This study deals with stages in the process of conversion to Islam. However, unlike the extensive research on pre-conversion stages, this contribution looks at post-conversion development. The initial stage after conversion brings with it a zealotry in which converts tend to become 'more royal than the king'. The second stage tends to be a period of disappointment with the new peer-group. The third stage is one of acceptance, when converts accept that Muslims are 'ordinary' human beings with shortcomings rather than saints who manage to totally live up to the 'ideal' of Islam. The fourth stage is one of secularization, when converts tend to adopt a private religious attitude to the religion.This stage is to a great extent linked to the post-9/11 situation, in which many Muslims feels targeted as potentially terrorists, but it also reflects the extent to which converts integrate into Muslim communities. Some converts continue to practise religious precepts in this fourth stage, while others leave their religious practice and become non-practising Muslims.The stages in the conversion process are also discussed in terms of Susman's modal types of 'character' versus 'personality'. Converts tend to adopt the modal type of 'character' as they embrace Islam. In the fourth stage, however, converts tend to return This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2012) p. 347-362, Version of record first published: 22 June 2012 Taylor & Francis©, available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2012.676782 (Access to the published version may require subscription) 2 fully to the modal type of 'personality', the modal type into which most of them were socialized.

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This study deals with the Muslim Brotherhood's reception of CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminations against Women) in Jordan. In view of the Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) and interviews with several political actors in Jordanian society it is possible to evaluate Islamist ideas on women's rights. The main aim is to investigate whether Jordanian Islamists are promoters of or obstacles to female empowerment and gender equality. By analyzing various political stands it became apparent that Islamists, on the one hand, reject CEDAW, gender empowerment, and gender equality, and on the other promote issues which in the long run may empower women in Jordanian society. There is thus an unintentional trend towards female empowerment in the organization of the Muslim Brotherhood despite its opposition to such female politics.

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