Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote about his conversion to Islam in Al-Jazeera yesterday, and it’s well worth checking out (especially if, like me, you cannot get enough of conversion narratives).
I was born Lew Alcindor. Now I’m Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The transition from Lew to Kareem was not merely a change in celebrity brand name — like Sean Combs to Puff Daddy to Diddy to P. Diddy — but a transformation of heart, mind and soul. I used to be Lew Alcindor, the pale reflection of what white America expected of me. Now I’m Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the manifestation of my African history, culture and beliefs.
For most people, converting from one religion to another is a private matter requiring intense scrutiny of one’s conscience. But when you’re famous, it becomes a public spectacle for one and all to debate. And when you convert to an unfamiliar or unpopular religion, it invites criticism of one’s intelligence, patriotism and sanity. I should know. Even though I became a Muslim more than 40 years ago, I’m still defending that choice.
Please feel free to share any links about conversion in general and Islam in particular in the comments, as I cannot get enough of good religion writing.
Tags: conversion, islam, kareem abdul-jabbar, religion
Related Posts
Freaks and Geeks: Christians on TV and Me
The Abductions Of Helen Of Troy, In Order Of Abduction-y-ness
Some Guy Named Tim Edits The Bible To Replace All Instances Of “Time” With His Own Name
Fictional War Goddesses I Think Should Make Out With Each Other, In No Particular Order
Dirtbag Dionysus
Bible Verses Where “Thou Shalt Not” Has Been Replaced By “can u not”
So this isn’t really a CONVERSION story but I grew up with a non-practicing Jewish dad and a Christian mom. I always identified with Judaism way, way more and started practicing (very badly) when I accidentally ended up attending an undergrad institution that was something like 40% Jewish. It was very interesting to me the way people tended to react–I never formally converted because I never felt the need to, since I’ve got a Jewish parent and now I sometimes find myself caught between something of a rock and a hard place. I’m absolutely not Christian, but I’m not a “real Jew” by many standards and I grew up lacking a lot of the ritual education that all of my Jewish friends had.
Now I’m trying to figure out exactly what all of that means, and I feel like it’s important to get involved in more of a faith-based community but I feel like there’s so much more politics involved than just, like, showing up to synagogue on a random Friday night. I’m always curious if people who convert to religions that actually seek out converts experience something similar, or if it’s kind of unique to Judaism and other smaller ethnic-based religious identities.
My fiance has no Jewish ancestry (that he is aware of), and his conversion to Judaism basically went like this: “I’m going to go visit my best friend in Israel… hm, this is pretty great. I’m going to be Jewish now!”
I embrace this wholeheartedly. My mother is Jewish, so I am, but my fiance and I are about as equally devout, and I think it’s silly I should be considered Jewish when he’s not just because of an accident of birth. Other people (including his best friend, who is the son of a rabbi) have more complicated feelings on the matter, which I understand, but in the end I can’t help but come down on the side of thinking that anyone who wants to be a part of our community should be welcomed. I think converts are often unfairly held to a higher standard than those born into the faith, which seems so very wrong to me.
This is such a hard thing… I’m from the same family background as you and now I’m becoming a rabbi, and it actually doesn’t stop being hard, even when you DO feel pretty secure in your religious identity. I had a long and difficult conversation with my parents today about conversion (they want me to, I am pretty much not interested at all).
If you need someone to answer questions, or chat about the challenges, or to recommend ways to find a local Jewish community that will be a good fit for you, I’m happy to help. You deserve to find a community that fits who you are, and doesn’t judge you, and helps you become the Jew that you want to be.
I’d definitely love to chat! I’m fairly secure in my religious identity itself (perhaps because I don’t feel the degree of pressure to be, like, SUPER GOOD ALL THE TIME in my practice?); I’ve always joked that if I’m Jewish enough for Israel/Birthright, I’m Jewish enough for everyone else too. I think my biggest challenge is trying to reconcile my own Jewish identity, in which the religious component actually is a big deal, with the fact that I also very firmly believe that my spirituality is a very private thing. It doesn’t help that I tend to date fairly a-religious people who grew up in fairly devoutly Christian households.
Do you have Twitter or somewhere that we could continue this more privately?
I left my email address below if you wanna talk further.
Hi! I am in a somewhat similar boat (is there a Jewish community that is right for me, or am I looking in the wrong place for things that would be better found elsewhere?). I totally get that you have your own life and cannot be the entire world’s spiritual advisor on any given day, but iiiif you were up for discussing this with me somewhere less public, that’d be awesome.
