbers of recent converts to Catholicism called this theology into question. In the process, as I will demonstrate in this article, religion was racialised, as many people became convinced that religion (both beliefs and ritual) was biological and was transmitted by blood. To support this argument, the article will focus, as a case study, on the discussion about whether to deny baptism to the children of Moriscos (converted Muslims) in the years preceding the general expulsion from Spain of the Moriscos (1609–11). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran" by Alberto Tiburcio provides a detailed account of the life and work of Ali Quli Jadid al-Islam, a Portuguese Augustinian priest who converted to Islam in Safavid Iran. The book explores the complex relationship between the state, the ulama, and religious minorities in Safavid Iran, offering valuable context for understanding Jadid al-Islam's motivations for conversion. It also examines Jadid al-Islam's engagement with the dalāʾil al-nubuwwa tradition and his polemical writings against Christianity and Sufism. The book offers a nuanced analysis of the intellectual landscape of Safavid Iran, making it a compelling resource for those interested in Islamic intellectual history, religious studies, and early modern history. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Runa: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre is the property of Runa: Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Religious conversion and marriage across communal lines have long been contentious in India. The contemporary debate on 'Love Jihad' – the Hindu Nationalist conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of waging a religious war by seducing and converting unsuspecting Hindu brides – exemplifies the simultaneously geopolitical and biopolitical anxiety that religious conversion inspires. In this paper, I focus on the case of Hadiya, a young woman from Kerala, who, in 2016, found herself remanded first to her university's hostel – as dormitories are called in India – and then to her parents' home as various courts debated on the authenticity of her conversion to Islam, and her marriage to a Muslim partner. Through an examination of media discourse and court records in this case, the paper argues that in 'Love Jihad', the domestic and the carceral are rendered inextricably intertwined through an affective politics that presents desire outside the bounds of caste and religion as geopolitically misoriented. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's work on the phenomenology of orientation, I focus on the intimate geographies of the hostel, which I argue exemplifies a site of carceral convergence between nation and family, in the management of the affective disorder associated with religious conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas H. Marshall's insights on citizenship in 1950 have long been a foundation for most contemporary debates on citizenship, and social citizenship has emerged as a new device that revolutionized the methodologies for making people equal in an unequal world.[9] The Marshallian approach to citizenship also invited criticism, mainly because of its unitary concept of citizenship in Western industrial states. Although a plethora of definitions of citizenship revolve around the questions of what citizenship is, where it takes place, and who a citizen is, citizenship can generally be defined as a collection of rights and obligations that give individuals a formal legal identity.[11] The fundamental aspect of citizenship is legal membership in a political community, and the eventual form of the political community is a state. The nexus between religious conversion and citizenship remains understudied in the sociology of religion, partly because religious conversion is considered a divine personal experience, whereas citizenship is seen as a secular state matter. For example, Ahmet Kuru classified forty-six Muslim-majority states into three categories: Islamic states, states with an established religion (Islam), and secular states.[1] Eleven countries in the first category, such as Saudi Arabia and Brunei, have clearly defined themselves as Islamic states. [Extracted from the article]

This research note aims to examine the effect of religion market abuses on religious conversion, particularly on the non-transmission of religious preferences from parents to their offspring. Based on a field survey of 1,475 individuals in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé, this research note seeks to understand the dynamics of the socio-economic forces that lead to the abandonment of parents' religions. The econometric results reveal that the explanatory factors for changes in religious preferences often vary from one religion to another. With the exception of Pentecostals, Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim believers who believe that the religious market is rife with abuse are less likely to change their religious preferences. Increased income can significantly induce a change in religious preferences among Protestants and Pentecostals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peranakan Chinese community have arrived in Kelantan for the last three centuries. They can acculturate themselves into the Malay Muslim community in this state to the extent that they can adopt the lifestyle of Malay and speak Kelantan slang Malay fluently. However, this acculturation can only change the lifestyle and slang language, not the beliefs and religion. The objective of this article is to examine the factors that can cause Peranakan Chinese in Kelantan not to embrace Islam and to be comfortable with the religion of their ancestors. Previous studies have found six