In search of another identity: Female Muslim—Christian conversions in the mediterranean world

The intimate and the stranger: Approaching the “Muslim question” through the eyes of female converts to Islam

“…Literature also shows that women’s attraction to Islam is not alien to the highly gendered nature of Muslim lifestyle as well as to its conservative family model (Ammar et al., 2004; Martin, 1995; Vanzan, 1996). For women, embracing Islam or “reverting” to Islam may actually appear as a strategy of resistance to social changes or local cultural dynamics (Duncan, 2003; Searing, 2003).…”

‘Pleading for Help’: Gender Relations and Cross‐Cultural Logic in the Early Modern Mediterranean

“…12 Along similar lines, in Venice, Christian women understood that converting to Islam did not give them the hope of gaining a title or achieving power, but rather provided them with an opportunity to find an alternative to a depressing life and gave them the chance to integrate themselves in a new place. 13 While we do not have empirical data on the types of Muslim women who converted to Christianity in Venice, evidence indicates that the majority of female Muslim converts who submitted petitions to the sultan in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were either widows or single. 14 While Lucia was technically married, she had been separated from her family, and thus her situation put her in the same demographic category as the majority of women who approached the Ottoman government.…”