I left my email address below if you wanna talk further.
to all of the people who want to talk about the things, my email address not connected with my name is blumoon138 @ gmail dot com (take out the spaces and add in the proper punctuation)
I have a similar story. My parents divorced when I was young. My mom is a very secular Jew and my dad was raised Catholic and is now into some New Agey nonsense. I’ve always identified with the Jewish and not the Catholic side, but because my mom is totally secular, while we lit Hanukkah candles and would go to other people’s seders*, I never had a bat miztvah or studied Hebrew or anything like that. I’ve always felt, as a friend of mine recently joked about herself, Jew-ish, more than Jewish, and never quite sure where I fit.
Ironically, because I’m pregnant, I just had the Ashkenazi genetic workup, and turns out I’m a carrier for Tay Sachs. Woohoo!! I guess I really AM a legit member of the tribe!! 😛
*My mom is in favor of any holidays that involve chocolate and/or feasts. As a result, she also got me an Easter basket every year. Because any holiday that involves delicious chocolate should be observed.
I too am (very secular) Jewish mother, (excommunicated) Catholic father, and I usually describe myself as “not Jewish enough to be allowed to emigrate to Israel, but Jewish enough that Hitler would have killed me.” Also “culinarily Jewish,” as the only really Jewish thing I inherited from that side of the family is a propensity to make good chicken soup.
Yes, you’ve just described my upbringing exactly (except replace Catholic with Protestant and New Agey with Trotsky)! When I was younger I always thought I would like to ultimately marry another Jew because then the decision of what to pass onto my kids would be much clearer. Now that’s not happening, and I really don’t know what to do. I’m somehow vaguely emotionally attached to Judaism (or more like the Jewish culture of my mom’s family) but it seems sort of disingenuous since I’m not actually religious.
Judaism is both a culture and a religion; it contains MULTITUDES. If you want to raise your kids with secular Judaism/ Yiddishkeit, you can totally do it! The trick is sitting down and figuring out:
1) What parts of my background am I really connected to/ want to pass to my kids? Why?
2) What parts am I kind of “meh” about/ willing to compromise?
3) What parts of my partners’ culture freak me out when I think about passing them down to my children? Why? (see, SO MANY interfaith Jewish-Christian families and Christmas trees)
4) How can we talk about issues as a team if things happen that we don’t expect? (someone becomes far more religious/ decides to convert to another religion/ children end up Orthodox Jews or wanting to go become Pagan priests)
The more answers you have going in, the easier this will be. Fortunately, it’s an opportunity for you to be very intentional about what about your upbringing is the most important, and why. And that leads to stronger families and kids who are raised with a clear sense of intentionality!
Yup, another “interfaithless” baby over here. 😉 I actually did end up embracing Judaism and becoming religious enough as to freak my family out after I left for college. I, too, originally thought I’d be marrying someone Jewish, but now I’m dating one of those raised-really-religious-but-now-areligious dudes (who also reads the Toast btw–hi, dear! haha) and I’m not so sure….Anyway, I don’t think it’s disingenuous at all! Jewish culture has a lot of beauty in it, both inside and outside the religious part of the culture. You can pass down any part of it you want; there is nothing to be guilty about. (HA. Your guilt is what shows your true yiddishkeit right there! =P ) I recommend checking out Jewish Humanism. There aren’t a whole lot of congregations and may not be one in your area, but it’s at least worth looking into. It’s basically like, “We’re going to celebrate Jewish holidays in a secular kind of way, and celebrate and share our Jewish culture, and have a non-religious Jewish community.” I think it’s pretty great that that kind of thing exists, as a home for folks who want to celebrate holidays but are uneasy with some or all of the theological aspects.
Hi, Robyn! I have been in a similar (though not identical) spot before. Non-practicing Jewish Mom (which as we both know is viewed differently than non-practicing Jewish dad, for some reason…), and raised-Catholic-but-now-hates-religion Dad, always identified with Judaism more, started practicing in college, lack the ritual education from childhood and felt awkward about joining a community at first–that’s me. OK so I went to this amazing summer program that helped knock the idea of being “not Jewish enough” right out of me. It’s called the Brandeis Collegiate Institute. It lasts 26 days in the summer, and it’s in California. I don’t know how old you are, but if you’re between 18 and 26 and you have a summer month to spare, seriously consider it. They make it really affordable, and it will absolutely change your life in the all of the best ways. Link: http://bci.aju.edu/ OK end of plug. If you want to know more, just let me know, OK?
