Religious conversion: A lesson for the Jews and Hindus

Submitted by Prashant (India), Dec 30, 2022 at 19:29

Dear Dr Pipes:

Reader Nir's above message prodded me to learn more about Abdallah Schleifer. Nir described Mr Schleifer as a rabidly anti-Jewish propagandist. I do not know enough about him to support or negate that view.

But I researched about Mr Schleifer enough to know that he was a secular Jew from Brooklyn before his conversion to Islam. When a person converts to a religion voluntarily, although we may not agree with his reasons for conversion, we should not question his sincerity and intentions.

Religious conversion is error prone. People often leave their original religion without looking at its big picture. They get upset with one of its deficiencies and leave it due to that deficiency. Likewise, they might like one single aspect of the adopted religion and jump into it without looking at the big picture and all its faults. Thus, often times, religious conversions are whimsical processes.

There is a strong lesson for the religions like Judaism and Hinduism that do not seek active conversions: they take no advantage of this whimsical process and, thus, lose in the number game.

Every denomination of Jews and Hindus should actively seek conversion from Islam. Are their any Muslims tired of Islamic violence, hypocrisy, ambiguity, or intolerance? Please be my guest and become something else.

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