hindrance factors for Chinese to embrace Islam, namely; a) communal and ethnocentric attitudes of Kelantan Malays. b) ethnocentric and communal attitudes of the Chinese. c) differences of beliefs. d) maintaining peranakan Chinese identity. e) economic discrimination. f) implementation of Islamic politics. This study examines the extent to which these six factors hinder Peranakan Chinese from embracing Islam. A total of 12 Peranakan Chinese informants in Kelantan were interviewed in a semi-structured method and they consisted of elected representatives from each district in Kelantan. The study found that the majority of respondents can receive Malay and adopt Malay lifestyles. However, there are several factors that cause them to not embrace Islam, namely the Chinese communal attitude that prioritises family ties and is more comfortable sticking to the existing religion than a new religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sierra Leone, today a country with a Muslim majority (78.6%), has undergone an intense process of Christian religious conversion. Christianity was first introduced in Sierra Leone in 1792. Today, 20.4 % of the population is Christian, with a 'Born-Again' or protestant majority surpassing previous national historic denominations of Catholicism, the Pentecostal, Anglicans, Baptists, Jehovah Witnesses and Apostolicism, mainly in the minority. 'Born-Again' churches are a repertoire of Nigerian and Sierra Leonean religious leaders tutored by Nigerian theocrats called the redeemed Christian leaders. This article seeks to establish the dimension of divergent Christian religious groups in terms of follower compositions and to inject a sociological lens of these compositions, suggesting interpretations that influence Sierra Leonean Christian perceptions and diversions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article historically and anthropologically examines the issue of religious conversion and identity formation among a Jogi community of religious converts. They were previously Muslims and changed their religious association to Hinduism after 1947. Individual and collective narratives of their religious conversion and the problems associated with forming a respected socio-religious identity indicate that religious conversion in South Asia is a non-linear event symbolising a complex process of becoming Hindu. The Muslim Jogis were not accepted by the Hindu Jogis after these conversions, leading to the formation of a new Jogi caste community called the Suddhi (purified) Jogis, popularly recognised in Alwar as a caste of converts. The community members still struggle to assert their Hindu identity. This article argues that converting to Hinduism may result in 'social stasis', signifying a 'perpetual state of becoming' due to the lack of complete social acceptance of converts by the traditionally recognised caste communities of 'Hindus'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promulgation of the new state-level conversion laws in India or some changes in already existing ones by ordinances is premised upon various conspiracy theories of Hindu fundamentalists against Muslims. Implicit in and placed at the centre of these new anti-conversion laws and public debates thereof is the conspiracy theory of love-jihad that Muslim men lure Hindu women on the pretext of love and get them convert to Islam to eventually outnumber the Hindu majority. This article argues that the anti-conversion laws in India result from anxieties of the dominant caste and class regarding gender and caste, leading to the imposition of the mainstream orthodox religious and political will upon the marginalized. The creation of anti-conversion laws is based on assumptions, fears, conspiracy theories, and moral and religious values primarily shared by the 'upper-caste' section across the political spectrum. Furthermore, it also shows a growing nexus between conservative religious forces and state apparatuses that restricts religious and social mobility of the marginalized sections through legal changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North Africa (west of Egypt) is a compelling locale to explore how and when a Muslim minority became the Muslim majority. Previous scholarly approaches to medieval religious change rely almost exclusively on much later written sources, and as a result, little is understood about the religious landscape in which believers operated in. This article examines critically the material evidence for mosque construction and church abandonment and proposes certain tipping points in the process by which Islam become the dominant religion. While mosque construction reveals more about state and elite religious investment than the believers who may have used them, other forms of evidence, including funerary evidence, dietary practices and inscribed material culture, occasionally give us an intimate glimpse into the practices of simple believers. The evidence shows that the chronology of religious change differs between those regions under Byzantine rule (eastern Algeria, Tunisia, coastal Libya), and those ruled by Berber chiefdoms in late antiquity. Much of the latter converted in the 8th century, whereas the late 9th century marks the mass conversion of town dwellers from the Byzantine core and a first period of crisis for Christianity. This early conversion was an important factor in the collapse of the caliphate in North Africa and the emergence of successor states that used Islam as the main idiom through which to establish and legitimize their right to rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of a long history of acceptance of transmigration from various parts of the world and interethnic marriages being embraced, political agendas