Do you know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe, America and indeed the world?
Do you know that millions of people convert to Islam yearly in Europe and America?
Are you aware that footballers like Nicholas Anelka, Eric Abidal,Frank Ribery(all french national team players) and Freddie Kanoute have converted to Islam amd are indeed practising Muslim? Kanoute used what was equivalent to his one year salary to buy a mosque in Seville, Spain recently?
Former world snooker champion; Mike Tyson;son of former BBC DG;grandson of a former British PM;a former MTV presenter; Cat Stevens (Mexican hip hop singer now known as Yusuf Islam) are other high profile converts:
Another list:
From Christianity
Thomas J. Abercrombie - photographer[1]
Éric Abidal (changed his name to Bilal) - French soccer player.[2]
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) - retired basketball player & the NBA's all-time leading scorer[3]
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Chris Jackson) - retired basketball player[4]
Tariq Abdul-Wahad (Olivier Saint-Jean) - originally from France, former basketball player for the Mavericks and Kings[5]
Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar (Sharmon Shah) - former NFL football player[6]
Ivan Aguéli (Johan Agelii) - famous Swedish painter.[7][8]
Dawud Wharnsby Ali (David Wharnsby) - Canadian singer/poet.[9][10]
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), to The Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam to Sufism,[11] famous boxer
Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley - British soldier and peer.[12]
Ryan G. Anderson - former Lutheran, convicted of charges of espionage for Al Qaeda[13][14]
Nicolas Anelka - French football player[15]
Yasin Abu Bakr (Lennox Philip) - of Trinidad and Tobago, under trial for an attempted coup as of March 9, 2006[16]
Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker (Philip Barker) - professor of Urdu, former chair of the University of Minnesota's Department of South Asian studies and creator of the Tékumel fantasy world.[17]
David Belfield - American, fled to Iran after assassinating Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an Iranian dissident,[18] is charged with murder[19]
Muhammad Ali- a convert to Islam.Józef Bem - Polish-Hungarian general, considered a national hero of Poland. [20]
Muhammad Knut Bernström - Swedish ambassador to Venezuela (1963-1969), Spain (1973-1976) and Morocco (1976-1983)[21]
Art Blakey - American Jazz musician[22]
Tawana Brawley (changed her name to Maryam Muhammad) - African American woman noted for claiming to have been raped by several white men, a claim determined to be a fabrication by a grand jury. Later in life she converted to Islam.[23][24]
Willie Brigitte - French convert to Islam who associated with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and was possibly involved in a plot to conduct a terrorist operation in Australia.[25]
Dolores "LaLa" Brooks - American musician.[26]
Torquato Cardilli - Italian ambassador; converted from Catholicism.[27]
Count Cassius- Visigothic aristocrat who founded the Banu Qasi dynasty of Muladi rulers.[28]
David Chappelle - comedian and television star[29]
Benjamin Chavis - controversial former head of the NAACP; joined the Nation of Islam[30]
Jimmy Cliff - Jamaican reggae musician.[31][32]
Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae musicianAukai Collins - fought in Chechnya, paid FBI informant, author of an autobiographical book[33]
Jerôme Courtailler - one of two French brothers convicted by French authorities in 2004 for abetting terrorists[34][35][36]
Ian Dallas - Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi - sufi shaykh of Scottish origins.[37]
Muriel Degauque - Belgian suicide bomber[38]
Isabelle Eberhardt - from Lutheran Christianity, 19th century explorer & writer[39]
Yahiya Emerick - American Muslim scholar, president of the Islamic Foundation of North America, born into a Protestant family.[40]
C. Jack Ellis - Mayor of Macon, Georgia[41]
Keith Ellison - American, raised Catholic, Representative from Minnesota's 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress[42]
Yusuf Estes - former preacher and federal prison chaplain.[43]
Yusuf Estes, a convert to Islam, is the National Muslim Chaplain for American Muslims.[43]
Chris Eubank British boxerChris Eubank - British boxer[44]
Sultaana Freeman - sued the state of Florida for niqab restrictions.[45]
Adam Yahiye Gadahn - spokesperson for Al-Qaeda; on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list[46][47]
Roger Garaudy - French philosopher, befor converting to Islam Marxist and member of the French Communist Party, who denies the holocaust ever taking place.[48]
George XI of Kartli - Saffavid commander.[49]
René Guénon - French Author in the field of metaphysics [50]
Naveed Afzal Haq- notable for committing the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting on July 28, 2006. Converted to Christianity in 2005 but reverted by the time of the shooting.[51]
Ryan Harris- football player for the Denver Broncos [52]
David Hicks-Australian former rodeo rider, recently released from detenrion in Adelaide.
