British converts to Islam: continuity, change, and religiosity in religious identity

Abstract

Consideration of the growing phenomenon of converts to Islam in Britain is emerging at the moment when converts are entering the popular imagination through the dominant negative tropes of threat and betrayal. In this context, the religious aspect of conversion is feared, diminished, contained or ignored. Given the emphasis on either change or continuity, these identities are conceptualised as hybrid or multiple identities, with little understanding of the critical properties of religiosity. Based on narrative interviews with British converts to Islam, this article argues that, rather than emphasising continuity or change, it is in understandings of the dynamics between continuity and change that important facets of religious identity emerge as the central problematic of conversion. The concept of congruity is offered to reflect this. It is further argued that religiosity as the basis of this continuity better captures converts’ religious identities. Georg Simmel’s notion of religiosity is employed to make sense of their identities. Through this notion, Simmel’s thought enables a congruity to be read that transcends the apparent contradiction between continuity and change.