Allah's Recruits

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The vast majority of converts are, like the vast majority of Muslims, moderates who reject the extremism espoused by al-Qaeda and its ilk. But as with any religion, converts to Islam tend to be more devout than those born into the faith. And it's indisputable that some converts do, in fact, become terrorists, including shoe-bomb suspect Richard Reid; Jose Padilla, the Chicago native arrested four years ago for involvement in an alleged al-Qaeda plot to detonate a radiological bomb; and Germaine Lindsay, a Jamaican-born Briton who was one of the suicide bombers who attacked the London Underground last summer. "Originally, jihadist groups were suspicious of converts because they saw them as a way for intelligence forces to infiltrate," says Gustavo de Aristegui, a Spanish terrorism expert and the author of Jihad in Spain. "But they're realizing that ... someone with a Western last name and blue eyes is going to raise fewer suspicions. Converts can be virtually impossible to detect, especially if they have not revealed their conversion to their family."

So why do they do it? In this day and age, what kind of person is prone to explore religious conversion? And what is the attraction of Islam? The three British converts arrested two weeks ago have three things in common: all are men, all are described by people who know them as friendly, regular guys, and all are in their 20s. But the similarities pretty much end there. According to accounts from friends, Don Stewart-Whyte, who changed his name to Abdul Waheed, converted six months ago, giving up drugs and alcohol. He grew a beard, shaved his head and started wearing traditional Islamic dress. Friends say Brian Young, who is of West Indian descent, was troubled by the decadence of Western society. Oliver Savant, now called Ibrahim, has been a Muslim for some seven years and, friends say, never mentioned politics. "He just talked about soccer and general chitchat," says a friend.

The reasons converts give for making the change vary widely. But one common refrain is that in an increasingly secular world in which society's rules get looser by the day, Islam provides a detailed moral map covering everything from friendships to protecting the environment. And for Western youths, taking up Islam can also serve as an outlet for rebellion. A majority of converts, especially in Western Europe, are in their late teens or 20s. "Islam is a kind of refuge for those who are downtrodden and disenfranchised because it has become the religion of the oppressed," says Farhad Khosrokhavar, a Paris professor and the author of several books on Muslim extremism. "Previously--say, 20 years ago--they may have chosen communism or gone to leftist ideologies. Now Islam is the religion of those who fight against imperialism, who are treated unjustly by the arrogant Western societies and so on."

There's another appeal to converting to Islam: it's relatively easy. In Catholicism and Judaism, the conversion process can involve years of preparation and study. In Islam, the process is called reversion (because islam literally means "submission to God," believers hold that everyone is born Muslim), and it's mainly a matter of uttering a two-line declaration of faith, the Shahadah. Say the Shahadah aloud in Arabic, and the conversion is complete.