ABSTRACT
The events in New York on 11 September 2001 changed the world in all sorts of ways. In academia, it led to a sudden rise in the amount of research being conducted on Muslims living in ‘Western’ societies. Researchers began to ask questions about how Muslim communities understood their role in non-Muslim societies, how they behaved in these societies, how non-Muslims saw them, and how non-Muslims treated them. My own PhD research followed this trend but in a fairly unique manner. I was initially interested in the meanings attached to hijab and responses to veiling, but after immersing myself in the literature in 2007, I realized that much had already been said about this topic. Rather than covering ground that others were covering already, I wanted to explore something that had been neglected so as to further understanding and make a significant contribution. I was fortunate in that I stumbled across an area about which little research had been conducted, and even better, which I found really interesting. This area was about the experiences of those people who were choosing to become Muslim from non-Muslim backgrounds. The topic seemed counterintuitive to some who were not convinced that many were choosing to convert to Islam at a time when Islam was associated with so much negativity. Yet, they were wrong, as I knew that there were many people converting to Islam in Britain, and that their everyday experiences in the post-9/11 context had not been sufficiently explored. In this chapter, I reflect on some of my experiences of organizing and conducting in-depth interviews with a range of Muslim converts. Ultimately, I hope to demonstrate that when conducting research on Muslims, several factors can shape the trajectory of the research, and in turn, the conclusions that can be drawn. These factors primarily relate to Islamic teachings, the socio-political context and one’s own personality and identity.
