Conversion narratives of non-Muslim heritage (NMH) females show that despite political discourse shifting towards denigrating Muslim women in the West, where visible and “veiled Muslim women in particular emerge as ideal targets for those who wish to attack a symbol of Islam” (Zempi & Chakraborti 2014:27), practising an orthodox version of Islam remains an attractive option. However, there was only one respondent of English ethnicity (Nicola) out of 11 NMH female Salafi converts interviewed (see Table 4.1). The majority of the NMH respondents were of British African-Caribbean descent, and the remainder either British mixed race or with other ethnic origins (see Table 4.1):
TABLE 5.1 National & Ethnic Origin of Non-Muslim-Heritage converts to Salafism out of 30.
| Total number of NMH converts | 11 |
| British: African-Caribbean | 6 |
| British Mixed: African-Caribbean + English | 3 |
| Other: English, Danish | 2 |
The religious orientation of the majority of NMH respondents was Christian with the exception of a small minority, who were either bordering on atheism or gravitating towards various other New Age spiritual practices (see Table 4.2):
TABLE 5.2 Religious Orientation of Non-Muslim-Heritage Converts to Salafism out of 30.
| Christian | 9 |
| Christian-Atheist | 1 |
| New Age Spirituality | 1 |
TABLE 5.3 Age Structures of Non-Muslim-Heritage Converts to Salafism out of 30.
| Ages | Afro-Caribbean | British Mixed Race | Other |
| 18-24 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 25-29 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 30-34 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 35-39 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 40-45 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
The overwhelming prevalence of female Salafis of second- and third-generation African-Caribbean heritage not only reflects the national and ethnic ratio of individuals belonging to Birmingham’s Salafi community, but also the diversity of people and religious beliefs in Britain’s second-largest city. As the descendants of postcolonial economic migrants who came to Britain in a similar way to African American migrants to urban areas from the Deep South (Rex & Tomlinson 1979:70), the respondents were all from inner-city areas such as Handsworth or Brixton (Anwar 1998:10; Cantle 2008:46). As later sections show, the effects of certain structural disadvantages faced by future generations of postcolonial migrants who settled in certain geographical locations (AlSayyad and Massoumi 2011; Eade and Mele 2002:11) would play an important role in Salafism’s emergence as a ‘hybrid’ religious urban identity in years to come.
[1] Taylor, Robert Joseph et al. ‘Extended Family Support Networks of Caribbean Black Adults in the United States’.
[2] Ibid.
Be the first to comment