 Six different American converts to Islam, all of them women, share their life stories and their journeys to Islam. Each story is told in depth, and the life of each woman is recounted in detail for her pre-Islamic life, her journey to Islam, and her life after accepting Islam. The depth of information presented allows non-Muslim women to identify easily with one or another of these converts, thus rendering Islam less threatening to the non-Muslim American. As noted by Debra Dirks on the back cover: “What the authors…share with other modern women in America is immense and cannot be easily overstated…However, despite all the things that we share with our fellow Americans who are non-Muslims, what we have come to share with our worldwide sisters-in-Islam is especially sweet and appealing. While each of us remains an American, we are Americans who have joined a very special and caring sisterhood that transcends biological inheritance, personal genetics, ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status. We have come to understand and to love the fact that what is important is individual righteousness, not superfluous considerations of language, skin color, ethnicity, etc.”
Islam Our Choice—Portraits of Modern American Muslim Women Debra L. Dirks and Stephanie Parlove, eds., Amana Publications, 2003, 298 pages. 15.00
| 
