The conversion narrative of Akila, a second-generation British African-Caribbean woman in her mid-twenties, is a good starting point for trying to understand the causes of religious resurgence that have “swept across the world in the second half of the twentieth century, challenging deep-rooted understandings of modernity, tradition, and identity” (AlSayyad and Massoumi 2011:3). Her narrative exemplifies both the influence of the multi-ethnic spaces in which she grew up, and the dynamic and ongoing nature of the conversion process and how it is often deeply rooted in a respondent’s childhood and adolescent years (Scourfield et al 2013). As Zuckerman states, “people become religious through social learning or the socialization process”, where “ultimately religious identity and conviction aren’t generally so much a matter of choice or faith or soul-searching, as a matter of who and what one’s parents, friends, neighbours, and community practice and profess” (Zuckerman 2003:51, cited in Roberts and Yamane 2016:103).
Akila was born and brought up in Birmingham, raised by a very religious Christian mother and exposed to Islam early in her childhood:
My family is predominantly Christian, but we do have Muslims on both my mother’s and father’s side. My father used to be a Muslim before I was born … as a child I remember him reciting Surah al-Faatiha or seeking refuge in Allah by reciting Aayatul-Kursi, although at the time I didn’t know what it was.
Akila’s childhood experiences, and those of others from similar backgrounds (including those of mixed African-Caribbean heritage), reflected that religion was not only an important part of the social life of African-Caribbean migrant families before they left their small communities, but also once they had arrived and settled in Britain. All African-Caribbean respondents remembered celebrating religious activities inside their homes (such as Christmas and Easter) and outside their homes (such as attending church, especially Sunday School). Some mentioned participating in Christianity-oriented after-school or weekend clubs, and one said she was sent to a Roman Catholic school. These recollections all indicate primary socialisation within families “where religious socialization has been institutionally separated from an integrated culture” (Roberts and Yamane 2016:104). Furthermore, according to Rambo (1993), the moral values and modes of living for individuals from religious backgrounds is more likely to make them religiously available (Roberts and Yamane 2016:102-131) (although this is not always the case—see Zebiri 2008:43-45), especially since a ‘new’ religious group might often serve as an “extension of the orientations to life that the converts had previously held” (Rambo 1993:62). This notion was succinctly encapsulated by Rahima, a second-generation British African-Caribbean woman in her early forties:
Black communities are very religious, but it’s also to do with your upbringing. You’ll find many people who become Salafi have been raised religiously, and that’s what it was for me.
In addition, all respondents of African-Caribbean heritage came from matrifocal households where, in most cases, the absence of a male or father figure was palpable and influenced Salafism’s appeal for those who converted later in life (Smith 1986, cited in Taylor et al 2015:527)[1] In these circumstances, which were particularly caused by out-of-wedlock births, the adult females were the ones left to provide moral guidance to the youth. This responsibility usually fell to the mother, unless she needed to work outside the home to support the family financially—in that case, the Caribbean grandmother was deployed as a ‘social safety net’ in a process known as “child shifting, child minding, or child fostering” (Thompson and Bauer 2000 cited in Taylor et al 2015:526) [2]. Even in families where the father was present, the mother played a more dominant role in caring for the family. There were two exceptions to this: respondents Saffa and Malika were brought up by their grandmothers because their mothers had to work. According to Malika:
My family didn’t go to church every Sunday nor were they engrossed in the Bible except for my grandmother, she was very religious, quoting her old ways and reminding you of God. My father left my mum when I two years old so [my grandmother] raised us up like her own.
Within such matriarchal or ‘grandmother families’, the grandparent was highly appreciated, especially by single mothers in particular need of a substitute parent who would act as a ‘discipline’ figure (Plaza 1999). Consequently, the younger generation was socialised and cultivated upon moral values that were firmly fixed in Christian teaching from the mother or the grandmother (and other religious institutions), who served as models for second-generation African-Caribbean youth growing up in Britain, and “offer[ed] positive reinforcement for the desired and negative reinforcement for unwanted religious beliefs and behaviours” (Roberts and Yamane 2016:104). Known as “social learning theory”, this perspective on the socialisation process (ibid) was sometimes deemed by elders to be of little use, especially because of the nature of certain problems the youth experienced in their adolescence (to be discussed in future articles). However, judging by the ‘God consciousness’ that African-Caribbean respondents felt as they were growing up, especially in relation to the threat of punishment in the afterlife for “sinful behaviour”, religion proved a powerful means of informal social control:
My mum has always been religious … even now she tells me about the Old Testament—Moses, Abraham, King Solomon. That’s what I was raised upon, so I was always conscious of Judgement Day and trying to be good. (Rahima)
Of particular significance for Rahima and others like her was the emphasis that African-Caribbean parents placed on moral codes of behaviour connected to the biblical stories these respondents learnt as children. These stories became “embedded” in the respondents’ memories and affected their psyche as they grew up (Roberts and Yamane 2016:104). For example, discovering that Abrahamic prophets such as Moses and Jesus were also prophets in Islam played an important part in influencing Rahima’s decision to convert from Christianity to Islam, and eventually to Salafism. Rahima’s experience strongly exemplifies what Rambo (1993) calls “the renewing power of cultural symbols, [where even if] a person may have directly and explicitly rejected” these symbols at the time, they later become “a powerful part of his or her psyche” (Rambo 1993:25)—this aligns with Berger and Luckmann’s contention that reality is socially constructed through a “dialectical process” (Roberts and Yamane 2016:79). It also shows how ‘myths’ can serve as “symbolic statements” that often “help people understand … the purpose and meaning of life” and “have a powerful impact on the subjective or mental orientation of persons, because they reinforce a particular worldview or particular outlook on life” (Roberts and Yamane 2016:86).
In contrast to the six African-Caribbean respondents interviewed, the religious upbringing of the three mixed-race African-Caribbean respondents appeared less strict. Yeakeley’s (1979) study suggests this could be viewed in two ways: first, “that mixed families are more tolerant of new options”, thus leading to a greater exploration of other religions; and second, “that a mixed family tradition has less holding power over its family than a monolithic family tradition” (Yeakley 1979, cited in Rambo, 1993:63). Moreover, religious commitment between heterogamous couples is seen as disrupting the religion family linkage, since couples with differing beliefs give less reinforcing religious cues than those who share the same faith tradition (Roberts and Yamane 2016:105). Regardless, moral guidance for all three mixed-race African-Caribbean respondents was still sanctioned with reference to the Bible and Christianity, and a general ethos of being ‘good’:
Christmas and Easter were never lavish because mum couldn’t afford it … Christianity meant being as honest as you can, treat others as you would want to be treated, and believe in your heart if you want to get to a better place when you die, wherever that is. (Hafsa)
The shift away from religion’s traditional role as a determining factor in upbringing was most evident in the narratives of 19-year-old Nicola, an English-heritage woman who grew up in a non-religious and very dysfunctional family, and Iman, a Danish-heritage respondent in her thirties, who grew up in Denmark among people who took more pride in Nordic gods such as Thor and Odin than in Christianity. Their experiences point towards a growing trend within European pluralist societies whereby atheism, alternative religious beliefs or Islamic da‘wa activity are filling the spaces left vacant by the decline of traditional Christianity and highlighting the changing structures of Europe’s secular regimes (Peter and Ortega 2014).
[1] Taylor, Robert Joseph et al. ‘Extended Family Support Networks of Caribbean Black Adults in the United States’.
[2] Ibid.
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