Searching for Heaven in the Real World: A Sociological Discussion of Conversion in the Arab World

Based on the author's PhD thesis, this book considers the phenomenon of conversion in the Muslim Arab world. It is easy to investigate conversion as a phenomenon that occurs to people, but I have found it to be of key importance to approach conversion from the situated perspective of those being studied, as active agents, rather than referring to converts as passive participants in their own life processes. Conversion studies have increasingly tended to study conversion as a process, not a moment, investigating questions of identity, lifestyle, community and relationships among converts – things that are directly relevant to their lived experience – more than reasons why people change religions. This is what this study seeks to do.