Hugin wrote:
You're not very confident in your culture if you go nuts because someone draws an image of a long-dead guy.

Who may not even have existed.
Btw: are Muslims allowed to draw Allah? Could be even more of a problem, because Allah certainly probably (doesn't sound the same though, does it?) never existed.
Failing that, what about drawing that Black Stone that they seem to... er... idolise?

“I was always passionate about women’s rights; there was no way I would have entered a religion that sought to degrade me. So when I came across a book by a Moroccan feminist, it unravelled all my negative opinions: Islam didn’t oppress women; people did.

Many are opressed thanks to Islam, males and females.

I loved its explanations of the natural world

So do I but for their comedy value.

and discovered that 1,500 years ago,Islam gave women rights that they didn’t have here in the West until relatively recently.

Yes indeed, like, huh, no never mind.

All these conversions are more about turning your life around more than finding God. All but the last girl focused on some aspect of the drinking/wild-child/rat-race aspect of their life before their conversion.

Especially the clubbing university student. It drives me crazy that some people have a binary idea of life-- you're a clubbing, drinking, mini-skirt wearing university student or you're a religious person. When they meet me, people are often surprised that I am as atheist as I am because I don't drink very much, I don't go clubbing (except for baby seals, yum!) and I don't swear in front of other people-- because I work with children and I can't turn it off easily, not because I think adult swearing is evil.

Before I converted, I conducted an experiment. I covered up in a long gypsy skirt and headscarf and went out. But I didn’t feel frumpy; I felt beautiful. I realised, I’m not a sexual commodity for men to lust after; I want to be judged for what I contribute mentally.

This is tragic. As if discovering Islam was the first time this woman had ever realised that you didn't have to drink yourself into the ground and wear tiny skirts to be a person. This kind of discussion should be common currency in elementary schools and out of school groups, that's all I can say. We should be putting all kinds of young women in front of girls-- filling their heads with enough images of examples of female success and femininity to get rid of the Miley Cyrus-Katy Perry image these girls apparently have. Most of those should be secular images.

We don't need religious to be judged for our intellectual contributions, guys.