Murad Wilfred Hofmann - from Catholicism, NATO official[53]
Knud Holmboe - Danish journalist and explorer; converted from Catholicism.[54]
Bernard Hopkins - American boxer[55]
Ahmed Huber- Swiss Neo-nazi journalist, holocaust denier and terrorist supporter[56]
Silma Ihram - Australian pioneer of Muslim education in the West, founder and former school Principal of the 'Noor Al Houda Islamic College', campaigner for racial tolerance, and Author.[57]
Jermaine Jackson (Muhammad Abdul Aziz) - former member of The Jackson 5 and brother of popstars Michael and Janet Jackson.[58]
Sarah Joseph - commentator on women's issues and founder of emel magazine.[59]
Nuh Ha Mim Keller - from Catholicism to agnosticism to Sufism, Islamic scholar.[60]
Michael Muhammad Knight - American novelist, writer, and journalist.[61]
John Walker Lindh - the American Taliban (convicted terrorist) [62]
Raised Roman Catholic, John Walker Lindh later converted to Islam, joined the Taliban and was captured in Afghanistan fighting against Americans.[63]
Richard Colvin Reid known as the "shoe bomber" was a convert to Islam.[46]
Malcolm X- famous Muslim convert and civil rights leader
Keith Ellison American, raised Catholic, Representative from Minnesota's 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress[42]
Hamza Yusuf, head of the Zaytuna Institute
Timothy Winter is a prominent British lecturer at the University of Cambridge
American journalist, newspaper owner, and former Consul-General of the USA. in the Philippines, Mohammad Webb was a convert.Germaine Lindsay - participated and died in the 7 July 2005 London bombings[64][65][66]
Alexander Litvinenko - former Russian spy converted to Islam on his deathbed.[67] [68]
Vincenzo Luvineri - American rapper and the lyricist behind the Philadelphia underground hip-hop group Jedi Mind Tricks; converted from Roman Catholicism.[69]
Ingrid Mattson - Canadian scholar and current president of the Islamic Society of North America (2006)[70]
Lee Boyd Malvo - convicted of capital murder and arrested for the Beltway sniper attacks, for being involved in 16 murders and 7 additional attempted murders.[71]
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood - British author.[72]
Iyasu V - Ethiopian emperor.[73]
Jacques-Francois Menou - French general under Napoleon I of France.[74]
Bruno Metsu - French coach of the Senegal team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup[75]
Daniel Moore - poet [76]
Preacher Moss - American comedian and comedy writer.[77]
Matthew Saad Muhammad (formerly Matthew Franklin) - from Catholicism, former boxer.[78]
Peter Murphy - vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus. Converted from Catholicism.[79]
Sheila Musaji - founder of The American Muslim magazine.[80]
Ibrahim Muteferrika (original name not known) - From Unitarian Christianity, an early example of a Muslim publisher and printer.[81]
John Nelson - first recorded Englishman to become a Muslim.[82]
Prince Buster, Jamaican singer and producer.