that prevailed following the independence of Malaysia culminated in a society with increasing ethnic polarisation impacting on social cohesion and reports of aversion to interethnic marriages. This study is aimed at exploring the perspectives of people who have lived through the different socio‐political changes impacting on the social fabric. Using an exploratory cross‐sectional qualitative design, 36 participants from the three main ethnic groups, across three generations (Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials) were interviewed to explore their views on interethnic marriages in Peninsular Malaysia. Iterative questioning was adopted to enhance reliability of data, which were processed by thematic analysis. Although each of the generational groups had different lived experiences, the findings indicate commonalities identified in terms of two main themes, i.e., challenges and facilitators. The predominant perception is the challenge of religion conversion required by non‐Muslims in relationships with Muslims. The issue of ethnicity did not arise as of concern amongst the different ethnic groups from this urban sample. Of significance is the heightened ethno‐religionist consciousness with implications on social cohesion for community relations and nation building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the centrality of the Jesuit missionaries as indispensable agents in re-establishing negotiations with the Muslims of Mindanao and Sulu. In doing so, I discuss an unpublished Jesuit report: the Relación de las islas Filipinas (Manila, 1654) by the Jesuit Juan Francisco Combés (1620–65), which willfully conflated religious conversion with military intervention and conquest in the interests of securing a permanent base of operations in the southern Philippines. Spanish hegemony in the region was always contested. Therefore, Jesuit superiors strove to convince the civil authorities of Manila, and particularly the governor of the Philippines, don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara (in office 1653–63), to leave definitively the military strongholds in the Moluccas and instead to reinforce the military presidios located in the southern islands of Mindanao as the best way to stop the Muslim raids. Finally, the postscript analyzes the martyrdom of the Jesuits Alejandro López (1604–55) and Juan de Montiel (1632–55) as a propagandistic tool to cement the Jesuit contribution to the Spanish conquest and identify it with Catholic evangelization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the use of Islamic sources in a fragmentary text, the Tathlīth al-waḥdāniyya ('Trebling the Oneness'), written by an anonymous Jewish convert to Christianity. The author's aim was to demonstrate – using an ontological approach – the inconsistent nature of the arguments employed by his Muslim opponents, and at the same time to highlight the unacceptable practices of Muslims with regard to divorce and adultery. The fragments have survived thanks to their being quoted in a text by a Muslim author, who sought to counter each of the theological views expressed therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the phenomenon of conversion is analysed in the context of the experiences of Japanese Muslim converts. The purpose of this study is to understand the processes leading to conversion to Islam among Japanese and to explore religious conversion motifs of Japanese Muslim converts. A combination of phenomenology and grounded theory research methods were applied in order to understand the essence of the conversion experience of Japanese Muslims and also to develop a theoretical explanation for their conversion. It is discovered that Japanese conversion to Islam is a social process, led by their encounters with Muslims. Most of the time, their first memorable encounter with Islam took place in the social context. Upon their encounters, the Japanese, who were not seriously dissatisfied with their existing living conditions and beliefs previously, and who were not in search of a new way of life and a belief, began to be interested in Islam in different ways. They had a lack of strong prejudice against Islam, thus following their encounters, they had an open attitude learning towards the religion and the people. Four motivational factors discovered influential on Japanese conversion to Islam: social, intellectual, psychological and pragmatic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British converts to Islam can be hard to locate in relation to the majority and born Muslim minority in society and can experience rejection from both sides. Based on an ethnic lens and framework, they are conceptualised as 'in-between' the two, neither fully one nor the other. This article argues that by foregrounding religious rather than ethnic identity, a different pattern of how converts position themselves in society emerges. To do so, it draws on a study of converts' narratives and investigates the dynamics of how a divide between religion and culture emerges from these narratives. To discuss these dynamics, it draws on Simmel's influential essay The Stranger in order to develop an analytical reorientation that centralises the religious aspect in order to gain a new relational understanding of converts' belonging as well as the social aspects of the conversion process itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transcendence of divinity in Islam along with submission to God as the ultimate sovereign created a host of challenges for Muslim kings in their formal, legalistic interactions with non-monotheists, especially those communities who perceived the divine as immanent in nature and did not make a distinction between the veneration of kings and the worship of