True Tales from the Annals of Adult-Onset Islam

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Arnoud van Doorn

Adult-onset Islam claims new victims frequently. Their stories are worth examining.

1. Heidi Hepworth

Heidi Hepworth, a 45-year-old British mother-of-nine, met a Gambian man, Mamadou’ Salieu’ Jallow,  32, online, and in November 2018 announced to the world — which saw fit to report it — that she had converted to Islam in order to marry her African lover, and was planning her dream wedding in a mosque in the Gambia. How long has she stayed there so far? She’s been there four times. But how long each time?

Heidi Hepworth told the Sun that the majority Muslim nation is “a happier and more caring place than Britain” as she prepares to wed her new beau.

If Heidi Hepworth thinks she was required to convert to Islam to marry “her African lover,” she has misunderstood — it is only the non-Muslim husbands of Muslim wives who are required to convert. But perhaps her future husband made her conversion a condition of their marriage. Or perhaps even without his asking, she just wanted to go that extra mile for him. There has been no news of Heidi since her big announcement, but let’s be sure to follow her continuing saga — surely she has changed her name to Noor or Medina or Asma when she went to live in the Gambia. How long did she stay there before she made her big decision? A week? Two weeks? What did she really know of the country? On what basis did she conclude that Gambia was a “happier and more caring place than Britain”? How likely is it that her husband has “beaten” her, as Qur’an 4:34 says he has a right to do, if she has been in any way disobedient, failed to cook and clean and follow her husband’s orders, as a good Muslim wife should? And has her true love taken other wives, as Islam allows, which Heidi Hepworth likely didn’t bargain for? Polygamy is widespread in Gambia. Did she know that? Did Mamadou perhaps already have another wife, or even several, of whom Heidi was blissfully unaware when she announced her impending marriage? And has she been required to wear a garment called the grandmuba, a cloth that covers a woman down to her feet and covers her arms all the way to her wrists? Perhaps that was fun at first — so exotic! — but for how long will it be before the novelty palls for dozy bint Heidi Hepworth? Her 32-year-old Gambian husband was no doubt counting on her to bring him a fat dowry or mahr, given that she’s British, and therefore, in Gambian eyes, she must be well off. Mamadou may have been in for a big disappointment.

One hopes that the press will once again report on the strange saga of Heidi Hepworth and her looking for love in all the wrong places. Her ex-husband of 23 years, with whom she had nine children, said that she had been “brainwashed” and called her “a buffoon.” He was too kind.

2. Arthur Wagner

Mr. Arthur Wagner is a German political figure of Russian heritage who began his public life as a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. In a video published in 2017, he is shown saying that although he had once been an admirer of Mrs Merkel, her decision to open the door to hundreds of thousands of migrants during the 2015-16 crisis had proved he had been  “totally wrong” to support her.

So he joined the Alternativ fur Deutschland, AfV, the party which works to end Muslim immigration. Wagner became a top-tier member in a regional branch of that party, and he worried aloud that because of Merkel’s “open-door policy,” Germany would “mutate into another country.”

But then Wagner — who had been a devout Protestant — announced he had converted to Islam. What’s more, he admitted that he had contemplated converting to Islam as far back as 2015. It was in that year that he visited Ufa, a city in Russia that had a large population of Muslim Tartars. But what seems to have pushed him finally to convert to Islam was the fact that Protestant pastors had taken part in a gay rights parade in Berlin. “With children there! That’s just not right,” he said. One may well wonder why he did not choose to embrace another of the Protestant sects, as not all approve of same-sex marriage. Or why did he not look into the Catholic Church, which remains officially opposed to  homosexual marriage? Perhaps he wanted to convert to Islam precisely because it is so homophobic, with homosexuals even subject to the death penalty, usually by hanging or being thrown off a building, in a half-dozen Muslim countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia. To go from deploring a few Protestant pastors taking part in a parade in favor of homosexual marriage, to converting to Islam, a faith that harshly punishes, even mandates the killing of, homosexuals, is quite a leap.

