As mentioned elsewhere...

I suppose one might marry someone from another faith and want to convert or perhaps live and work among people whose values and customs one feels an affinity with.

jings "born and bred" people all over the world convert to different faiths. Why is that odd? A distant relative of mine married a Muslim woman and converted. And he's South African, from Afrikaner stock.

A friend's son did the same when he married a Muslim woman. I think her parents insisted. The children are being brought up as Muslims.

As it happens my friend is a committed Christian but he seems okay with it.

There was also a young woman who pulled her whole life around when she converted to Islam. She was on that recent Grayson Perry prog. where he interviewed people and then represented them with a work of art of some kind.

My own mother went through practically every religion known to man, starting from when I was about ten. She didn't want to go to any of the meetings on her own, so hauled me along. She always felt that there had to be more to life, she needed to find a meaning.

She finally settled on a form of spiritualism, but as a result of all I experienced I became very strongly atheist. However I met some wonderful people and it made me very tolerant of all beliefs. I decided that being considered CofE was the best, as it is the most liberal of all the religions I came across.

I know quite a few people who had to convert to Catholicism or Judaism in order to marry people they loved. As one friend said, at least it enabled her to understand what on earth was going on at family events.

If you are no particular religion, or an atheist say, then you may feel it's the best thing to do if you marry a Muslim, or any religion really.Although I do think it's very important to fully think it through beforehand.Some people look to other religions other than Christianity because they have perhaps had a bad experience of it in early life.

It's understandable to adopt or convert to the religion of your spouse, especially if pressure is brought to bear by family.

What's harder to understand is why so many young British people are being won over to the Muslim faith. Perhaps it's to gain a feeling of 'belonging', of knowing their place in the world...

I did see an interview with a young white British woman who had converted to the Muslim faith who said that she liked the fact that women are subjugated to men!

I appreciate the marrying in reason. I was thinking of young people who become converts. Yes. Perhaps they have Muslim mates and want to belong with them.

My grandmother took it upon herself to become a catholic sometime after marrying my grandfather, he didn't ask he to, he came from a very catholic country but paid lip service to it. My grandmother, being the convert was bloody awful particularly in her dotage always going off on pilgrimages to Lourdes and Fatima (Portugal) or where ever The Virgin Mary had popped up in the form of a statue spouting tears Her front room was covered in tat from these excursions or memorabilia if you were being kind. She also had masses of photographs of all of us her grandchildren making our first communion, my male cousins in France wore something akin to a monk's habit for this. Then she had another load of us when we were confirmed. I think most of us have "lapsed" now, not sure she ever knew that!

Some people are 'searchers' imo, looking for a path that helps them manage the difficulties that life presents us all with, gives a sense of certainty. The Muslim faith, so far as I understand it, accepts that God has a path for each of us, that our lives are in God's hands. That doesn't seem too different to the way in which some Christian's believe.

A friend's brother has gone through almost every faith known and is currently a Muslim. This is probably in part due to the fact he works with a lot of Muslim men and he himself is vulnerable in some ways, to persuasion. His family are of course worried, but when he was ill recently young men from his Mosque were incredibly supportive and kind to him and his parents.

A poster on another thread recently mentioned the 60's and the way in which many idealistic young people were drawn into cults. It may have been annodomini, apologies if it wasn't. One of our close friends told us recently that he'd been involved in a cult when in his late teens. He'd been out of control, using drugs etc and was drawn in by their street people. He had a period of real stability and faith before he finally left a few years later. His involvement enabled him to get his life back on track.

Another friend now in his 70's joined the Temperance Society when in his teens. it seems funny now, but filled a gap in his life at that time (now he'd say anyone for another beer?)

My parents colluded with my maternal grandmother to have my grandfather converted on his death bed when he wasn't compos mentis so he could receive the last sacrament,s in spite of knowing that he had never expressed any wish to become a Catholic. Bad relatives behaving like the spawn on Mother Theresa

I have threatened to do the same to my husband on the grounds that his mother had a rosary tucked away somewhere merely returning him to the fold!

I don't know much about the Islamic faith but I expect young people who convert to it may have similar reasons as those who convert to Christian fundamentalism.
Feeling of belonging, feeling of being guided and protected by God.
I have met some very strong Christian women who were nevertheless very keen on the idea of men being the leaders in the Christian faith. I think they saw that as part of God's plan to care for them.

Yes. I think it must be the need to belong. Wonder why not the Christian faith. The 'low' churches are usually very welcoming. Are they falling short somehow?

Leaving aside people who convert because they marry, I think Islam has a lot of attractive elements for people looking for a meaning and guidance in life. Sound family values and clear and unconfusing definitions of good and bad. Many people don't want ambiguity. Islam in Europe doesn't carry the baggage that Christianity does. If you just look at GN you'll see how many people have been put off Christianity by one or more of the Christians they encountered earlier in life or by what they have read in the press or by what they know about the history. I think there are two roads to conversion to any religion, one is a sudden or gradual realisation that this is the true faith and the other is meeting or knowing a person or people whose behaviour and way of life present a convincing argument. Not mutually exclusive.

Why is Islam – an Abrahamic religion from the Middle East – such a foreign seeming faith but Christianity – an Abrahamic religion from the Middle East – not? The two faiths have much in common, with Judaism completing the triad.

Well, I suppose it's because we have been a Christian country for so many years. Islam does seem to belong to the East. To more hot blooded peoples perhaps? ()

I read that a lot of young black men who go to prison for one thing or another are converted there. When they're at their most vulnerable.

I converted to Catholicism although I was born a Protestant. It upset some of my family who couldn't understand why I did it. As with all religions it was to do with belief in the teachings.

I'm confused by the idea of it being a 'foreign seeming faith'. From what I've read and the courses I've been on the teachings of the Q'ran make a lot of sense. It tells Muslims to live in peace with Jews and Christians unless they are attacked and not to harm the innocent.

Basically it's the same message in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Love God/Yahweh/Allah (what's in a name) and be nice to each other. Most of the differences are not important i.e. I eat bacon but a Muslim or Jew wouldn't. Clothing rules simply call for modesty and judging by the clothes I saw some men and women in today that maybe wouldn't be a bad thing for everyone to consider. Face covering is a man made rule not a Q'ran teaching.

Oh, I think it will always be associated with the Middle East rather than the western world. Surely?

I think so too. I don't see what's confusing about it being considered so.

Do you consider Judaism to be a Middle Eastern religion too?

i haven't thought about it vq. I suppose we are more used to Jewish people being spread out across the world.

Judaism has been a part of this country for centuries.

The three faiths come from the same root.