gods. While the preferred biblical mode for smoothing such engagements between the believer and non-believer was "conversion" of the latter, this approach was often neither possible nor desirable from the perspective of Muslim rulers in Asia. Thus, in many cases, Muslim kings practiced a transgressive form of boundary crossing and translation across religious divisions erected by biblical monotheism, what I call "un-conversion," by deliberately bypassing or overriding the scriptural requirements of Islam. This essay examines the theoretical implications of such un-conversions for our understanding of sovereignty and political theology in Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an attempt to present the problem of abandoning the Muslim religion in favor of Christianity. The article is based on materials collected and stored in the archives of Russia (Saint Petersburg), Lithuania (Vilnius), and Belarus (Grodno). These mostly contain either surviving records of baptisms sent to the consistory or police reports. The cases of conversion among nineteenth-century Muslims in the territory of the Russian Empire cited in the article have served as the basis for this phenomenon's typology in the Muslim Tatar community. Moreover, they have provided the basis for analyzing whether it is possible to fit them into pre-existing conversion models in social sciences. The examples quoted in the text show the kinds of life problems that prompted Muslim Tatars to abandon the religion of their ancestors, e.g., terminal illness, the issue of marriage, or the likelihood of rejection by one's group. It should be mentioned that there had already been conversions among Muslim Tatars in the early period of their settlement. However, this trend has never taken on a mass character, as evidenced by the relatively good condition of the Muslim community living in the former territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theme of baptisms of Muslims in the Early Modern Period has not been paid attention to in Czech historiography up until now. This is definitely not the case in the neighbouring countries, where the baptisms of 'Turks' have been dealt e. g. with by Karl Teply, and more recently by, for example, Markus Friedrich, Manja Quakatz, Boris Golec, Stephan Theilig, Leyla Coşan or Markus Krischer. The legal adjustment of the baptisms of adults in the archdiocese of Prague was contained in the statutes of the Berka synods from the year 1605, which gave the authority to allow the baptisms of individuals of non-Christian origin to the Archbishop. In practice, these baptisms were usually permitted by the Archbishop's consistory on the basis of a request, submitted most frequently by the priest who was preparing the catechumen for the baptism. It can be inferred from the archival group of the Consistory of Prague that between the years 1683-1699 around 300 baptisms of Muslims were allowed, with the most baptisms taking place in the years 1687-1691. The baptised individuals are referred to most frequently in the sources as Turks, which was the general period labelling for a Muslim. The majority of these catechumens were prisoners of war (mostly women and children), who belonged to someone, which circumstance relativizes to a certain extent the freedom of their decision-making, although there is no direct evidence of forced baptisms. Not all captured Muslims underwent baptism, although the reports of non-baptized persons are less common. In relation to the exchange of prisoners in the year 1699 a list was draft ed, according to which there were only eight non-baptized Muslims in the Bohemia, who wanted to return to their country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to show that Hernando de Talavera's evangelization strategies toward Muslims and Muslim converts in Granada (1492–1507) cannot be fully understood without investigating his previous preaching activities from the late 1470s aimed at a group of Jewish converts in Seville whom he considered "judaizers." By closely comparing the arguments against Jewish practices which Talavera outlined in his polemical work Católica impugnación to a series of instructions on Christian and Muslim practices that he issued as archbishop of Granada, it will be argued that in his reformist view of a society modeled on Paul's theology of the two Laws, Judaism and Islam are closely associated. The article seeks to determine to what extent Judaism, as a well-defined set of cultural and religious practices, shaped Talavera's strategies toward Muslims within the broader conversion plan, with its universalistic character, that was promoted by the Spanish Crown in the late fifteenth-century Mediterranean. At the same time, it will demonstrate how specific aspects of both religions, such as the language (Arabic, Hebrew) or the theological view of Law (the Qur'ān, Jewish law), challenged a simplistic conception of the Abrahamic faiths as interchangeable. Finally, the study will raise the question of how Talavera adapted the apostle Paul's universalistic call for conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recently published paper in this journal (Choi, 2021) establishes a statistical link between, on the one hand, Islamist terrorist campaigns – including terrorist attacks and online propaganda – and, on the other the growth of the Muslim population. The author explains this result by stating that successful campaigns lead some individuals to convert to Islam. In this commentary, we intend to reply to this article by focusing on the impact of terrorist attacks on religious conversion. We first show that Choi's results suffer from theoretical flaws – a failure to comprehensively unpack the link between violence and conversion – and methodological