Queen Noor of Jordan (formerly Lisa Najeeb Halaby)[83]
Omar Pasha - Ottoman general. Converted from Serbian Orthodoxy.[84]
Emin Pasha - physician, naturalist, and Egyptian governor.[85]
Judar Pasha - conqueror of the Songhai Empire.[86]
Bilal Philips - Islamic scholar and author[87]
Poncke Princen - Dutch soldier, later human rights activist.[88]
St. John Philby - Arabist, explorer, writer, and British colonial office intelligence operative; converted from Anglicanism.[89]
Marmaduke Pickthall - famous translator of the Quran.[90]
William Abdullah Quilliam - poet, ambassador & journalist.[91]
Radu cel Frumos - was the younger brother of Vlad Ţepeş (Dracula) and prince of the principality of Wallachia. Converted from Catholicism.[92]
Ilie II Rareş - prince of Moldavia.[93]
Ahmad Rashād - Emmy award-winning sportscaster (mostly with NBC Sports) and former American football wide receiver.[94][95]
Richard Colvin Reid - shoe bomber (convicted terrorist) [96]
Franck Ribéry- a French soccer player. His name after he converted to Islam is Bilal. [97]
Yvonne Ridley - British journalist, from Anglicanism. She converted after being kidnapped and released by the Taliban.[98][99]
Ahmed Santos - Filipino, from Roman Catholicism, fugitive, founder of the Rajah Solaiman Movement & suspected by Filipino authorities to be an Al Qaeda operative[100][101][102]
Sana al-Sayegh, dean of the Science and Technology Faculty at Palestine International University, converted to Islam in August 2007. Fatah has accused its political rival Hamas of forcing the professor to convert from Christianity, a charge Hamas denies. [103]
Scarface - American rapper[104]
Mario Scialoja - Italian ambassador and President of the World Muslim League.[105]
Betty Shabazz - wife of Malcolm X; former Methodist.[106]
Zaid Shakir - African-American Muslim speaker and intellectual in the United States.[107]
Rudolf Carl von Slatin - Anglo-Austrian soldier and administrator in the Sudan.[108]
Suleiman Pasha - French-born Egyptian commander.[109]
Joe Tex - soul singer and recording artist.[110]
Joseph Thomas - Australian convert, acquitted of terrorism charges, placed under a control order under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005, currently pending retrial.[111][112]
Danny Thompson - English double bass player; converted from Catholicism.[113]
Richard Thompson - British musician, best known for his guitar playing and songwriting.[114]
Ahmad Thomson - British barrister and writer and also a member of the Murabitun movement.[115]
Top Topham - rock guitarist from England.[116]
Gabriele Torsello - Italian freelance photojournalist based in London who was abducted in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.[117]
Philippe Troussier - French, former football player & trainer of a Japanese football team[118]
Mihnea Turcitul - was a Prince (Voivode) of Walachia. Converted from Eastern Orthodox Chrisitianity.[119]
Abu Usamah - controversial American-born Imam of Green Lane Masjid in Birmingham, UK. Accused of preaching messages of hate towards non-Muslims in a UK Television documentary.[120]
Siraj Wahaj - African-American Imam, noted for his efforts to eliminate Brooklyn's drug problems.[121]
Danny Williams - British boxer[122]
Malcolm X - American, from Christianity to Nation of Islam to mainstream Islam, African-American civil rights leader.[123]
Khalid Yasin - Executive Director of the Islamic Teaching Institute, and a Shaykh currently residing in Australia.[124]
James Yee - former US. Army Muslim chaplain.[125]
Mohammad Yousuf - from Catholicism, Pakistani cricketer. Known for holding the world record for the most Test runs in a single calendar year.[126]
Hamza Yusuf - American convert from Greek Orthodox; head of the Zaytuna Institute.[127]
Alexander Russell Webb - American journalist, newspaper owner, and former Consul-General of the USA. in the Philippines.[128]
Suhaib Webb - American Islamic activist and speaker.[129]
Abdulla Webster - former Sergeant First Class in the United States Army who refused to deploy to Iraq.[130]
John Whitehead - an American singer, songwriter, and record producer.[131]
Timothy Winter - prominent British Islamic thinker and scholar, and a lecturer in Islamic studies in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.[132]
Zağanos Pasha - one of the prominent military commanders of Mehmet II (Mehmet the Conqueror) and a lala, at once an advisor, mentor, tutor, councilors, protector, for the sultan.[133]
Muhammad Zakariya - an American master of Arabic calligraphy, best known for his work on the popular Eid US. postage stamp.[134]
Omar Sharif - Academy Award-nominated Egyptian actor who has starred in many Hollywood films; converted from Catholicism.[135]
[edit] From Judaism
Main article: History of conversion of Jews to Islam
Abdullah ibn Salam - 7th century sahabi said to have been a rabbi of aristocratic stock. [136]
Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey (Yale Singer) - a pioneer in the development of Islamic culture in the United States.[137]
Rashid al-Din - 13th century Persian physician[138]
Jemima Khan (Jemima Goldsmith) - ex-wife of cricketer Imran Khan, English socialite, a UK ambassador for UNICEF, and former girlfriend of Hugh Grant.[139][140]
Jacob Frank - publicly converted to Islam in 1757[141] and to Christianity in Poland but actually presented himself as the Messiah of a syncretic derivation of Shabettai Zevi's Messianism.