Regardless of whether you consider BCI or a similar program, here is my advice on getting comfortable with Judaism: it takes time, and practice. We say we “practice” a religion, no? I take that very literally. If you go to synagogue and you’re a little unsure with the prayers, a little awkward, kind of watching everybody else to see what they’re doing, that is OK. Don’t compare your performance to the people who have been doing it since they were little kids. That’s not fair to you. You will get to that level of comfort eventually. It just takes practice and time! Secondly, you need to find a community that welcomes you. This may be easier said than done…unfortunately not all of our Jewish communities are as warm and welcoming as (I think) they ought to be. But don’t give up! Just keep trying different ones until you find one where you feel comfortable. Personally, I can’t say enough good things about the Renewal and Reconstructionist communities I’ve been a part of, but you gotta find something that meshes with your overall personal style and beliefs. Try some different denominations. See what you like. I wish you all the luck in the world, and I’m sure you’ll find a place that welcomes you! There’s nothing like finding a good fit. Trust me, you will KNOW when you’ve found your spiritual home. It’ll just feel right.
The last thing I will say, is that for me (and for lots of other people), you ARE a REAL JEW. If you look inside yourself and feel like a Jew, then I say, you ARE. Welcome to the tribe! Have a bagel! =)
I’d be happy to continue this conversation if you’d like. I might talk your ear off though. 😉 Wishing you the very best in your search for a spiritual home and your continued exploration of the faith of your roots!
Oh wow I totally missed this somehow! I’d love to continue talking–I had a little bit more than that growing up; my dad’s family is very culturally Jewish in the very typical NYC lapsed/reformed Jewish ways. Many of my close friends growing up were Jews of the Long Island/Manhattan varietal (which has been an interesting contrast now that I live in the Midwest!) and I ended up at an undergrad that was something like 40% Jewish. Hillel was pretty much the place to be on Friday evenings.
Then I graduated college and moved to Chicago all by myself and not knowing anyone so there’s a combination of still not being terribly comfortable with myself in the city in general and also not being fully comfortable showing up to synagogue on a random Friday night not knowing anyone. Do you have twitter/an email address or something that might facilitate this better than blowing up the comments?
I really enjoyed reading this, mostly because Kareen Abdul-Jabbar is a great thinker and writer, and still one of the funniest things in Airplane!
This piece seemed like a very good explanation about why he chose Islam over the faith and culture that he grew up with, and I wish there was a second part (maybe there will be) where he talks more about what drew him TO Islam, and the last 40 years of following that faith as someone who converted.
This comment has nothing to do with conversion. I just wanted to remind everyone that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a cameo in “Troop Beverly Hills” and is, therefore, an honorary Wilderness Girl. Nothing he has done since has indicated anything less than the truth of this fact to me.
He really is a national treasure
I remember reading a while ago about this fellow who worked as a guard at Guantanamo Bay, and how the experience resulted in his conversion to Islam.
http://www.vice.com/read/my-time-as-a-guard-at-gu…
I am pretty envious of people who have conversion experiences; I grew up in an irreligious household, and remain a basically irreligious person, and every formal religion has the same basic quality in my imagination — that they all seem about as right as everything else.
In the meantime, “atheism” as a movement is generally useless, because it’s a sort of catch-all category for a lot of widely-disparate belief systems, and I feel like I’m always going to be the only zen-mystic-materialist that I know.
Cousin! I was raised Catholic, myself, the good kind — lefty Dorothy Day-ish Catholic.
These days I describe myself as an “agnostic catholic existentialist” because I’m an insufferable smart-ass.
Have you read any Walter Benjamin? Or some of the contemporary writers who draw heavily from him, such as Michael Taussig? “My Cocaine Museum” by Taussig is on the surface about ethnography in Colombia but it’s also like a mini-bible of mystical-materialism.
This post is the best… I was born Muslim, but I’ve witnessed a lot of conversions and know so many who’ve converted. It’s a beautiful and simple process, and every story is different. It gives me a lot of feelings as someone who was “born into” being something, it almost renews my faith. I sometimes wonder why someone born and raised in the West would BECOME Muslim when it seems so against Western culture in so many ways, but these stories remind me that Islam is much more than just a set of rules.
As a person born to a rather strict Muslim family, my eyes twitch more than a little at conversion stories to Islam like this. It’s so easy for converts to pick and choose the parts of the religion they like without having to deal with the repercussions of not following the less-appealing parts of it. I kind of envy them that. His “independent spirit” was lauded where mine is condemned. I’m currently dealing with my parents coming to terms with my relationship with a white non-Muslim man and it’s not been pretty, so this touches a nerve right now.
a convert could say the same about people like me who were born into muslim families. his conversion, as he mentioned, wasn’t an easy process. fans alienated him, his family didn’t respect his choice and he had his own personal battles. i know dozens of converts whose families no longer speak to them at all because they’re now muslim.
