THE weekend headline screamed out: "Terror's new white converts". Don Stewart-Whyte's arrest in London shows extreme forms of Islam sometimes attract new recruits from unexpected quarters.
Like Christianity, Islam actively seeks recruits. Unlike Christianity, Islam has no central church or priestly hierarchy. Converts don't go on any register. The process of conversion is quite simple - just recite a two-sentence Arabic creed. No priest or witnesses are required. People even convert on internet chat channels.
Islam attracts all kinds of people. Prominent Aussie converts include former diplomats, elite sportspeople and a former ABC correspondent. A convert heads the Islamic Council of Victoria.
Muslim converts often prefer to be known as reverts. Muslims don't believe in inherited or original sin. Babies are born naturally sinless. Hence, converts claim they have merely reverted to that original sinlessness.
People turn to Islam and other non-Christian faiths for any number of reasons. They may feel outcasts in conventional society or disillusioned with aspects of mainstream culture. They may be searching for an alternative lifestyle.
Mainstream religion isn't a problem in Australia. Most Muslim Aussies treat their faith as a deeply personal affair. Religion only becomes collective during religious festivals or at Sunday (or in the case of Muslims, Friday) services.
Islam's core is deeply spiritual Sufi tradition which Sunni Muslims describe as tasawwuf and Shia Muslims describe as irfan. It's the stuff that inspires Turkey's whirling dervishes. The top- selling poetry books in the U.S. are translations of works by Sufi poet Rumi.
Most converts enter Islam after exposure to Sufi teaching, for reasons similar to the attraction of Tibetan Buddhism.
Islam isn't the only faith to be hijacked. In Sri Lanka, deeply pacifist Hinduism has been hijacked by Tamil Tigers who have turned suicide bombing into an art form.
Mainstream Muslims take it for granted that Islam forbids suicide. The Prophet Muhammad said that the first man to be judged and sent to hell would be a person who claimed to have died as a martyr. In fact, that person didn't die for God but only to be glorified after death.
Fringe, politicised Islam has few followers among migrant Muslims. Nor do Australia's radical "thick-Sheiks", who tend to attract Muslim youth and converts.
Mainstream Muslims are not a security threat, but the failure of mainstream institutions to provide facilities for young people and converts is. Converts bring to the Muslim community a zeal which many migrant Muslims born into Islam don't share.
Converts feel frustrated when ethnicity and migrant culture are presented as Islam by Muslim leaders. They are angered at imams who cannot speak English and at leaders making goofy public statements. Some non-European imams expect converts to abandon parts of Western culture, to change their names and to separate from their families.
Converts often hide their faith for fear of non-Muslims ostracising them. Younger converts are often dependent on parents. Family break-ups and lack of support from ethnic Muslims is a source of enormous stress for converts.
New Muslims with no support fall into a dangerous twilight zone. Compounded by factors such as un-medicated depression, they are fresh pickings for extremist groups.
One effective way that Muslim communities can contribute to fighting terror is to be more welcoming to converts. Support services should be set up and mosques should break down their cultural and linguistic barriers.
When Islam becomes a genuinely Australian religion and not just a cultural artefact, terrorists will be forced to look elsewhere for recruits.
(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer of Indian Muslim background. First published in The Advertiser on 15 August 2006)
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