Former prisoner of the Taliban converts to Islam
- Thread starter Machjo
- Start date
Yeah, I thought the same thing.
Anybody notice, though, that there seems to have been a number of conversions of westerners to Islam in the news......and that they are mostly women?
i noticed and i dont care....
mabye western women are converting to islam because its what the bad boys are doing :lol:, a bunch of rebels without a cause :lol:
im not a rebel
Or mabye people like her feel sorry for the taliban because they havent earned a single tactical victory since we have been there :lol:... there only hope is a strategic victory like what the northern veitnamese got
mabye western women are converting to islam because its what the bad boys are doing :lol:, a bunch of rebels without a cause :lol:
im not a rebel
Or mabye people like her feel sorry for the taliban because they havent earned a single tactical victory since we have been there :lol:... there only hope is a strategic victory like what the northern veitnamese got
Possibly, but not certainly.People do convert to Islam without such experience, so it's not so easy to just write it off as Stockholm syndrome. That said, Stockholm syndrome is a possibility.
Stockholm Syndrome is a strong possibility. Sure, people convert to Islam, but they do it on their own, voluntarily. Stockholm Syndrome is one where a hostage (usually a woman) falls in love with a man (usually her hostage taker). The parallels between Stockholm Syndrome and this incidence are striking.
I agree with that statement because your choice of wording leaves it open to other possibilities.
She did convert after studying Islam which she'd done after her release. While I agree Stockholm Syndrome is a possibility, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it must necessarily be that. I'm sure Stockholm Syndrome will wear off eventually, so if that's the case, she'll eventually walk away from Islam.
Well, if one converts while forcibly held against her will, the chances of he/she doing so willingly are slim to none.
I was watching the clip and it is indeed interesting - she's made quite a journey. Would I have come to the same results at the end of a similar journey? I don't know. What stuck me - and I realize that on the surface it is indeed a small thing. But she and her mother were discussing her refusal to shake - I think it was the Duke of Kent's hand. She says it was because she was a Muslim. Her mother then replies that she had shaken other people s hands, and one clip shows her shaking Yassir Arafat's hand, to which she replies,that she was not a Muslim when she did that.
Here's my issue- she thought enough about shaking hands with a man (and she is a recent convert), that she would not shake hands with that aristocrat. But Yassir Arafat - a man that professed to be an observant Muslim - had absolutely NO problem shaking hands - with a woman - this man portrayed himself a devote Muslim --yet he would betray his 'beliefs'for a photo op?
I truly wish this woman peace - I wish I could just read something and accept it but I can't. Why isn't she questioning the actions of those who claim to be devote followers - who are3 also leaders - of the path she's chosen to follow? And why isn't she questioning the leadership of said faith? Why is it ok for the observant Muslim Arafat to touch a woman journalist, but a Muslim woman journalist cannot even shake the hand on a man? I truly don't understand....
If you watch the video, she'd converted back in the UK after her release. She'd promised the Taliban to study Islam after her release, and so that study could be argued to possibly be motivated by something similar to Stockholm syndrome, or alternatively simply a desire to keep a promise, however unjustly imposed as it may have been.
Stockholm syndrome itself involves defending the captors. Seeing that she does not do that at all in the video, it's certainly not Stockholm syndrome per se, though possibly something similar.
As for her conversion to Islam, since sh'ed done that after studying the Koran in freedom, that aspect itself would hardly be Stockholm syndrome or anything similar. The link describes Stockholm syndrome as an attachemnt to the captors. She indicates no such personal attachment at all, but rather to Is;am, which is separate from the captors.
And besides, if it wre anything similar to Stockholm syndrome, she'd grow out of it over time.
Add to that that as an educated journalist, she's probably heard of Stockholm syndrome herself and has likely analyzed her emotions and motives accordingly. I also would not be surprised if the military or some other agency offered her a psychological assessment.
I noticed that too. To the best of my knowledge, I'm not aware of any passae in the Qur'an or ahadith banning a woman shaking hands with a man. It might be some passage about not 'touching', left open to interpretation and taken more strictly by some? I don't know and would have to look into it. But whatevr it it, clearly she and Arafat have a different understanding of men and woman shaking hands in Islam. It just goes to show how two people reading the same Book can come to different understandings of it. Clearly she's chosen a stricter interpretation of the Qur'an. Right or wrong, I don't know, but still respect her decision.
Again, it states in the video that she'd promised to study the Qur'an after her release, but she was never forced to convert. She'd converted while in the UK after her release during her studies.
Again, remember that she's an educated journalist and so even if she were affected by the Stockholm syndrome on some emotional level, she'd likely have been capable of assessing these emotions and acknowledging their source.
Would she have converted if she wasn't kidnapped by these scumbags? Being a journalist doesn't make one a psychologist.
I doubt it. He only reason for having studied Islam from what I'd gathered in the video was that they'd forced her to promise to study Islam after her release, and I suppose her sense of honesty or something compelled her to keep her word on that, and that lead to her conversion. That doesn't necessarily make the conversion any less sincere of course nor does it excuse what those scumbags had done.
She might not be a psychologist, but as an educated and literate person, I'm sure she has some understanding of herself none the less.
And like I said, I can't imagine she would not have been offered psychological counselling by the British government, military or some other body after her ordeal.
If she was set free, what other inducement but her own free will and honour would compel her to read the Quaran. Stolkholm Syndrome?
Her keeping her promise to study the Qur'an might have been induced by something similar or related to the Stockholm Syndrome. But it's inconceivable that she'd adopt another religion, which naturally involves a life-changing experience, over just the Stockholm syndrome.
Besides, according to the link on the Stockholm syndrome, it has to do with developing some emotional attachment to her captors. There is no indication of that in the video, and abiding by Islamic laws in her daily life would involve a focus on the Qur'an, not her captors, so it's highly unlikely that the conversion itself stems from anything similar to the Stockholm syndrome. Again, she's never defended her captors from what I could see.
I think that is too narrow an interpretation of Stockholm Syndrome, Machjo. She may not have developed emotional attachment to her captors but she may quite possibly have developed emotional attachment to the philosophy of her captors.
She may have been brainwashed (perhaps unknowingly) into believing that the philosophy of her captors is the only true philosophy. She had been exposed to it, to Taliban propaganda 24/7 for a long time, with no exposure to anything else. That is how brainwashing works.
So it may very well be that she studied Koran, not out of honesty, but because she really wanted to study it. Koran simply reinforced her brainwashing, and her conversion to Islam may have been a foregone conclusion even before she studied Islam. Because really, any intelligent, thinking woman would promise anything to the captors so that she may be set free, and then promptly forget about the promise, that would be the natural human reaction.
So the fact that she studied Koran may be an indication of her brainwashing while in captivity.
And she may not have defended her captors, but did she categorically say that what her captors did was wrong? Or does she think that her captors did her a favor by kidnapping her, because in doing so, they exposed her to the truth (Islam and Koran).