Leila Mourad - Egyptian singer and actress who rose to fame in the 1940s and 1950s.[142]
Lev Nussimbaum - prolific author on the topics of Middle East and Russian history; the Nazi propaganda ministry included his works on their list of "excellent books for German minds" before discovering he was an ethnic Jew. [143]
Jacob Querido - 17th century successor of the self-proclaimed Jewish Messiah Sabbatai Zevi.[144]
Sarmad - 17th century mystical poet and sufi saint, arrived from Persia to India, beheaded for assumed heresy by Aurungzebe.[145]
Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) - Viennese journalist who became Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations[146]
Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari - 9th century Persian scholar physician (a hakim), who produced the first encyclopedia of medicine.[147]
Yaqub ibn Killis - 10th century Egyptian vizier under the Fatimid
From Dharmic religions
From Buddhism
Mahmud Ghazan - seventh ruler of the Ilkhanate.[149]
Mubarak Shah - head of the ulus of the Chagatai Khanate (1252-1260, March-September 1266).[150]
Tarmashirin - Khan of the Chagatai Khanate following Duwa Timur.[151]
From Hinduism
Salma Arastu - Indian artist living in North America. [152]
Dhiren Barot - convicted terrorist, who confessed to planning "to detonate a dirty bomb and launch an attack on London's Tube".[153][154][155]
Sumita Devi - Bengali actress and filmmaker.[156]
Pir Mangho - 14th century Sufi pir.[157]
A. R. Rahman (formerly A. S. Dileep Kumar) - famous Indian music composer[158]
Parameswara - Malay prince of Palembang Hindu descent from Srivijaya that founded the Sultanate of Malacca around 1402.[159]
Abdul Wahid Pedersen - Danish cleric.[160]
Sahaj Ram Sapru - the grandfather of the British-Indian Muslim Philosopher, Sir Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, who was an official in Kashmir during the administration of the Afghan Governor Azim Khan. [161]
Kamala Suraiyya (formerly Kamala Das) - Anglo-Malayalam writer[162]
Sharmila Tagore - renowned Indian film actress from Bengal.[163]
From Sikhism
Ubaidullah Sindhi - religious leader and political activist.[164]
Other
From Paganism
David Myatt - from Paganism, former Neo-Nazi-activist[165]
Atik Sinan - Ottoman architect[166]
From non-religious to Islam
Zhang Chengzhi - contemporary Hui Chinese author; raised as an atheist.[167]
Charles le Gai Eaton - British diplomat and writer.[168]
Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) - British musician and singer (had a nominally Christian upbringing, but never was a believer)[169]
Jeffrey Lang - American, Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Kansas. (Raised Catholic, but atheist from age 18 to conversion)[170][171]
Martin Lings - a widely acclaimed British scholar. He was raised as a Protestant, became an atheist, and later converted to Islam.[172]
Mos Def - American rapper and actor. [173]
[edit] Undetermined former religion
Abd al Malik - birth name Régis Fayette-Mikano - French rapper of Congolese origins.[174]
Mumia Abu-Jamal - journalist, Black Panther, political activist, convicted murderer.[175][176]
B.G. Knocc Out - American west coast rapper.[177]
Claude Alexandre de Bonneval - French noble.[178]
Hasan Akbar (born Mark Fidel Kools) - American sentenced to death for the murder of two fellow soldiers during the 2003 US. invasion of Iraq.[179]
Kevin Barrett - university lecturer and member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth.[180]
Maurice Béjart - French choreographer.[181]
Robert "Kool" Bell - musician.[182]
Ronald Bell - musician.[183]
Muhammad Knut Bernström - Swedish ambassador.[184]
Khaled Edward Blair - British barrister, later married Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan.[185]
Bizzy Bone - American rapper.[186]
Omar Bongo - Gabonese, President of Gabon.[187]
Charles Brooks, Jr. - converted while serving a sentence for murder; first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.[188]
H. Rap Brown - civil rights activisit.[189]
Titus Burckhardt - Swiss writer and scholar.[190]
Amir Butler- Author, Engineer and Islamic activist.[191]
Kérim Chatty- Swedish bodybuilding stuntman who was once suspected of attempted hijacking. The preliminary inquiry was dropped. [192]
Common - American rapper.[193]
Jill Courtney - Australian, girlfriend of convicted killer and drug trafficker Hassan Kalache, arrested on March 26, 2006 for attempted murder of unnamed people.[194][195][196]
Robert D. Crane - former Presidential advisor and ambassador.[197]