shortcomings – a focus on all terrorist groups over a period where Islamist attacks were rare. This leads us to replicate Choi's analysis by distinguishing Islamist and non-Islamist terror attacks on a more adequate timeframe. By doing so, we no longer find empirical support for the relationship between terror attacks and the growth of the Muslim population. However, our analyses suggest that such a hypothesis may hold but only in contexts where the level and intensity of political violence are high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The material analysis of the only surviving copy of the editio princeps of the Historia de la doncella Teodor allows us to date it back to the incunabula era and to attribute its printing to Pedro Hagenbach’s workshop. The close relationship amongst Hagenbach’s workshop, the reformist project of Archbishop Cisneros, and the interests of the Catholic Monarchs sets an editorial and cultural context that supports the adaptation of Teodor to the printing press. This work perfectly agreed with the thematic and ideological guidelines for the renewal of Christian customs and values. The forceful religious and intellectual imposition of the young and learned slave, turned into a “fijadalgo” in the imprint, on the court of the caliph with its most eminent sages, acquires clear courtly and propagandist implications. Such implications are linked to the political context in which the imprint appeared: the uprisings of the Muslim population against the Catholic Monarchs, in response to the massive forced conversion orchestrated by Cisneros. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of people converting to Islam in Europe has been growing in recent years and interest in this phenomenon has gained increasing attention. Scholarly attention has sought in particular to "locate" converts in relation to majority and minorities in society. One way of conceiving and theorising in this vein has been to focus on the notion of habitus, with alternative emphases of change or continuity. This article engages with conversion seen through the lens of habitus through a focus on converts to Islam in Britain. The article argues that these focuses on habitus over-emphasise practice against faith or belief and emphasise change against continuity or vice-versa. The article argues that what we need to focus on is the dynamic process between change and continuity found in the negotiations converts make as they seek to navigate their sense of self and social relations. Moreover, the article suggests that an emphasis on practice against faith or belief distorts how we understand these negotiations and the subsequent ways in which converts to Islam in Britain position themselves in relation to "majority society" and Muslim communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jewish scholar ʿAbdallāh b. Salām is a legendary figure from early Islam who is regarded in Islamic tradition as the archetypal Jewish convert to Islam during the Prophet's career, the pre-eminent authority on Jewish scriptures in seventh-century Arabia, and a renowned Companion. This study examines the traditions on Ibn Salām's conversion that were recorded in the biographical literature and Quranic commentaries of classical Islam and identifies the literary tropes from Muḥammad's biography featured in these traditions. Scrutiny of the evidence shows that the reports on the date and circumstances of Ibn Salām's conversion were shaped by a number of factors, including, the biases of his descendants, Quranic exegesis, and anti-Jewish polemics. Ibn Salām's legendary conversion served as a vehicle for diverse groups of Muslims to promote their doctrines and supply the Prophet with Biblical legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I look at how political ethnography can contribute to the study of religious dynamics within conservative religious communities. Based on fieldwork conducted in Tajikistan within conservative Muslim circles, I take a reflexive stance by arguing that my informants used my status as a single foreign woman to steer interactions toward those of my religious conversion and need for marriage. Their repeated efforts and our interactions exposed the depth of their religious beliefs and its precedence over other identity markers such as ethnicity and language. This close access also allowed me to witness the exclusion and distrust that conservative Muslims face from the rest of the society as well as state authorities. Ultimately, I argue that political ethnography enables the production of a more nuanced portrait of conservative Muslims communities, which are often represented as hermetic and hostile. Political ethnography can be particularly useful to investigate sensitive issues such as religious identities and their complex relations to structures of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ayman Ibrahim's book "is concerned with the multifaceted nature of conversion as represented in Islamic historiographical accounts written during the first three centuries of Islam" (p. 2). Because Ibrahim restricts the horizon of his analysis to the early tenth-century CE, he does not capture the narratives of major chroniclers such as al-Mas'udi (d. 956 CE) and Ibn al-Nadim (d. ca. 995 CE). His critical reappraisals of the early ninth-century CE reporter al-Waqidi (pp. 111-116) and the mid eighth-century CE and early ninth-century CE hagiographers Ibn Is aq and Ibn Hisham (pp. 121-128) are particularly noteworthy. