(Originally written: 2/25/07)

Let’s be blunt: I want stuff to happen, and I’ll generally do my darndest to make it happen—as long as the means are morally permissible, of course. Three examples will suffice.

Sometimes I bump into other converts in real life or in the blogosphere who make me wonder about what they converted to. Did they convert to Islam or did they loose themselves in a new identity that is more a foreign ethnicity than it is Islam? Sometimes, it seems that converts loose themselves in the identity of thier Muslim-born spouse. Although this happens mostly to women, I've also seen it plenty among male converts who married Muslim-born foreign women. Ancedotally, interethnic marriages between two Muslims born or raised in the same country usually adopt the majority culture of the country as thier culture-in-common. What is it about the foriegn Muslim cultures that seduce many a convert away from good old Americana?

Here is some correspondence that I had in 1999 with a young man in Mangalore, India (250 ki. from Bangalore), posted with permission.

In 1999, the bangalore.com message board was aflame with arguments between Muslims, Hindus and Christians. It became so bad that the message board feature was discontinued. It was a Muslim from that board who invited me to join and discuss religion.

(a young man posted on the now closed mangalore.com message
board):

Dear Sitaram,

What is next?

Fri Sep 24 06:18:19 1999

I married a beautiful girl two year back. Somehow I could not live with her and just divorced. I do not have any child. What should I do further. How to live my remaining life? Please suggest me.

Love,

Kanekodi