Posted on 10/27/2010 8:18:32 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
London // The sister-in-law of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now the UN special envoy in the Middle East, has converted to Islam.
Lauren Booth, the half-sister of Mr Blair's wife Cherie, said she had converted from Christianity after a "holy experience" six weeks ago following a visit to the shrine of Fatima al Masumeh in Qom, Iran.
Ms Booth, 43, a journalist who works for Press TV, the Iranian English-language broadcaster, announced her conversion at the Global Peace and Unity Event in London on Saturday. To cheers, she told the meeting: "What I wanted to share with you today is that I am Lauren Booth and I am a Muslim."
She told The Mailon Sunday newspaper that she now wears a hijab whenever she leaves her home and had not ruled out adopting the burqa. She said she prays five times a day, visits her local mosque "when I can", and has given up pork and alcohol.
"I haven't had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years," she said. "The strange thing is that since I decided to convert I haven't wanted to touch alcohol, and I was someone who craved a glass of wine or two at the end of a day."
Ms Booth said that she had been sympathetic to Islam ever since working in Palestine.
She was a vociferous opponent of the Iraq War and has publicly accused Mr Blair of being pro-Israel. Two years ago, she joined a group of activists on a ship from Cyprus that sailed to Gaza to highlight the Israeli blockade of the territory. Of her conversion to Islam, Ms Booth said that, after visiting the Qom shrine, "I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine - just absolute bliss and joy".
During the trip, she wrote an open letter to Mr Blair, bitterly condemning his support of American policies in the Middle East and saying: "Your world view is that Muslims are mad, bad, dangerous to know. A contagion to be contained."
Mr Blair, who himself converted from the Anglican to the Roman Catholic faith after leaving office, has not commented on his sister-in-law's conversion.
On Muslim forums on the internet yesterday, Ms Booth's decision was generally welcomed. "Now a war criminal has an innocent sister-in-law! God bless her!" read one. However, another contributor added: "Lauren Booth craves attention, that's all."
Ms Booth, 43, a journalist who works for Press TV, the Iranian English-language broadcaster, announced her conversion at the Global Peace and Unity Event in London on Saturday. To cheers, she told the meeting: "What I wanted to share with you today is that I am Lauren Booth and I am a Muslim."
She told The Mailon Sunday newspaper that she now wears a hijab whenever she leaves her home and had not ruled out adopting the burqa. She said she prays five times a day, visits her local mosque "when I can", and has given up pork and alcohol....She was a vociferous opponent of the Iraq War and has publicly accused Mr Blair of being pro-Israel.
another blown mind
"Accused"? "Asserted" or "stated" I can see. But "accused" is generally a term reserved for claiming that someone has done something wrong or committed a crime. How did this get past the editors?
Churchill, Nelson, Harris, Montgomery, Alexander, and Dowding are all spinning in their graves.
When it comes to the Brits, nothing surprises me. The vast majority of the country is Christian by default or in name only. It is the same for nearly all of Europe. Europe is a spiritual waste land.
>>another blown mind<<
Yep. In the 60’s we called them “flower children”. They were pretty harmless though, compared to muslims.
I have found that the most effective way to search for posts in FR is to use google. I’ve searched for a thread that I KNOW is there but cannot find it in the FR search. Then I go to Google and it’s the first hit.
And yet none of them come from The National, and not one of them was posted here.
And for a reason.
The general forum has been swimming in threads about the same subject all week. Of course, if one pays no attention to the general forum and one doesn't search, one could miss all that.
"The National" (??) even quotes the The Mail on Sunday which originally broke the story two days earlier, so it's not a primary source. Or is there something unique about the piece in "the National" which sets it apart from the other threads?
Still, being #6 aint too bad.
I beg to differ. Here in Poland religion is treated quite seriously. Also, even in highly secular countries like the UK and Germany and France, there are pockets of religiousness left — pitiful pockets, but pockets nonetheless.
you notice that in almost every case sited of conversion alcohol has something to do with it?
wondering if it isnt some kind of attempted “cure” for a drinking problem by women.
There was no "holy experience". Her liberal ideology already predetermined her to become a muslim.
I used to be in a prison ministry band. One of the oddities I discovered was the massive conversion rate of black prisoners to Islam. As I informed myself I discovered the catalyst seemed to fall into a couple of general categories;
1. Islam utterly controls your life. Virtually every question along the lines of “what do I do in this situation” has an answer in islam. It totally controls your life and gives a person who cannot control their life very well a secure anchor with tight boundaries.
2. If you simply follow those rules, then anything bad that happens to you is somebody else’s fault.
In the second one is why islam is such a stain on the world. If you point your head in the right direction when you pray, pray when you are supposed to, enter a room with the correct foot first, wipe your butt with the correct hand, then if your life is a sh!!hole, it is because of the evil joos, or the evil americans, or the evil Christians, etc. Or, in the case of the black muslims in prison, it is the evil white man and all those evil mexicans and asians, etc.
I used to be in a prison ministry band. One of the oddities I discovered was the massive conversion rate of black prisoners to Islam. As I informed myself I discovered the catalyst seemed to fall into a couple of general categories;
1. Islam utterly controls your life. Virtually every question along the lines of “what do I do in this situation” has an answer in islam. It totally controls your life and gives a person who cannot control their life very well a secure anchor with tight boundaries.
2. If you simply follow those rules, then anything bad that happens to you is somebody else’s fault.
In the second one is why islam is such a stain on the world. If you point your head in the right direction when you pray, pray when you are supposed to, enter a room with the correct foot first, wipe your butt with the correct hand, then if your life is a sh!!hole, it is because of the evil joos, or the evil americans, or the evil Christians, etc. Or, in the case of the black muslims in prison, it is the evil white man and all those evil Mexicans and Asians, etc.
To be fair here, I don’t think people are thinking this through. In England, and maybe a slightly lesser degree the U.S., it’s pounded into people’s heads how bad Christianity is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.