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts / Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU is the property of Institute of Ethnography, SASA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed a wide variety of rights such as the safety of their lives, property, honor and freedom of thought, religion and worship as required by the nation system. They were able to maintain their own culture and to adapt to the system through the rights granted to them in the fields of administrative and private law in accordance with the non-Muslim law. However, despite these wide range of rights granted to them in penal-law cases concerning the public, non-Muslims were still able to apply to the kadi courts in matters that fall under private law cases such as inheritance, custody and proxy. When the cases concerning daily-life relations between non-Muslims and Muslims became common in addition to the types of court cases mentioned above, the kadi registers turned into a really important argument in revealing the nature of the aforementioned relations. The purpose of this study is to address the kadi registers, which are mostly analyzed on their judicial or legal aspects, from a different perspective to reveal the nature of the relations of non-Muslims with their environment. The reason for selecting the kadı registers of Çorum is the significant variety of examples provided by the city, because by the mid-19th century Armenians started arriving particularly from Talas and Germir districts of Kayseri, and in addition to them there were also Greeks, Catholic and Protestants settled in the area and established relations with the local community. The idea is that the change and transformation that Çorum went through from a homogeneous Muslim Turkish city to a heterogeneous imperial city would provide essential data in terms of understanding and making sense of similar historical developments. Following the Industrial Revolution, Europe's need for food and provisions increased and this played a major role in the development of Çorum as it is located on the transport route between central areas of Turkey and the northern port town of Samsun. By the late 19th century the rate of non-Muslims, mostly merchants, settling in the area increased rapidly and they started living in different parts of the city. Due to the reason that the non-Muslims chose settling in the existing neighborhoods rather than gathering in certain places or establishing a new neighborhood, their relations with the Muslim community diversified and deepened. As such, non-Muslims formed various types of relations with the Muslim communities during this period as a reflection of the coexistence culture throughout the empire. These relations were mostly recondliation-centered but there were some disputes in some cases. The relations were also multi-dimensional and had administrative, legal, judiciary, social and cultural aspects, concerning various matters such as charitable institutions, religious conversion, finding and constructing worship places. In addition, there were very strong relations formed with Muslim communities in social and economic life, ranging from livestock farming, land, garden and business partnership, home and shop ownership to tenancy, among other daily matters. In this study, the mentioned relationship network is explained in four parts. In the first part, the social and demographic change process during which Çorum evolved into a cosmopolitan imperial city in the 19th century is explained. In the second part, as the number of non-Muslims, their influence and political impact in the city increased over the time, their increasingly diverse relations with the Muslim community are emphasized. In the third part, the legal and judicial issues between non-Muslims and the Muslim community are explained. Ottoman court records contain essential data regarding the legal and judicial relations of non-Muslims with both the Muslim community and the public sphere. In the fourth and last chapter, the multifaceted economic ties of non-Muslims with Muslims are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavations at three urban sites, Harlaa, Harar, and Ganda Harla, in eastern Ethiopia have recovered substantial assemblages of faunal remains. These, the first to be analysed from Islamic contexts in the country, were studied to reconstruct animal economies, and to assess if it was possible to identify Islamic conversion or the presence of Muslims in archaeological contexts through examining butchery practices and diet via the species present. Differences in animal economies between the sites in, for example, management strategies, use of animals for traction, and presence of imported marine fish, infers the development of different traditions. However, conversion to Islam was evident, and although issues of non-observance, mixed communities, and dietary eclecticism have to be acknowledged, the appearance of a similar range of butchery techniques suggests these were linked with the appearance of Muslim traders, and subsequent spread of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research utilizing conversion narratives to understand how and why people convert has been troubled by the "accuracy" of the accounts. This study of Muslim converts in the United States sidesteps this problem by turning the focus away from the causes, motives, and drivers of conversion and placing it instead on the form or structure of their conversion narratives. More specifically, it foregrounds the subjective process of making sense of one's conversion story through the employment of formulaic narrative structures. Findings suggest that when accounting for their conversion to Islam, these respondents employed three different narrative structures: stories of awakening, continuity, and return. Although these stories vary in meaningful ways, each provides a different perspective on how conversion to Islam can be conceptualized and expressed narratively. The discussion centers on the similarities