Would it be fair to say that such an extreme reaction suggests there is something slightly off about the way Arthur Wagner thinks? He complains about the “moral decline” of the Protestant church, which is why he felt compelled to convert to Islam. What does he think of the moral standards of Islam, a faith that in the Qur’an commands Believers  to wage violent Jihad against Infidels, “smiting at their necks”? What does he make of the moral standards of Muslims, who regard Muhammad as “the Perfect Man” and “Model of Conduct,” even though he ordered the torture  of Kinana of Khaybar in order to find out where treasure was hidden, and then had Kinana killed; who was gratified to hear of the murders of three people who had mocked him — Asma bint Marwan, Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf, and Abu ‘Afak; who took part in the killing of 600-900 bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza; who consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was nine years old? What does Arthur Wagner make of the moral standards of Islam, when Muhammad said that  “war is deceit” and proclaimed “I have been made victorious through terror”? Did Arthur Wagner convert without bothering to study the contents of the Qur’an and Hadith? Or was he carefully directed away from certain passages by Muslims guiding him in his conversion?  Or did he know all these violent passages in the Qur’an, and all of the disturbing details of Muhammad’s life in the Hadith, but didn’t care? No, there has been no “moral decline” in Islam, that’s for sure. Its peculiar “morality” has not changed, up or down, in 1,400 years.

“One of the reasons (for the conversion) is tied to changes that have taken place in the church, which no longer reflects my values.” Also sprach Arthur Wagner. So Islam now reflects his values? Does he now believe in such values as the requirement to wage Jihad until Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere? Does he now think Muslims are the “best of peoples” (3:110) and non-Muslims “the most vile of creatures” (98:6)?  Do those now reflect his values? Tell us, Arthur. Help us to understand.

Wagner has been taped discussing his conversion on The Deen Show, with Eddie Redzovic, who is both a loud propagandist for Islam and, fittingly, is also the owner of a martial arts business, teaching “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.” Their exchange about Islam is worth a view. The one Qur’anic text cited in the video with Wagner and Redzovic in defense of the claim that Islam is fundamentally peaceful is — as you have no doubt guessed — the carefully abridged version of Surah 5:32, which is quoted as saying that “Whoever kills an innocent person it is as if he has killed all of humanity…” Left out, of course, are the exceptions in the full text that allow for killing: “if any one slew a person — unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land — it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” It’s anyone’s guess as to what Arthur Wagner, and the Jiu-jitsu enthusiast for Islam Eddie Redzovic, think 5:32-5:33 means.

It will be fascinating to see if Arthur Wagner, who strikes me not as sinister but as a confused simpleton, makes any further adjustments to his view of the faith once he really begins — if he ever allows himself the mental freedom — to comprehend Islam. His spiritual journey promises to be a bumpy ride. Hold onto your seats.

3. Arnoud van Doorn

Arnoud van Doorn, when still  a member of Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), made an anti-Islam movie, Fitna, for which he has been apologizing to Muslims ever since. The movie argued that Islam is prone to violence and bent on world domination. In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, van Doorn later said: “I have taken a solemn pledge to work day and night in the service of Islam to atone for my previous sins. I hope that Allah will accept my repentance and forgive me.”

Van Doorn was asked to leave the Freedom Party in 2011 — the reason is unclear — and several months later, in 2012, he converted to Islam. Take that, Geert Wilders. Soon after he made hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca Muslims are obliged to make at least once in their lifetimes.

Van Doorn is now the President of the European Da’wa Foundation. He has thus become not just a Muslim, but one whose life is entirely committed to promoting the faith. He receives a salary for this; donations come from Muslims around the world enchanted with his personal tale of conversion. At the same time, he is a salaried lawmaker serving on he Hague’s City Council for the Islamist Party for Unity.

Among the aspects of Islam that have apparently appealed to Arnoud van Doorn is its hostility to Jews. He has been accused of antisemitic remarks, including one about a Jewish Canadian who paid a ransom to free Yazidi and Christian hostages, and about whom van Doorn tweeted “To sell at a profit?” Called out on it, van Doorn claimed he had only been joking. Van Doorn has also described the failed coup in Turkey as the work of “Zionists.” Even Erdogan has not gone that far. On May 4, 2018, National Memorial Day in the Netherlands, when the more than 100,000 Dutch Jews murdered in the Holocaust were remembered, van Doorn said that Palestinians were equal to the victims of the Holocaust. He has also tweeted “May Allah exterminate the Zionists.” That was no joke. He has also tweeted that a day of fasting on Yom Kippur will not suffice to atone for Israel’s sins: “Israel celebrates Yom Kippur tomorrow. I’d make it a month. One day to reflect on all its errors and regret them is not enough.”

