Hi Sars,

I’ll cut straight to the chase, I’m not sure if you can answer this question, maybe you can forward this email to Deborah: How does one convert to being a Muslim?

See, I’m a Muslim by birth, so it wasn’t really a problem for me to figure out how to be a Muslim as the details were all taken care of. My boyfriend would like to convert to Islam, so we can possibly get married. It’s a big deal, as a Muslim woman, to marry a Muslim man; I used to entertain notions of ignoring the edicts and following my heart, but then I realized, sure, I could do it that way, but it would rip my family tree apart. And I love my family, I don’t think I could live without that support system, well, possibly I could, but they mean so much to me. And being a Muslim is so much of who I am, I think I would be very frustrated making a life with someone who didn’t understand the big deal about Ramadan or why the Eids bring my community together.

My honey has no issues with converting, as he does agree with the major ideas. I just don’t know how it’s done. I come from a line of moderate Sunnis (does that make a difference? I don’t know), we don’t really go to mosques, we’re more of the follow-God-in-your-own-personal-way types.

I’ve thought about looking this all up online, but I don’t know where to begin. In my humble experiences, I’ve found far too many sites online that mesh local cultural beliefs and the mullah’s personal views in with their interpretation of Islam. Which is fine, I’m not being judgmental, I just want to know the bare bones of the process and what are the essentials that need to be done.

Thank you so much for any light you are able to shed on the subject,
Hoping for a Happy Ending

If there’s a simpler conversion process/ritual than becoming Muslim, I don’t know what it is. Here is my understanding: to accept Islam, a person makes a sincere declaration in Arabic called the Shahadah (“testimony,” the first of the five pillars of Islam). Here’s the transliteration and the translation of each line: “Ash-hadu alla ilaaha illallah” (I bear witness and attest that there is no god but the One God); “Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammad-ar-rasool ullaah” (I bear witness and attest that Muhammad is the messenger of God). (Note: there are many, many slightly variant translations of these phrases but all mean essentially the same thing.) Some traditions expect that this will be recited in front of two Muslim witnesses, and some may specify that it must be repeated three times, or must be said in a mosque, so if your boyfriend wanted to cover all the bases he could do all those things, although I don’t personally believe it’s necessary.

The person is now a Muslim, and subject to all the obligations of Islam — buh-bye, booze, pork, and poker! Hello, Ramadan fasting! At this point, the new convert is strongly recommended to take a special ritual shower known as ghusl (“grand ablution”). You can explain the procedure to him; I can’t find a site about it right now that isn’t going to overwhelm him with extraneous detail and irrelevancy, though I spent twenty minutes looking.

After the shower, it would be nice to put on a clean set of clothes if possible. Someone should help him to perform the next prayer when the time comes. And that’s it. Ideally, he should set about learning to make wudu (ritual ablutions), and memorizing the necessary Arabic and a few short Qur’an surahs (try 108 and 112; they’re fairly easy) so that he can perform prayers. He should begin learning about Islam to the best of his ability. Here is the best converts’ page I know of; I think you’ll both find much of interest there. (And definitely check out Questions to Ask a Prospective Marriage Partner. Even though your boyfriend is not coming from a Muslim background, this is a very useful list to cover many topics you two should discuss before marriage.)

Other conversion issues: contrary to what many Muslims may insist or believe, he is not required to change his name unless his name has a specifically un-Islamic meaning. I’ll presume you’re not dating anybody named Lucifer, but if he happened to have a name suggestive of polytheism, that’s something he should address. Many converts like to change their names (usually to something Arabic) to announce their decision but it is not necessary. Islam is a universal religion.

And since we’re talking about the conversion of a male here, I have to address circumcision. Muslim males are expected to be circumcised, and for boys born into the religion it’s done shortly after birth, as in Judaism. But there is at least one Sunni madhhab (school of thought or religious jurisprudence), the Hanbali one, that gives converts the option to remain uncircumcised. So it’s completely up to your boyfriend.

As you’ve seen online, there are some sites that are heavily loaded with cultural baggage and personal opinion. You’ll see some that go on and on about how a convert has to cut his nails, shave his head once, trim his body hair, et cetera, et cetera. Many sites fail to make much of a distinction between what is absolutely required and what is considered desirable/preferable according to the Sunnah (practice) of the Prophet. Try not to let the threatening or authoritarian tone of these writings intimidate you. Here is an excellent piece of advice from an American convert, Dr. Jeffrey Lang. Please pass it along to your boyfriend on my behalf:

“As one who has lived through it, the best advice I can offer a new Muslim is not to adopt any behaviour or position unless and until you feel certain of its necessity. Otherwise, you may end up trapping yourself in a corner, unable to be yourself and unable to unload the burdensome behaviour without attracting disappointment and suspicion — not only from others but from yourself as well.”