and differences between these stories in order to more fully articulate and distinguish their underlying premises. I conclude by considering how each of these stories are used by converts to convey the authenticity of their Muslim identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Converts form a growing portion of the Muslim community in São Paulo, Brazil. Often introduced to Islam through media representations, they turn to religion for a variety of reasons, including the desire to search for spiritual truth. This article will examine questions of identity that arise during the process of religious conversion, using data gathered from extensive fieldwork. Specifically, it will analyze how male converts view the place of Islam within the context of Brazilian society and how they reimagine concepts of personal identity through religious conversion. The study suggests that converts hold diverse points of view regarding the development of their spiritual identity, emphasizing both the challenges and benefits of being Muslim and practicing Islam in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No comprehensive research of Erasmus' ethnological mind has been published, so far. Erasmus' attitudes toward Turks and Jews were discussed analytically but not synthetically or comparatively. An attempt to widen the ethnological scope and to define and classify Erasmus' attitudes toward different non-Christian groups is presented here. Christian Europeans (populus Christianus) were at the top of Erasmus' echelon. Second to them were 'half-Christians', i.e. Turks, or Muslims in general. Below them were Jews, and lower in the hierarchy were black Africans (Aethiopes). Yet, no one was unworthy of conversion to Christianity, even barbarians of the third kind - according to Bartolomé Las Casas' sort - the most inferior barbarians, slaves by nature, as defined by Aristotle. According to Las Casas, these barbarians were too low to ask for God and were not candidates for conversion to Christianity. Erasmus' believed that Barbarians of any kind deserved Christianity without being brutally forced to accept it. Yet, in practice, converts from Judaism to Christianity were rated, even by Erasmus, as lower than Christians. This, in addition to the principle that Christian peace excludes war against the Turks, is the very essence of Erasmus' pax et concordia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyzes the Arabic Gospels and Pauline Epistles of MS 4971 of Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid. One of six Gospel manuscripts related to the tenth-century Arabic translation of the Vulgate by the Cordoban Ishāq b. Balashk, MS 4971 is unique in several regards: it contains some of the latest New Testament material in Arabic in the West (copied between 1542 and 1543); it is the most complete Arabic translation of Paul's letters in the West in the medieval period; and it circulated and was copied within a Morisco environment. The Moriscos were New Christians of Muslim origin who converted in the early sixteenth century. Due to the coercive conditions under which they converted, this minority was suspect of heterodoxy and the secret practice of Islam, especially when in possession of Arabic texts. Modern scholarship tends to confirm this association: Moriscos possessing Arabic texts, including biblical texts, generally used them for strengthening Muslim identity. The present essay complicates this picture by reading MS 4971 as a site of negotiation for Morisco identity on the part of Muslim converts to Christianity. These converts re-inscribe Islam into the biblical narrative and question Old Christian categories of religion, culture, and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite consideration from missiologists studying Muslim-to-Christian conversion, the role of dreams in contemporary Christian conversion has not received widespread attention. Additionally, though researchers have frequently noted the use of dreams among Pentecostal/charismatic Christians, this finding stands in need of exploration vis-à-vis the concept of conversion. This study will address each of these issues and further the general understanding of the role of dreams in Christian conversion by examining this topic in contemporary Nepal, a predominantly Hindu nation with a rapidly growing, extensively Pentecostal/charismatic Christian community. Relying on data from a combination of surveys, interviews, and participant observation, this study discusses the prevalence, preconditions, processes, and impact of dream-related conversion vis-à-vis a Pentecostal church context in Nepal. 尽管那些研究从穆斯林转变为基督徒的宣教学者们已经对梦做过一些有关考查，梦在当代基督徒信主中的作用尚未得到广泛关注。此外，虽然研究人员注意到在五旬节派/灵恩派的基督徒中经常使用梦，但这一发现需要透过转变的概念进行进一步探索。这项研究将处理这些问题中的每一个，并进一步理解梦在当代尼泊尔基督徒转变中的作用。尼泊尔是一个以印度教为主的国家，拥有迅速广泛发展的五旬节派/灵恩派群体。依靠调查、访谈和参与者观察相结合的数据，本研究讨论了在尼泊尔五旬节派教会背景下，与梦相关的转变之先决条件、过程和影响。 A pesar de los estudios realizados por misiólogos con respecto a la conversión de musulmanes al cristianismo, no se le ha prestado mucha atención al papel actual de los sueños en la conversión al cristianismo. Por otra parte, aunque los investigadores frecuentemente han observado el uso de los sueños entre los cristianos pentecostales/carismáticos, este análisis necesita realizarse dentro del concepto de la conversión. Este estudio tratará cada uno de estos temas y profundizará sobre la comprensión general del rol de los sueños en la conversión cristiana; el tema se analizará en el Nepal actual, una nación predominantemente hindú con una comunidad cristiana pentecostal/carismática de rápido crecimiento. El estudio se basa en datos obtenidos a través de encuestas, entrevistas y observación de los participantes para analizar la prevalencia, las condiciones previas, los procesos y el