Arnoud van Doorn has sometimes been in trouble with the law. In February 2014, van Doorn was sentenced to pay a fine for leaking secret documents to the press, for possession of an illegal flare gun, and for selling soft drugs to minors. Van Doorn claimed to have sold the soft drugs in order to catch a drug dealer. The judge called his explanation “very implausible.”

Arnoud van Doorn is not a simpleton, like Arthur Wagner. He’s dangerously  smooth.. He’s created for Muslim buyers a product — Arnoud van Doorn  as a Revert to Islam — and sells it over and over again to appreciative audiences. They can’t get enough of it. A sinister figure, withal, is this shape-shifter, who has found his market niche, and is exploiting it to the fullest, for the cause that truly consumes him — the care and feeding of Arnoud van Doorn.

4. Maxence Buttey

Maxence Buttey, at the age of 22, was a member of Marine Le Pen’s anti-Islam Front National. That year,  2014, he announced his conversion to Islam and sent a video to party leaders praising the “visionary” qualities of the Qur’an and urging members of the FN to convert as well. He said he had decided to convert after lengthy discussions with the local imam, whom he met while campaigning for election earlier that year. Mr. Buttey, a councillor in the eastern Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Grand, said the Front National and Islam had much in common: “Both are demonised and very far from the image portrayed in the media,” he told Le Parisien newspaper. “Like Islam, the FN defends the weakest. The party denounces exorbitant interest rates charged on the debt of our country, and Islam is against the practice of usury.”

I wonder if this comment about usury just might have a subtext, carefully unstated, of antisemitism. For Maxence Buttey has also said that he found it difficult to believe the “official” version of the September 11 attacks. The main conspiracy-theory “unofficial” version just happens to put the blame for the attack on “the Jews,” and claims that no Jews working in the Twin Towers showed up for work that day. Buttey has also tried to cast doubt on what he calls the “Merah affair” in the south of France in 2012, an attack by a Muslim terrorist, Mohammed Merah, whose intended victims were Jews. Merah killed a rabbi and three small children, two of them rabbis, at a Jewish school in Toulouse. Is that why Buttey chose to “cast doubt” on that particular attack?

And one more detail: a French interviewer reported that Buttey was eager to read a book, The True Face of Manuel Valls, by the far-right (the real far-right) Emmanuel Ratier, accusing Manuel Valls of being far too pro-Israel. That theme seemed to excite Buttey.

Maxence Buttey wants us to know that he’s a nice kind of Muslim. The proof: “I am against the niqab [full-face veil],” he said. And he added that Islam did not call for believers “to cut off heads, as the Islamic State group does.” Whew. That’s a relief. Because otherwise, Mr. Buttey might be forced to start cutting off heads and clearly, as a “moderate,” he would prefer not to have to do that.

He notes that “I was Catholic, but when I reread the Bible I noticed all its inconsistencies. When I read the Koran thoroughly, I understood that this religion is more open.” It’s hard to know what “open” means here. Does it mean  that “it is less inconsistent than the Bible”? Does it mean “I haven’t a clue as to what to say, since I know the Qur’an is full of contradictions, but ‘open’ has a nice moderate tolerant ring to it”? Anyone who thinks the Qur’an is not full of inconsistencies needs, of course, to have his head examined. Muslims themselves recognized that  there are so many contradictions in the Qur’an that they had to come up with the interpretative doctrine of naskh, or abrogation. Does Maxence Buttey know that?

After Maxence Buttey was finally dismissed by the FN, its regional director Jordan Bardella descried Buttey as an “unstable boy, timid and with a limited ability to work in groups.”

In due course we’ll find out if Maxence Buttey turns into a full-fledged denouncer of Jews (that’s my hunch), or becomes even more confused about Islam than he already is, or simply sinks submissively into his chosen role of remaining a Muslim because he has found out — tiens! — that once you’re in, you can’t get out.