Ice Cube - Gangsta rapper and actor.[198]
Bob Denard - French mercenary.[199]
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic - served 15-year wrongful imprisonment sentence.[200]
Isabelle Eberhardt - explorer and writer.[201]
Baron omar Rolf von Ehrenfels - Austrian anthropologist and orientalist.[202]
Everlast - Irish-American rapper and singer-songwriter.[203]
Alys Faiz - human rights and peace activist;[204] converted at the time of her marriage to Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.[205]
Philippe Fragione - French rapper and producer of French hip hop.[206]
Christian Ganczarski- Head of "al Qaeda in Europe".[207]
Philippe Grenier - (1865-1944) French doctor, first and only muslim MP in France.[208].[209]
Gigi Gryce - American saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator.[210]
Walt Hazzard - former NBA player.[211]
David Hicks - convicted Australian terrorist.[212]
Lim Yew Hock - Singapore’s second Chief Minister from 1956 to 1959.[213]
Craig Hodges - former NBA player.[214]
Ibrahim Hooper (Douglas Hooper) - Islamic activist, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).[215]
Abdullah Ibrahim - South African Jazz musician.[216]
Umar Islam - one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.[217]
Tiara Jacquelina - Malaysion actress.[218]
Ahmad Jamal - Jazz pianist.[219]
Jan Janszoon - Dutch pirate.[220]
Larry Johnson - retired American professional basketball player.[221]
Gustave-Henri Jossot - French caricaturist, illustrator and Orientalist painter.[222]
Muhammad Khodabandeh - eighth Ilkhaid dynasty ruler in Iran from 1304 to 1316.[223]
Vladimir Khodov - leader of the Beslan school hostage crisis- converted in prison.[224]
Abd al Haqq Kielan - Swedish cleric.[225]
Ghostface Killah - member of the Wu-Tang Clan.[226]
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan - born Yvette Blanche Labrousse, Miss France 1930, wife of Aga Khan III.[227]
Yusef Lateef - American Jazz musician.[228]
Johann von Leers - advisor to Muhammad Naguib known for his anti-Semitic polemics.[229][230][231]
Gary Legenhausen - American philosopher and writer.[232]
Brandon Mayfield - American attorney-at-law, was erroneously linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.[233]
MC Ren - American rapper and hip-hop producer.[234]
Ali Shaheed Muhammad - member of A Tribe Called Quest.[235]
Idris Muhammad - American jazz musician.[236]
John Allen Muhammad - convicted serial killer, known as the Beltway Sniper.[237][238]
Anthony Mundine - Australian Boxer.[239]
Abdul Alim Musa - Muslim activist and director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington, D.C.[240]
Susanne Osthoff - German archaeologist who had worked in Iraq since 1991 and had been taken captive there for three weeks.[241]
José Padilla - the respondent in Rumsfeld v. Padilla currently on trial as an alleged al-Qaida operative, converted while in prison for aggravated assault.[242]
Robin Padilla - Filipino actor.[243]
Sokollu Mehmet Paşa - Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent.[244]
Christopher Paul (aka Paul Kenyatta Laws aka Abdulmalek Kenyatta) - American citizen, alleged member of al-Qaeda.[245][246]
Charles John Pelham (Abdul Mateen), 8th Earl of Yarborough.[247]
Q-Tip - North American hip-hop emcee, actor, and hip hop producer who was the leader of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest.[248]
Dwight Muhammad Qawi - former boxing world heavyweight champion.[249]
Jack Roche - convicted of involvement in an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra.[250]
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez - aka "Carlos the Jackal", convicted murderer and terrorist, currently in prison in France.[251]
Ibrahim Savant - one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.[217]
Frithjof Schuon - metaphysician, poet, painter, philosopher (in the original and Platonic sense of this term), and a leading figure of the perennialist school.[252]
Stephen Schwartz - American journalist, columnist, and author.[253]
Derrick Shareef- charged in a plot to set off four hand grenades in garbage cans December 22 at the CherryVale Mall in Rockford, Illinois during the Christmas rush.[254]
Sahib Shihab - jazz saxophonist and flautist.[255]
na how many days you take type this one
na wa oo!
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Author
Muslims guys and gals, hmmmm, hmmmm, doesn't that sound like a familiar repetition of history in those "Galaxies that are both far far away and near near at home"!