FACES OF ISLAM
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and has an
YVONNE RIDLEY is the latest high profile conversion which hit the
JERMAIN JACKSON- Brother of Pop Star Micheal Jackson
By Sajid Iqbal. Editor, The Revival
estimated 1.6 billion followers
throughout the globe. But who are the faces and personalities behind
these converts to Islam? Khadija,
wife of Prophet Muhammad (upon him be peace), was the first to
convert to Islam. Some of the more
well-known converts to Islam from more recent times are the
following:
headlines:
British journalist Yvonne Ridley, detained by Taliban last year, has
embraced Islam, saying `Islam
is the religion of salvation.'
Ms Ridley, 44, working for the British "Sunday Express" newspaper -
was detained in September 2001
near the eastern city of Jalalabad, for entering the country
illegally. She was released after ten
days. "Taliban had told me to convert to Islam after my release and
reaching London. I had told
them that it is not possible now but promised them to study and
understand Islam," the BBC quoted
her as saying.
She said she studied the Holy Quran and several other books and
converted to Islam.
In a book written after her release, Ridley said that she met Dr.
Zaki Badawai, head of the
Islamic Center in London and discussed with him Islam. In her book,
she has explained how she was
arrested and how much Taliban respected her in detention.
Ms Ridley, originally from Stanley, County Durham, is a former
assistant editor of Newcastle's
Sunday Sun and deputy editor of Wales on Sunday. Ms Ridley also
worked for the News of the World, the
Daily Mirror, The Sunday Times, The Observer and the Independent
before joining Express Newspapers
three years ago. Ms Ridley is one of many female converts to Islam.
A very short interaction with a group of children in Saudi Arabia in
1989 ultimately led Jermain
to have long discourses about Islam with Muslim scholars. "A great
ripple had taken place in my
thought. I made failing attempt to console myself that nothing had
happened but I could not conceal
this fact any longer from myself that at heart I had converted to
Islam. This I disclosed first to
my family friend, Qunber Ali. The same Qunber Ali managed to take me
to Riyadh, capital of Saudi
Arabia. Till that time, I did not know much about Islam. From there,
in the company of a Saudi
family, I proceeded for Mecca for the performance of "Umrah". There
I made public for the first time
that I had become Muslim." He is now known as Muhammad Abdul-Aziz.
His wife, seven sons and two
daughter who, like him, are fully Islamic-oriented.