Tony Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, a British journalist, has converted to Islam. She tells a fascinating story of how it all came about. It started in the West Bank when she was working for The Mail on Sunday. Walking around the centre of Ramallah, it was cold and she was shivering when suddenly an old lady grabbed her hand. Talking rapidly in Arabic, she led her to a house in a side street and watched as she went through her daughter's wardrobe and pulled out a coat, a hat and a scarf. Then the lady took her back to the street, gave her a kiss, and sent her on her way. There had not been a single comprehensible word exchange between them but the meaning was clear.
She writes "It was an act of generosity I have never forgotten and one which, in various guises, I have seen repeated a hundred times. Yet this warmth of spirit is so rarely represented in what we read and see in the news."
Over the course of the next three years, she became involved with charities and pro-Palestinian groups and said "I felt challenged by the hardships suffered by Palestineans of all creeds. It is important to remember that there have been Christians in the Holy Land for 2000 years and that they too are suffering under Israel's illegal occupation."
Lauren writes about her conversion in a mosque. "When I sat down, a pulse of pure sheer spiritual joy shot through me. Not the joy that lifts you off the ground, but the joy that gives you complete peace and contentment. I sat for a long time. Young women gathered around me talking of the 'amazing thing happening to you'."
The single mother of two works full time and there's not a lot of time left for the study that Islam demands. You are expected to read the Koran from beginning to end and most people would spend months, if not years of study before making their declaration.
"People ask me how much of the Koran have I read and my answer is I've only covered 100 pages or so to date but before anyone sneers, the verses in the Koran should be read 10 lines at a time and they should be recited, considered and if possible, commited to memory. This is a serious text that I am going to know for life - it would help if I learnt Arabic and I would like to, but that will also take time."
She intends to establish a relationship with a couple of mosques in North London and get into a routine of going at least once a week. She now wears the headscarf but draws the line at the veil and the burqa. One of her concerns is if she continues to wear a headscarf, her employers might think that she's lost her mind and future employment could be jeapodized. Her non-Muslim friends are also getting worried and want to know if she will continue to go out with them for a few drinks. And the answer is a definite "No" she won't. So what does her mother think about it all? "I think she's happy if I'm happy and if, coming from a background of my father's alcoholism I'm going to avoid the stuff, then what could be better?"
So will Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper bosses think she's lost her mind and pass the assignment onto someone else? Only time will tell.
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