5. Shuhada Sadaqat

Sinead O’Connor some time ago announced to the world that she had converted to Islam, that she was no longer Sinead O’Connor, as she had been for roughly the first 50 years of her life, nor Sinead Davitt, nor soon after that, Magda Davitt (that Davitt period  of her existence lasted about a year), nor was she any longer Shuhada Davitt, whom she had been for about a month. No, she now was, and intended to remain, Shuhada Sadaqat.

Soon after announcing her conversion, she added, in that subliterate way that she thinks contributes to her rough charm, that “I never wanna spend time with white people” again. And who are these “white people”? They are those, she explained,  who are also called “non-Muslims.” So she never gonna wanna spend time ever again, see, with those “white people” (a.k.a. “non-Muslims”) whom she calls “disgusting.”

Where does this “disgust” with all non-Muslims (a.k.a. “white people”) come from? Most likely from the Qur’an. She learned that Muslims are “the best of peoples” (3:110). Her new Muslim friends, the ones who spotted her as a likely prospect, given her mental state, and helped convert her, no doubt would want her to know that verse. That’s got to have made her feel good. What’s more, they likely also taught her that all non-Muslims are “the most vile of creatures” (98:6). It’s in the Qur’an. That sentiment really appealed to her. It explained her own lifelong problems, such as her mother (“disgusting”), and so many other people, ex-husbands, ex-lovers, ex-collaborators — every man-jack of whom were, or are, non-Muslims and “white” (including Prince?) and therefore “disgusting.”

But it wasn’t just that all “white people” — that is, all non-Muslims — were “disgusting.” After she received many comments suggesting she had gone off the deep end, Shuhada Sadaqat added to her previous charge. Anybody who wasn’t a Muslim, she now said, was “mentally ill.”

Keeping all that in mind, consider her music career, such as it now is. In November 2018, Shuhada released an album she had recorded earlier in the year, when she was still Magda Davitt (no longer Sinead O’Connor and not yet Shuhada’ Sadaqat) with Ronnie Wood, Mick Mason, and Imelda May. All three of her collaborators were non-Muslims. Shouldn’t Shuhada now distance herself from that album, and tell the world she wants nothing to do with it, given that her three fellow musicians were all non-Muslims and, therefore, it turns out, “disgusting” white people and “mentally ill”? How is Shuhada Sadaqat going to make music,  when she discovers that Islam forbids the use of musical instruments? Shouldn’t she publicly distance herself not just from this latest album, and all previous albums, as having been an insult to Allah, made before she knew better? And from now on, won’t she want to avoid all non-Muslim, “white,” and therefore “disgusting” and “mentally ill” people, including the musicians she used to work with? Perhaps she’ll give up music altogether, as a good Muslim who follows Muhammad’s strictures on musical instruments, and devote her life instead to being a brand ambassador for Islam. There are deep-pocketed Muslims who might provide her with a generous stipend for doing such work.

I don’t know where this tragicomic tale of Shuhada/Magda/Sinead Davitt/O’Connor/Sadaqat goes from here. But surely there are many more surprises to come. Her adult-onset Islam is not likely to be the last stop on her spiritual journey. She’s a publicity hound, and needs to keep startling her audience. She sang the adhan, apparently unaware that women are forbidden to sing it, and her new Muslim friends did not remonstrate with her, for they wouldn’t want to risk offending their celebrity convert. She yearns for more followers on Twitter, and more friends on Facebook. She loves attention. Maybe she’ll change her mind yet again, and decide that “non-Muslims” — “white people” — aren’t so disgusting after all. Maybe she’ll decide that not all non-Muslims are “mentally ill.” Maybe she’s got even bigger surprises in store for us. Perhaps she’ll declare her admiration for Donald Trump. Or proclaim  her desire to marry Vladimir Putin. Or decide to become a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Zoroastrian. Maybe she’ll demand — and given this giddy globe she might well get — her own reality TV show. Or become a nun. Hold onto your seats. With Shuhada Sadaqat, anything is possible.

First published in Jihad Watch.