It is the responsibility of Muslims
to absorb converts into their society;
but Muslim society fails in this responsibility.
As a result, converts become like aliens
among their new co-religionists.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, a French Christian named Leuen Roche embraced Islam at the hand of the Emir of Algeria, Abdul Qadir AI Jazairi. The Emir took him into his confidence, and appointed him as his special adviser, sending him on various missions. On one journey to the Arabian Peninsula he performed the pilgrimage to Makkah.
Leuen Roche married an Algerian Muslim woman. They lived together for seventeen years. Then French forces entered Algeria. Conflict ensued, and eventually Emir Abdul Qadir was defeated at the hands of the French commander Aldouc Dumal and publicly declared his renunciation of Islam and reconversion to Christianity.
This was a terrible shock for Leuen Roche’s Algerian wife. She told him that Islam had now come between the two of them, and that she would not like a serpent like him to stay alive, for people to continually to put her to shame because of him. She took a knife and stabbed Leuen Roche to death. (AI-Thawafat-ul-Arabiya, Tripolis, December 1982)
Most cases of apostasy of this nature are taken to mean that the person concerned had only accepted Islam hypocritically and, after completing his mission had turned away from the faith. This might be true in a few instances; but it is not correct to apply this theory to all cases of apostasy.
The truth is that, in contemporary time, most people who accept Islam do so on their own, not because of any missionary efforts. Most converts to Islam do not undergo any deep intellectual revolution which makes them change their faith. Usually people who have not previously been strict or fanatical in religious matters accept Islam; they do so on the basis of some temporary and commonplace predilection. If they are lucky enough to find favourable circumstances, they slowly grow stronger in their faith. The superficial impression they initially had of Islam changes into one of greater profundity. But as for those who do not find the circumstances propitious after their conversion to Islam, their faith by degrees becomes weaker. It does not take root in their consciousness. Some of these people spend their lives in a state of weakened faith; others return to their past lives. Just as one reason of no greater significance caused them to accept Islam, another such reason causes them to leave the Islamic fold.
It is the responsibility of Muslims to absorb converts into their society; but Muslim society fails in this responsibility. As a result, converts become like aliens among their new co-religionists. This alienation sometimes culminates in the extreme form that we call apostasy. It is a fact that apostasy is more often the result of negligence than of plots by enemies of Islam. This negligence is of three main kinds:
1. Missionary work is not conducted in such a way that it can change a person’s way of thinking on a profound level. If one accepts Islam for some superficial or casual reason, without undergoing any transformation in consciousness, then one’s faith cannot be very long-lasting.
2. When a non-Muslim accepts Islam, he leaves a completely different society behind and enters the fold of Islam. In such circumstances, education is absolutely essential to strengthen his Islamic faith. But Muslims do not possess the ways and means to educate him in Islamic thought. This education is entirely the responsibility of Muslims, but as yet Muslims have not done anything to provide it.
3. Then there is the social problem. When they accept Islam, converts are on the one hand ostracised from their own society, and on the other they are not fully accepted by Muslims society. Such alienation proves unbearable for a social animal like man.
Factors such as these usually create a latent malaise within Muslim converts; they remain in a constant state of frustration and, when confronted with some dilemma, forsake Islam and return to their former ways.
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Abdullah Ibn Masud asked the Prophet what action was best. “Praying at the proper time,” he replied. “What comes next, Messenger of God?” “Not saying things which hurt others,” the Prophet said.