It’s true that anytime you change religions or leave religion entirely, you often face repercussions. I get that. I think that when you enter Islam as a former non-Muslim, though, you get a built-in community, whereas if you leave Islam, you don’t get the same. I am part of a group intending to change that, but, like other non-religious communities, we’re often sneered at in a way that religious communities aren’t. No one questions why a Muslim might need a mosque, but suggest that ex-Muslims need a private Facebook group and all hell breaks loose.
Oh, man, if you were at all interested in writing about this for us (under a pseudonym if you felt more comfortable), we would love to see it.
I am pretty open about it. I’ll send a pitch.
Will read this SO HARD. You are awesome. Please carry on. 😀
As someone raised Christian who still is I get a similar feeling when people who converted as adults mention their “wasted sinful teenage years” or whatever they want to call it, and talk about how they wish the’d found religion younger or been raised religious. I’m like, do you? Do you REALLY? So you wish you’d been taught how slutty and 100% evil it is to wear shorts that are shorter than some arbitrarily determined length by creepy old men (oh sorry, by ELDERS) at summer camp, when it was 100 degrees out? Do you wish you’d had to sit through horrible “purity” lessons with the youth group that basically consisted of shaming preteen girls for, idk, existing??
I mean, I love my religion, I don’t hate it, but there are some serious things wrong here, and I feel like people who convert to any religion as an adult miss out on a lot of the bad things that religions do/teach to children.
I have an older friend who grew up in one of the mainline Protestant churches and converted to Catholicism as an adult. She told me once that she’d regretted not growing up Catholic, and then she’d realized that actually, growing up a pre-Vatican II Catholic probably would not have been good for her younger (proto-feminist) self, and that now she thinks discovering Catholicism as an adult was right for her.
I think that’s one of the main differences between being born into a religion and choosing it as an adult. As an adult you have so much more agency to choose the parts that work for you, and as a child you’re at the mercy of the family and community you were born into – and you don’t know until later (if you’re lucky) that there are different versions of your religion and that you could perhaps choose a different stream. And then there’s the cultural baggage.
I’ve noticed this observing American Buddhism – I feel like a lot of Americans (me included) have this shopping cart approach to Buddhism – we just want to pick out the parts we like from different Buddhist traditions and blend them together without worrying about cultural context. I read a fascinating article (that I can’t find now) about Buddhist attitudes about homosexuality – basically saying that a lot of American converts to Buddhism assume that Buddhism is much more tolerant than say Christianity, but it turns out that there are traditional texts against homosexuality – but those teachings weren’t necessarily imported to the US.
I'd definitely love to chat! I'm fairly secure in my religious identity itself (perhaps because I don't feel the degree of pressure to be, like, SUPER GOOD ALL THE TIME in my practice?); I've always joked that if I'm Jewish enough for Israel/Birthright, I'm Jewish enough for everyone else too. I think my biggest challenge is trying to reconcile my own Jewish identity, in which the religious component actually is a big deal, with the fact that I also very firmly believe that my spirituality is a very private thing. It doesn't help that I tend to date fairly a-religious people who grew up in fairly devoutly Christian households.
Do you have Twitter or somewhere that we could continue this more privately?
Thank you for posting this! 🙂
I was raised in a extremist fundamentalist Christian household. I converted from mainstream, moderate Christianity to (progressive) Islam the year I turned thirty. Islam was simply the best fit for me -your mileage may vary. It’s a lot of fun watching people’s heads explode when they find out that I’m a muslim, and second-generation Mexican American, and a college graduate, and an military veteran, and I have a lot of tattoos. And I’m married to a white/Anglo military retiree who also converted to (progressive Islam).
Apologies in advance – I’m a Religion professor, so this is a scholarly article. But it’s lovely.
Jacqueline Henkel, “Represented Authenticity: Native Voices in Seventeenth-Century Conversion Narratives,” The New England Quarterly, vol. 87, no. 1 (2014) 5-45.
Enjoy!
On edit: Looking up that article led to the serendipitous discovery of this one, which I had never read:
H. Jordan Landry, “The Touched, The Tasted, and The Tempted: Lesbianizing the Triangles of Puritan Conversion Narratives in Emily Dickinson,” Women’s Studies, vol.. 33, no.7 (October/November 2004) 875-906.
Such fun!
