‘Why are Ethnic Russians Converting to Islam?’

The conversion of historically Orthodox Christian ethnic Russians to Islam is one of the most politically sensitive issues in the Russian Federation, with journalists and commentators frequently offering wildly different numbers and explanations for a trend many find a matter of deep concern.

Now, Andrey Ignatyev, a specialist on the sociology of religion at the Russian State Humanitarian University, seeks to answer the question “why do ethnic Russians convert to Islam?” without the exaggerations and apocalyptic language in which such religious shifts are usually cast (www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=monitor&id=13815).

In a heavily footnoted article posted on the Portal-Credo.ru site yesterday, Ignatyev argues that most earlier discussions of this issue have failed because they have offered a single explanation of what is an enormously complicated social phenomenon. In fact, people have extraordinarily varied reasons for converting. For his part, Ignatyev offers four.

First, the Moscow sociologist says, the largest number of converts are those who convert because of marriage, a group which includes both those who accept Islam before they marry and those who become Muslims once they enter into a marriage with one of the faithful. “As a rule,” these are women, and the groom’s parents make conversion a precondition of marriage.

Although such women elicit “particular hatred from Islamophobes like the members of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration,” Ignatyev says, most of them know “very little” about their new faith and seldom show up in any mosque after their formal conversation, although a few of them do over time become active Muslims.

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12020&Itemid=65

You don't need to have a priest intercede for you with God. Most Muslims I know in this part of rural US pray in their homes. There is no mosque around where I live; even when I lived in an area where there was a mosque there was never any pressure to attend.

I've heard from friends that there is a spiritual hunger in the former Soviet Union. Could be that for some this is the reason for conversion, especially to Sufi orders.