Why Canadians Revert to Islam: Study

Sunday, July 26, 2015

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OTTAWA – Amid the increasing number of Muslims within its borders, Public Safety Canada has awarded a $170K grant to Australian academic Scott Flower, tasked with discovering why Canadians are choosing Islam.

"Canada was a country that had not even one published journal article on converts between its borders. So, I thought, 'Wow, what a great opportunity,'" Prof. Scott Flower of the University of Melbourne said in interview with CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning, CBC News reported on Saturday, July 25.

Looking into the reasons, Public Safety Canada is funding a project by an Australian academic to study why Canadians convert to Islam.

Being the first study of its kind in Canada, it follows in the footsteps of a number of other studies funded by Public Safety Canada through its Kanishka Project, which funds research into terrorism and counterterrorism.

In order to facilitate his study, Prof. Flower will spend a few months in Canada interviewing reverts to Islam, exploring the reasoning behind their decisions to become Muslim.

Flower admittedly does not know how the Canadian government will use his research.

"You'd have to be very ignorant to not sense the level of concern amongst the Muslim community in general, let alone the convert community. There [have] been a number of recent legislative bills passed in this country — I won't use the word oppressive — but I would say that it's really made Muslims go to ground," said Flower.

He added that the communicating with the Muslim community is further complicated by passage of the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, which received Royal assent on June 18.

According to the Canadian government's website, the Anti-terrorism Act aims to assist law enforcement and national security agencies in stopping those who promote the commission of terrorism offences in general, such as calling for attacks on Canadians, in addition to thwarting efforts to use as a recruiting ground, and to prevent planned attacks on Canadian soil.

Sam Metwally, the imam of Canada’s Ottawa Mosque, told CBC News that he witnessed a spike in the number of conversions after the deadly shootings outside the Canadian parliament on Oct. 22, 2014.

What is worrying for the Muslim community is that the new converts are not returning back to the mosques for further education about Islam.

Following a community roundtable this past year in Ontario, Roxanne James, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and member of the Parliament for Scarborough Centre stated, "Without the support of Canada’s many diverse communities, our Government cannot fully accomplish our goals of building resilience against all threats to public safety, and providing support for our youth, the leaders of tomorrow."

Hussein Hamdani, a member of the Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security, added: "The Muslim communities continue to be active partners and have a vested interest in keeping Canada and Canadians safe. We believe that robust dialogue and active outreach are necessary steps in building a more resilient nation. We encourage the government to continue the outreach and partnering process with Canada’s diverse communities and to take these discussions into consideration when drafting policies."

Flowers will title his report, "Towards understanding the extremely rare: distinguishing ordinary processes of religious conversion from violent extremism."

The Kanishka Project was created in June of 2011, arising from a recommendation in the Air India report. It is a five-year project with a $10 million dollar budget.

Muslims make around 2.8 percent of Canada's 32.8 million population, and Islam is the number one non-Christian faith in the country.

Pew Research Center concluded in its study, “Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Muslim Population,” that Muslims make up around one fourth of the world’s population.

It found that Muslims make up 23 percent of the world’s 6.8 billion people, the sweeping majority of them Sunnis.

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