I don’t know if other people will be as interested in this stuff, but I find Minucius Felix’s “Octavius” fascinating. I’m not sure it fits with this thread – there’s not much about the personal, internal experience of conversion, for that you can read Augustine – Partly there’s the fun of hearing the (initially) pagan speaker talk about the very awful things he’s heard these Christians do, the little glimpses of everyday ancient life, and the interesting ideas about what’s important in Christianity (Caecilius, the exponent of Christianity, has basically nothing to say about Jesus); but I think the best is what you see of the importance of personal friendship in building the early Christian community, and how the friendships and the philosophical arguments and the dialogue form all sort of overlap. I found a translation (can’t vouch for the quality) online: http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0200-…
I haven’t read many books about Muslims and Islam, but I have read a couple books by Irshad Manji, which gives her perspective on being a Muslim and lesbian.
Ooh, I need to look this up. Thanks!
Oh man, I almost forgot to tell everyone to read Apuleius’ “Metamorphoses” (aka “The Golden Ass”), which – spoiler alert – does turn out to be the world’s most unlikely conversion narrative. Everything about that book is delightfully bonkers, and the treatment of religion is some of the best stuff in it. (Don’t miss the very brief appearance of a character who practices some kind of unspecified monotheism, and who is thus a wicked, irreligious hypocrite.)
I enjoyed Sylvia Boorstein’s That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist – a memoir about a Jewish American woman’s conversion to Buddhism (although conversion may be too strong a word for it in this context – I think she identifies as both Jewish and Buddhist).
OMG Yesssssss. That book was SO important to me when I was in college, and flirting with practicing both religions. It was really encouraging to me to find narratives of other people–especially, a woman!–doing both in some way or kind of carving out their own little bizarr-o path, that it encouraged me to be able to carve out my own bizarr-o path without too much anxiety about it.
Interestingly, the man who managed the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (he real name is Mike, but his alias is Roger — as the head of a Clandestine program his identity is kept secret) converted to Islam several years ago. It is an interesting dichotomy, because he’s been responsible for a lot of the more controversial counterterrorism actions of the CIA in the past eight years, many of which were against Muslims. He was depicted in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ as the Wolf — you know, the guy with the liberal use of the f-bomb and the prayer rug.
I mean, obviously being Muslim and being a CIA operative are not mutually exclusive. I love it, on a level. It’s like a box of confusing!
In general I steer clear of conversion narratives, who knows why. Maybe, it’s because — as someone who “converted” to atheism at a young age (for me it wasn’t a very difficult process… my father’s an atheist and my mother’s a Unitarian and we attended a Methodist church down the road until my sister and I stopped wanting to go) — I just have a hard time understanding or connecting with the idea of finding spirituality fulfilling. I don’t question the veracity of that experience, or the importance of it for some, but it just… isn’t something I’ve felt.
That being said, I’ve just finished reading Mary Karr’s Lit for a book club – which is in part about her conversion to Catholicism – and I can really feel it. (lol, I feel like everyone in the world read it before me, but it’s really glorious!) “This an unbeliever might call self-hypnosis; a believer might say it’s the presence of God. Let’s call it a draw. . .”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6784154-but-what…
Oh wow I totally missed this somehow! I'd love to continue talking–I had a little bit more than that growing up; my dad's family is very culturally Jewish in the very typical NYC lapsed/reformed Jewish ways. Many of my close friends growing up were Jews of the Long Island/Manhattan varietal (which has been an interesting contrast now that I live in the Midwest!) and I ended up at an undergrad that was something like 40% Jewish. Hillel was pretty much the place to be on Friday evenings.
Then I graduated college and moved to Chicago all by myself and not knowing anyone so there's a combination of still not being terribly comfortable with myself in the city in general and also not being fully comfortable showing up to synagogue on a random Friday night not knowing anyone. Do you have twitter/an email address or something that might facilitate this better than blowing up the comments?
I don't have a Twitter and am not particularly comfortable posting my email address in this public forum. >.<;; I've been trying to figure out if IntenseDebate has a private message feature, but it appears not to. D'oh! Can you think of another way to connect?
And heeeyyyy, Chicago is my home city. Born and raised in the suburbs, anyway. When I say "let's go downtown," I always mean Chicago. I live in the Milwaukee area now, but Chicago will always be The City to me. There are lots and lots of wonderful synagogues and Jewish communities in Chicagoland. Not being from the city itself, I couldn't tell ya where to go, but if you wanted a recommendation or two in the north suburbs, I could hook you up. I know it's tough, but really just go. Go, by yourself, not knowing anyone, and trust that people will be friendly enough to say hi and welcome a stranger into their midst. Are we not always strangers in strange lands? And if the place is not welcoming or cold, don't go back. That's what I've been doing for years now and it's been suiting me fine. I've found some wonderful Jewish spaces in which to hang my hat across 7 years and 4 states. Be brave! You can do it! =)