AN INSIGHT INTO FEMALE RELIGIOUS CONVERSION IN GERMANY

Abstract

Sufi communities in Germany are religious institutions where converts get knowledge about the Islamic belief by learning and applying the basic rules of the religion and by gaining experience in sufism. These institutions are also spaces of solidarity during the conversion process and embody a ‘spritiual family’ for the converts, in particular. The aim of this study is to give an insight into female conversion based on the ethnographic research on sufi groups I conducted in Germany. Along with their conversion experience, their way to settle down within the sufi narrative and their everyday life interactions after the religious conversion, women converts show a struggle in fields unique to them