List of Converts to Islam

Suff wrote: »

Politics
Aminah Assilmi - Activist
Mohammed Knut Bernström - Swedish diplomat
Khaled Edward Blair - English barrister, married to Princess Badiya of Jordan
Jean-Bédel Bokassa - Central African, from Catholicism, President and Emperor of the Central African Republic
Omar Bongo - Gabonese, President of Gabon
Amir Butler
Keith Ellison - American, from Catholicism, Representative from Minnesota's 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to Congress
Murad Wilfred Hofmann - from Catholic Christianity, NATO official
Ibrahim Hooper (Douglas Hooper) - Islamic activist
Iyasu V - Ethiopian, former Emperor of Ethiopia
Mathieu Kérékou - Beninese, from Christianity, President of Benin, later reverted to Christianity
Johann von Leers - advisor to Muhammad Naguib known for his anti-Semitic polemics.[1] [2][3]
David Myatt - from Paganism, Neo-Nazi-activist [6]
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X, Malcolm Little) - American, from Christianity to NOI to mainstream Islam, African-American civil rights leader.
Betty Shabazz - Civil Rights Activist, wife of Malcolm X
Apisai Tora - Fijian politician
David Musa Pidcock - Founder of Islamic Party of Britain
Leopold Weiss (Muhammad Asad) - Viennese Jew who became Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations

Sports
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) - American, from Christianity, retired basketball player & the NBA's all-time leading scorer
Tariq Abdul-Wahad Originally from France, former basketball player for the Mavericks and Kings
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Chris Jackson) - American, from Christianity, retired basketball player
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), American, from Christianity to NOI to Sunni Islam to Sufism [7], SI's Sportsman of the Century
Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar (Sharmon Shah) - American, from Christianity, former NFL football player
Nicolas Anelka - French football player
Celestino Caballero
Chris Eubank - British boxer
Mustafa Hamsho - boxer
Bernard Hopkins - boxer
Bruno Metsu - French coach of the Senegal team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup
Matthew Saad Muhammad - from Catholicism, former boxer
Anthony Mundine - Australian, from Christianity, boxer and former rugby player
Dwight Muhammad Qawi - boxer
Ahmad Rashad (Bobby Moore) - American, former NFL football player
Saleem Rasheed - American footballer
Franck Ribery - French football player, currently plays for Marseille
Ahmed Santos - American publicist & former boxer
Philippe Troussier - French, former football player & trainer of a Japanese football team
Mike Tyson American, former heavyweight boxing champion of the world
Danny Williams - British boxer
Mohammad Yousuf (Yousuf Youhana) - Pakistani, from Christianity, cricket player

Religious figures
Jacob Querido - from Judaism, successor to Shabbetai Tzvi
Shabbetai Tzvi - from Judaism under threat of execution, claimed to be messiah

Islamic Scholars
Umar Faruq Abd-Allah
Muhammed al-Ahari
Lois Lamya al-Faruqi - Scholar and expert in Islamic art
Hamid Algar - British professor at the University of California, Berkeley, expert in the Ja'fari school of thought & Iranian civilization
Aminah Assilmi - from Southern Baptist Christianity, scholar & director of the International Union of Muslim Women
Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker - professor of Urdu, former chair of the University of Minnesota's Department of South Asian studies and creator of the Tékumel fantasy world.
Kevin Barrett - lecturer, conspiracy theorist
Abu Yahya (Jerald F. Dirks) - from Christianity, Hollis
Yusuf Estes - from Christianity, former pastor & prison chaplain
Shah Shahidullah Faridi - English Sufi scholar
Nuh Ha Mim Keller - from Catholicism to agnosticism to Sufism, Islamic scholar
Sherman Jackson - Islamic scholar & Academic, Near East Studies & Law School at the University of Michigan
Martin Lings - from Protestantism to Sufism
Ingrid Mattson - Canadian scholar and current president of the Islamic Society of North America (2006)
Abdul-Ahad Omar (Gary Miller) - from Christianity, former priest & missionary administration of the Committee on Relations with Public Associations
Thomas McElwain - (disputed) from Baptist Christianity, former minister, a Professor of History & Comparative religion. NOTE: He still consiters himself a baptist
Bilal Philips - from Christianity, Islamic scholar & author
Muhammad Pickthall (Marmaduke Pickthall) - from Christianity, a translator of the Qur'an
Zaid Shakir - Islamic scholar
Timothy J. Winter - lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge
Khalid Yasin - American, from Christianity, Executive Director of the Islamic Teaching Institute (ITI)
Hamza Yusuf - from Orthodox Christianity - Islamic scholar

