The search for Salafiyyah was multifaceted and complex for all respondents, revealing the routes to Salafism as varied, seldom straightforward and part of a lifelong process (Roberts and Yamane 2016;108). The overriding theme that emerged here was that many respondents struggled to reconcile their religio-ethnic upbringing with other aspects of their lives, which usually presented as anxiety, chaos and sometimes self-loathing. Much of this anxiety was experienced as a sort of psychological dread often connected to perceived sins or other misdemeanours committed by the respondent, especially during their adolescence and beyond, which was often so overwhelming that it reached the “very roots of [their] coherent sense of being in the world” (Giddens 2018/1991:37). For Rahima:
When I was 18, I started searching, thinking I just don’t like this life anymore. It’s [life] not really guaranteed and people aren’t trustworthy. I was scared of Judgement Day, especially if I heard thunder, I’d think it was going to happen because my mum had drummed it into my head. I couldn’t deal with the fear anymore, so I started searching.
Generally, respondents often attributed their anxiety to “items, traits or situations” that weren’t necessarily directly related to “a specific object” (Giddens 2018/1991:44). Irrespective of knowing the cause of their anxiety or not, an unresolved negativity, pessimism and guilt often took its toll upon respondents’ mental wellbeing, particularly at a time when they were struggling for greater ontological security in the context of wider sociocultural processes. For example, Malika too described her life as chaotic during her adolescence, and turned to God in an effort to find peace:
I was trying to fish out my life, I knew there was a God, but I just didn’t know where and what. I needed answers and I wanted to do what was right. I wanted to feel peace inwardly and outwardly because I was all over the place, inwardly and outwardly.
Indo-Caribbean Muslim-Heritage (MH) respondent Maryam was another good example of how a crisis of identity during adolescence transformed her search for greater meaning into a ‘shopping expedition’ in a highly plural religious market. Having grown up in the Caribbean islands, Maryam, whose Indian history could be traced back to the “indentured labourers after the formal abolition slavery” (Anwar 1993:7), described how attending very strict Catholic convent school, coupled with the extreme hybridity of religious practice in her family home, inspired her to investigate religion further:
I was interested in Christianity so I went to church for communions and confessions, but I just couldn’t understand the Trinity. It was the same for Hinduism, how could worshipping idols make sense? I also tried the Muslim thing, but that didn’t work either. So, I concluded there was no God and became an atheist.
To resolve crises such as these and alleviate their anxiety, the search for salvation gradually became a mission for nearly all respondents, although a minority felt they were not actively seeking religious conversion. Some had strong career prospects, were in good marriages or relationships, had an enjoyable lifestyle or were wealthy. For example, Nada described herself as generally happy with life prior to her search for Salafism. Nada, a MH convert who had emigrated to Birmingham from Continental Europe, said it was only in her later years that she began to feel increasingly as though her happiness was not connected to who she was. This was because Nada had emigrated to Europe from Morocco early in her youth, married a Christian man, changed her name and easily passed as a native because of her European appearance. But somewhere inside, she knew she was a Muslim:
Nothing was wrong in my life, everything was fine. I had all the comforts that anybody could dream of, but something was missing, and I knew it was because I was Muslim and had no connection to Islam.
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