Increasing Conversions to Islam –Seeking Spiritual Peace or More Than That?
Although there are no official or unofficial statistics available, the Jamia Binoria Al-Alamia, one of the largest seminaries of the Deobandi school of thought, declared on Monday that 175 non-Muslims, belonging to different faiths, had embraced Islam in ongoing year at the institute.
"In the last four years, 560 people, 52 of them foreigners, have switched their faiths and converted to Islam,” said the seminary’s spokesperson.
"Most of the new converts belonged to Hindu scheduled castes or were atheists,” he added.
He maintained that 249 among them were women. They also included nationals of the UK, the US, China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, South Africa and Sri Lanka. "Overall, 975 people have embraced Islam at our seminary,” he added.
Mufti Muhammad Naeem, a prominent Islamic cleric who is the principal of the seminary, had set up a separate department four years ago to financially help the new converts.
"The main purpose behind setting up the department was to resolve the financial and legal difficulties faced by the converts, help them in learning basics of Islam by organizing trainings and workshops, and send them for Tabligh [preaching missions],” Naeem said.
"The newly converted Muslims are shunned by their non-Muslim families, causing financial problems for them,” he added.
Besides Jamia Binoria Al-Alami, there are dozens of seminaries and mosques, where many non-Muslims convert to Islam.
Some of them regularly issue press statements about the conversions that are published in Urdu newspapers.
Muslim clerics say non-Muslims are embracing Islam for spiritual peace.
"We have not been forcing anyone to convert. In fact, people come to us because they are fed up with their lives or unsatisfied with their religion,” said Naeem.
"This negates all negative propaganda against Islam.”
Source: The News