impacto de la conversión relacionada con los sueños en el contexto de la iglesia pentecostal en Nepal. This article is in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Muslims have to go through three different phases in the course of embracing Islam. The three phases are pre-conversion, conversion and post-conversion. The purpose of this paper is to seek understanding of what the new Muslims have to go through in embracing Islam. Focus groups and surveys were conducted to reveal the phenomena new Muslims encountered when embracing Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now a great deal of literature that shows how Islam and Muslims are routinely represented in negative ways in the mainstream newspapers. With overt or covert reliance on Orientalist discourse, discourses of cultural clash and extremism, including terror, are prevalent. Not only are Muslims less likely to feature in “normal” stories, abuse and prejudice against them is also more unlikely to constitute “news”. British converts to Islam have only recently begun to receive more focused attention, both in academia and in the mainstream press. Occupying a unique position in respect to the idea of the “other” and of integration in a multicultural society, converts offer a powerful point of critique of these concepts. The aim of this study is to understand how and in what discourses British converts to Islam are represented, and thereby contribute empirical knowledge to these theoretical concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Amidst Indonesia's overwhelming Sunni majority, the Shi'i minority group has been growing. Although localadherents to Shi'ism are few in number, Shi'ism's increasing presencehas generated great concern, with the threat of Sunnis converting to Shi'ism being seen as particularly severe by anti-Shi'i activists. This study aimsto explain the factors that contribute to conversion to Shi'ism seen from macro, meso, and micro levels. Based on prolonged fieldwork among Shi'is, communication with Shi'i teachers and library study, this study finds that the individual factor is decisive in conversion to Shi'ism, but always in combination with social and institutional factors, and macro contexts. Active, intellectually-motivated religious seekership to discover the authentic form of Islam is the determining factor in the decision to convert to Shi'ism in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia is a multi-religious society with 28.3 million people. The country had succeeded in managing religious diversity for almost fifty-seven years. This includes the promotion of interfaith relationships granted under the right to religious freedom, which is protected by the State. There are, however, emerging interfaith challenges, including conversion from one faith to another and reversion back to the original faith, these types of challenges appearing especially in the early millennium. This article reviews the ten latest research studies on interfaith issues in Malaysia and identifies useful themes for authority in exercising management review. Using the content analysis method, this study found that there are several important managerial aspects to be taken into serious consideration, including setting clear parameters for freedom of religion in Malaysia, clear procedures for managing religious conflict, managing faith with respect, and effectively promoting media advocacy. The findings also give insights on the development of interfaith studies in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses conversion to Islam as a lens through which to explore the intricacies of race and religion in France and the United States. Using in-depth interviewing and ethnography, the author explores how white converts relate to their allegedly dissonant racial and religious identities in national contexts where Islam has been racialized as ‘Brown’ and foreign. Focusing on two countries that have historically had highly contrasted understandings of race and religion, she offers a comparative analysis of how race operates in the lives of Muslim converts on both sides of the Atlantic. The article shows that, even though processes of racial assignation work in a similar manner in both cases, French and American converts report different experiences with race, thereby suggesting that the racialization of Islam is endowed with different textures and meanings across national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written in recent years about the life of William Henry Abdullah Quilliam, late-Victorian propagator of Islam in Britain and founder of the Liverpool Muslim Institute (LMI). However, little attention has been given to Quilliam's fellow British Muslim converts, who constituted Britain's first indigenous Muslim community. This article briefly looks at the LMI as a missionary organisation. It then quantifies and examines the socio-demographics and post-conversion lives of the British Muslim community. It argues that individual commitment to both the LMI and Islam was affected by discrimination and misunderstanding of Muslims and their faith in society. However, by considering the fate of the Muslims following the LMI's demise, it is shown that a core of resolute converts held fast to their beliefs and played an important role in the consolidation of Islam in early twentieth-century Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores her story of change and transformation from being a Mennonite to marry a Muslim man and eventually accepting Islam as the true faith or an enlightenment rather than conversion. Topics include if it is possible to be a Muslim Mennonite or a Mennonite Muslim, what it means to be a secular Mennonite, and the parallelisms between Mennonites and Muslims.