I wish you and your boyfriend the best in coming to the decisions that are right for each of you, and a long and happy marriage however you choose to proceed.

Deborah

Dear Sars,

I have decided to do something about this. I need help.

I am seventeen years old and it’s a rare day when I look forward to getting out of bed in the morning. It started when I was thirteen and it’s gone downhill from there. It feels like I keep falling into a hole and each time it takes a little bit more to climb out again. That’s a problem in and of itself, but as usual I’ve managed to make things worse.

I’m on an exchange right now and I have been for about four months. I was able to deal with the depression (I am pretty sure that’s what it is but I’ve never been officially diagnosed) for a while. I went a whole three months here without cutting myself — for the first time in two years. It’s caught up with me again though. This is the fifth time in as many days that I can’t sleep, have been punishing myself for every little thing, smiling takes too much energy, and the cuts on my arm are back. I am absolutely tired of running from this. I wrote in my diary the other day, “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for the part of life that gets better.”

I need to do something about this but…how? I don’t want to imagine having to tell anyone about this, and I’d have to. I’m a fucking minor in a foreign country. I have six more months in my exchange. Do I suck it up and wait six more months? I have tried as hard as I could to get through this by myself. I want nothing more than to just shed this and be normal — not overanalyzing everything and making tiny problems into huge ones.

My family knows that I haven’t “been happy” and the exchange was supposed to help with that, but they know NOTHING about me cutting myself. Who checks the suicidal-thoughts box on the physical form anyway? I do not cut myself for attention. I do that because I hate myself for not being able to deal with this on my own. And to feel something. A connection to reality…or something. I’m in Europe for heaven’s sake and most days all I want to do is get back to my host family’s house and read a book.

I have tried to prove to my parents my entire life that I could do everything by myself and I just feel like I’ve failed. There’s a part of me I hear every once in a while that goes, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? You have a 3.8 GPA, awards from the community for volunteering, people who love you, a huge opportunity to experience another culture, blah blah blah acheivement cakes.” The part that says, “Who gives a shit, what’s the point of all of that anyway?” usually wins.

I know I’d hate myself even more if I left this exchange early (which is absolutely the program’s policy), but I am so tired of this. I don’t have friends over here to help me with this like I do back home. What (And where. Heh.) in the world do I do next?

Signed,
Me, this is I, telling you to GET OUT OF THE WAY

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Dear You,

Call your parents as soon as possible, tell them exactly what you just told me, and make arrangements to go home and get treatment. It’s not a failure; it’s not a sign of weakness. People get depressed and overwhelmed. It happens, all the time, to all kinds of people, and I don’t know where you got the idea at 17 that you have to “prove” you can do “everything by yourself,” but: you don’t. You’re putting way too much pressure on yourself and it’s literally driving you crazy.

Actually doing it — admitting that you need some help — is really painful and hard. But part of what’s so hard about your life now is that not only do you feel hopeless, you also feel totally alone and isolated; you’re ashamed of your depression, and that just feeds into it, because you think you “should” be able to talk yourself into having a great time, and you “shouldn’t” have to do that, and why can’t you just be normal, nobody else has these problems, you’re a freak, blah blah blah.

And I’m not going to sit here and tell you some shit about how it’s going to be a happy and healing discussion when you tell your parents you need to leave the program…but I will tell you this: just admitting it and not having to pretend everything is hunky-dory is going to lighten the load in a big way, like, immediately. Yeah, it’ll suck, but then it’ll be out there, and once it’s out there, you can deal with it, on your own and as a family.

And these things need dealing with, and there’s no shame in it. If some wires melt in your fusebox, are you going to plunge in with a fork and a prayer and fix it yourself? No. You’re calling an electrician. If you fall down some stairs and break your ankle, are you splinting it yourself? No. You’re going to the ER and getting a cast put on by an MD. Your situation now, same principle. You need help. Asking for it will make your life so much better in the long run. It’s not lame to leave the program; it’s brave, and it’s making a commitment to your own mental health.

It’s going to be okay. Come back home and get started.

---

Dear Sars,

This is a bit of a saga, so I am going to try and be as concise as possible. Years ago, in the summer after my junior year of college, my girlfriend of the time (Sarah) and I broke up. It was her doing, the old wanting to see other people story. I was devastated, but coped. We agreed to try and be friends. Shortly thereafter, I started dating Anne, whom I’ve been with since and have lived with for years at this point.

