When Christian Packer - the British TV presenter - decided to convert to Islam, she faced an avalanche of blame, accusations and criticisms, including the oppression of women, honor crimes and forced marriage.

Criticism interpreted by Christian, who for the first time felt spiritual fulfillment, as cultural deviations, not Islamic, saying, "I always try to explain to people that I converted to the belief of Islam, and not to any other culture. Islam is about dignity, self-respect and women above all."

Christian, who converted to Islam in 1995, is one of the thousands of Westerners who convert to Islam every year in Europe and America, and it is remarkable that most of them are women.

Religion growing in America and Britain

According to Pew research surveys, Islam is one of the most growing religions in America, and in recent years the number of Americans who convert to Islam has reached about 100,000 annually.

According to a study by Lynchburg University in Virginia, USA, the percentage of American women who have converted to Islam compared to males is 4 to one.

In Britain, too, the number of converts to Islam increases annually to more than 5,000 Britons, 75% of whom are women, according to the British Independent newspaper.

What did they find in Islam?

Respect for women is what Christian found in the Islamic faith, and her motivation was to read and research until full faith, and to face fame and spotlight.

Christian, who has become the focus of satisfaction of God in her life, confirms that she found Islam to elevate the value and dignity of women, even Muslim mothers are subject to pride that she has never seen before.

She made a great distinction between the sound doctrine and the whims of its interpreters, and she wanted to end her life by marrying a Muslim man who would help her to complete what she chose of her own free will, as she says to the Guardian newspaper.

Christian searched the Internet for the man she wanted, and there she met and liked a Muslim TV producer from Morocco who lives in the United States.

It seemed to her that they had a lot in common, and they got married in 2006, but his interpretation of Islam became a way to control her.

"He was expected to quit my job, and not be able to speak to my male colleagues," she says.

Despite her recent reign to Islam, she had a maturity that made her realize that much of what he was asking of her was not Islamic but cultural.

She consistently adds, "God willing, my future husband will be more confident and focused on the internal values ​​of Islam, instead of external restrictions. I do not regret anything. My life now has meaning and the emptiness that I feel is full of God, and this is priceless."

Women and brown skin

Racial and sexual equality was the main concern of "Unique Safire", a twenty-year-old girl of Jamaican descent who lives in America.

"A dark-skinned woman, as if carrying a burden over her shoulders, has always felt inferior in societies that enhance the value of men and raise the status of white-skinned people."

She is from a Mormon Christian family, at the age of 11 she converted to Islam and that was when she discovered spiritual happiness, according to her saying.

Unic Safire revealed to National Radio International (Pri) that since her move to America, she felt that her new society did not embrace brown-skinned people well, so she returned to Islam and found it more important in her life than before, especially with its focus on equality between race and gender.

And she continued, "There was a yearning to return to Islam, and I made a conscious decision that this is the religion that I want to practice as a woman, a religion that is equal between women and men and is equal between all races."

Love and morals

Islamic moral values ​​are what twenty British "Andrea Chishti" was looking for at the time.

In her adolescence, she wore modest clothes and did not drink alcohol, but Islam strengthened her morals and laid a good foundation for her family life, as she tells the Guardian newspaper.

She added that Islam also gave her love and made her have the power to make decisions, because she grew up in a house in which religion did not play a prominent role, so her father is an atheist, but her mother and teacher left her convinced that spirituality is important.

She met a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin at the university in 1991, and says, "My interest in Islam was a coexistence between love and ideas, and with it my interest in Islam and its moral values ​​grew greatly, so I chose to embrace it."

It cures people

Even Islamic eating habits inspired Monica Hulk, who was suffering from an eating disorder.

In her early twenties, Monica, a British-born and of Polish origin, suffered from depression and bulimia.

During her intense search for a treatment that would help her overcome her psychological and physical problems, she explored various fields of psychology, psychotherapy, Buddhism, astrology, yoga and meditation in an attempt to find answers that might help her treat her depression, and she did not realize that this would lead her to convert to Islam.

On her research trip, she attended Sufi sessions, met Muslims who offered her food and was impressed with their healthy lifestyle and eating habits, as she told Newsweek, saying that they “do not overeat and cook healthy food. In addition to fasting during Ramadan. "

Her lifestyle was exciting for her, and she began to do more research on Islam, confirming, "I was shocked to see how many people, including myself, have misunderstood this religion."

Monica found her goal in the Islamic religion, which she embraced after 3 years of research and reading, through which she learned a lot about human health and the relationship of food habits with that, and she overcame the eating disorder that accompanied it for many years.

Today, after 5 years of embracing Islam, she indicates the correctness of her decision, and her discovery that Islam was the shortest path to spiritual and physical healing, saying that "there are many references to healing foods in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and that one of the most appreciated substances is honey that contains healing for all humanity." .