Philosophy
Titus Burckhardt - German Swiss philosopher, historian & mystic
Roger Garaudy - French philosopher and writer, Holocaust denier
Sheikh 'Abd al-Wahid Yahya (René Guénon) - French, from Catholicism to Sufism, philosopher

Media, Arts and Entertainment
Sumita Devi - (Nilufar Begum) Bangladeshi Actress from Hinduism
Thomas J. Abercrombie - Photographer
Ivan Aguéli - Artist
Ali Bey al-Abbasi - writer, explorer (disputed)
Muhammed al-Ahari - American, from Christianity, essayist
Lewis Arquette -
Muhammad Asad - from Judaism, writer
Maurice Béjart - choreographer
Robert "Kool" Bell - Musician
Yahya Birt - Journalist and son of former BBC Director General John Birt
Art Blakey - Musician
Amir Butler - Australian, a Salafi author
David Chappelle - comedian & television star
Ian Dallas - writer
Isabelle Eberhardt - from Lutheran Christianity, 19th century explorer & writer
Everlast - American, singer/songwriter
Alys Faiz - Poet
Diana Haddad - Lebanese singer from Christianity
Knud Holmboe - 20th century Danish journalist & explorer
Abdullah Ibrahim (A. J. Brand) - South African pianist & composer
Jermaine Jackson (Muhammad Abdul Aziz) - former member of The Jackson 5 and brother of popstars Michael and Janet Jackson
Michael Jackson - American Singer/Entertainer
Maryam Jameelah - from Reform Judaism, essayist, poet, journalist & author
Sarah Joseph - Commentator on women's issues and editor of emel magazine
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood - British, from Protestant Christianity, author
Daniel Moore - from Christianity, poet
Preacher Moss - American comedian and comedy writer
Mos Def - American rapper & actor
Lev Nussimbaum - from Judaism, writer
Harry St. John Philby - from Anglicanism, Arabist, explorer, writer & British colonial office intelligence operative
Prince Buster - Musician
William Abdullah Quilliam - from Christianity, poet, solicitor, ambassador & journalist
A. R. Rahman ( A.S. Dileep Kumar) - Indian, from Hinduism, music film composer and director
Yvonne Ridley - British journalist, converted from Anglicanism after being kidnapped by the Taliban.[4]
scarface - rapper, producer, from Christianity
Stephen Schwartz - Jewish born, Protestant mother, Sufi neoconservative journalist
Omar Sharif - Egyptian actor
Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) - British, from Greek Orthodox Christianity, musician & singer
Kamala Suraiya - Indian, from Hinduism, writer
Danny Thompson - Musician
Richard Thompson - Musician
Alexander Russell Webb - American, from Presbyterian Christianity, 19th Century U.S. journalist
Michael Wolfe - writer & documentarist
Dawud Wharnsby Ali - Canadian Singer/poet, from Christianity
Idris Tawfiq - British writer, who lives and works in Egypt, was a former Catholic priest.

Lawyers
Brandon Mayfield - U.S. attorney-at-law with a practice in Washington County, Oregon

Society
Jemima Goldsmith - British, from Judaism, socialite & ex-wife of Imran Khan
Queen Noor of Jordan
Ayesha Sultana (Sharmila Tagore) - Bangladeshi-Indian, from Hinduism, Bollywood actress, married Mansur Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi
Sultaana Freeman

Science
Rashid al-Din - Persian physician
Jeffrey Lang - American, Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Kansas
Susanne Osthoff - German archaeologist & former hostage in Iraq

Military Officers
Mehemet Ali - German-born Ottoman general
Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley - British soldier
Józef Bem - Polish-Hungarian general
Claude Alexandre de Bonneval - French-born Austrian general
Radu cel Frumos - Wallachian ruler
Jacques-Francois Menou - French general,
Omer Pasha - From Serbian Orthodoxy, Bosnian general
Suleiman Pasha - French-born
Poncke Princen - Dutch soldier
Rudolf Carl von Slatin - Austrian lieutenant and British colonial administrator (conversion nominal)

Secret Service
Alexander Litvinenko, lieutenant-colonel in the KGB (Russia's security service)

Militants
Aukai Collins - Hawaiian American, fought in Chechnya, paid FBI informant, author of an autobiographical book [8]
Bob Denard - French mercenary
The Portland Seven - Jeffrey Leon Battle, Patrice Lumumba Ford and October Lewis