Sarah was a little weird when I start dating Anne, and a little possessive but we played through and are still friends. We’re close in the sense that we hang out and talk a lot and make each other laugh, but not in a heart-to-heart, I call her when in crisis kind of way. I have other friends who haven’t broken my heart for that.

We finish college, and Sarah got married. She asked me to be a bridesmaid. I agreed to do it even though it’s a little weird to stand up for someone you’ve slept with, but that was years ago.

What’s the present-day problem? Sarah is a jerk to Anne, all the time. It can be blatant, as in not really talking to her at functions and saying snippy things to her when she does, or more subtle, as in criticizing things Anne has done in emails to me under the guise of caring about me. Anne has been a really good sport about my being friends with my ex, and has put up with it for years, but has finally said, “You know, hanging out with her sucks for me because she pretends like I don’t exist, and I understand you’re friends, but I can’t deal with her anymore.” I don’t blame Anne at all for feeling this way and am not super-keen on staying friends with Sarah myself because in the cost-benefit analysis, the benefits of being friends with Sarah are nowhere near the costs of her jerkiness.

Normally, I would either a) explain that the friendship isn’t really jiving and maybe we shouldn’t be so close anymore or b) fade away by distancing myself in the ways we correspond (we live in different cities, about four hours away). However, I can’t do either because I’m the godmother of Sarah and her husband’s brand new baby! On a visit I made sans Anne when Sarah was pregnant, Sarah and her husband sat me down and asked me to be the godmother (not me and Anne, just me) and I was flabbergasted and confused and had to say yes because it was in person (it’s an honorific, not a religious or custodial thing). I don’t want to not follow through on the godmother thing because Sarah will be able to say forever that I am a bad friend and we have a ton of mutual friends, and I have nothing against the baby.

I don’t feel like I can confront Sarah about how she is with Anne because Sarah is one of those people who is a) never wrong, b) very defensive, and c) a bit of a barracuda. Also, I feel like any such conversation is hard to have without acknowledging our romantic history, which is something we never, ever do. Ever. I have no idea what conversation led Sarah and her husband to choose me as godmother. I’ve never tried to break that wall because I don’t really want to rehash the heartache, but it does inform what is going on now. But I am very sick of Sarah treating Anne like she doesn’t exist, and my loyalty at this point is definitely in Anne’s corner.

Is there no way to deal with this without having to confront it? Is there some sort of diplomatic, polite way to express my disappointment without getting into a fight? Am I just wimping out on dealing with all of this? Is it all my fault for agreeing to be the godmother? Should I just maintain the status quo?

Signed,
On the Path of Least Resistance

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Dear Path,

No, yes, yes, yes, and no.

Look, you’ve let this go on for years now without standing up for yourself or for Anne, and enough already. I don’t think I understand why you agreed to the bridesmaid thing, and as for serving as godmother…okay, when she asked you, it caught you off-guard, but what I don’t get is why you were in the position of being asked in the first place. From everything you’ve told me, Sarah is kind of a bitch. Why would you go to visit someone you basically don’t like, who has no respect for you or your partner?

“Well, but…we’re friends.” Uh huh. Why? According to you, Sarah is “jerky,” “defensive,” can’t take criticism but loves doling it out herself, is apparently so obtuse that she thinks putting an ex in her wedding is appropriate, and will shit-talk you to mutual friends. I’m not extrapolating here; you’ve told me this shit. Why do you still know this person? Because it’s the thing to do to stay friends with your exes so that nobody’s made uncomfortable and you can both pretend you didn’t get your heart broken…by her? Whose idea was that?

I have to tell you, Anne’s a lot more patient with this than I’d be…because if I were Anne, I’d really wonder whose side you were on, and why it still meant so much to you not to upset Sarah. If you know what I mean. Sarah is not nice to you, and she’s not nice to your girlfriend. You need to tell her in plain English that you won’t tolerate that behavior anymore, and if she gets nasty, you need to recuse yourself from godmother duty and let her find someone else. If she runs to your mutual friends all “bad friend!”, well, let her. Your friends probably know her deal as well as you do, and won’t really buy it; more likely, they’ll wonder what took you so long to grow a spine.

Whatever her reaction, put your foot down. She can find another godmother. You can’t find another Anne. Show your current relationship some respect and stop letting Sarah shit all over it.

[7/27/05]

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