From María to Maryam: 29-year-old Spaniard Embraces Islam
"They said their hearts skipped a beat because I had never told them to their faces that I had embraced Islam,’” she explains just days after her conversion, according to El Pais.
Maryam grew up in a non-practicing Christian home in Fuenlabrada, a working-class suburb of Madrid. She was christened Maria and celebrated her first communion but says she doesn't remember ever going to mass.
Now, at the age of 29, she has converted to Islam, a process she says took place over the last decade, beginning when she was 19 and a Moroccan-born man gave her a book that began this gradual process of change. "It wasn't the Quran. It was simply called Islam and it was on sale at the book fair. It awoke my curiosity but it didn't make me believe immediately,” she recalls.
She began to look deeper into Islam, reading biographies of its prophets watching documentaries and finally reading the Quran itself.
"I had a very normal childhood and adolescence. When I was 17 or 18, I spent all day out with my friends,” she says, automatically touching a finger to her lip where the scar from a piercing is still visible.
As her knowledge of Islam grew, she started to change her lifestyle. She never hid anything from her parents, but neither did she explain what was going on. She wanted them to find out in as "natural” a way as possible so that it wouldn’t come as a blow.
She started to drop small hints – "messages”, she calls them. "I left books on Islam around. They noticed that I was changing and that I spent more time at home and didn't go to the swimming pool as much as before,” she says.
When Maryam speaks about her parents, a barrier goes up. She wants to protect them because she knows they are still scared. "It's not to do with their reaction because we live together and they can see that it's been good for me; that I don't drink, or smoke or take drugs. They can see that I go to work and back and lead a healthy, peaceful life. But I don't want to put any pressure on them or make them feel bad in any way because it's a sensitive issue,” she says.
Maryam’s biggest fear is fear itself; the fear that she might stir in those outside her family. "I know how these things work and what society is like,” she says. "I know that the day I go out with my parents wearing the hijab and a friend sees us, it won’t be easy. When people see a convert, they think, ‘where have their parents failed?’ That's what I want to spare them. I don't want them to suffer.”
Because of this, Maryam is managing her conversion on two levels, combining her own culture with her adopted faith. She’s in no hurry. For example, she doesn't cover her head when she goes out with her family. "They have seen the scarves and the abayas [long over garments], but they have never seen me dressed like that,” she explains. "Allah wiling, I’m going to be around for a while, so it's better to go slowly.”
She knows she has a conversation pending with her parents, but she also feels supported and respected. "My mother has been taking the pork out of my food for a while. When we painted the house and I lost my Quran, everyone helped to look for it. I haven't said openly that I am Muslim, but I haven't really needed to,” she says. "I'm sure they have a load of doubts and questions it hasn’t been the right time to broach the subject.”
