According to muslim sources, about 75% of converts leave Islam within a few years, which definitely supports the theory that people, both men and women, are converting because they have been shown a sugar coated version of Islam.
What is interesting is that this is happening at a time when the most extremist interpretations of Islam are at their most prominent and starkly visible on most information mediums; yet...
The sugar-coated Islam argument IMO no longer makes much sense (although it would have before september 11), especially given the current concerted effort by the anti-Islam movement and their apostate allies to convince the public that Islam is bad.
Everyone by now has seen the Burkas in Afghanistan, heard about honor killings, etc.. at the very least, this would stop most women from taking the first step towards the religion.
Yeah that would mean something if there were still a steady stream of people converting to Islam like there were ten years ago. However, as someone pointed out, one Muslim sociologist estimates that 75% of converts leave within three years and the Islamic propaganda organisations tell us that most converts are women (which I don't know if that is believable anyway). It is all anecdotal of course since Islam conveniently has no formal membership rolls and things like that, so who knows who converted and who didn't. In my last five years as a Muslim, I noticed a big shift in focus away from dawah and getting people to convert, and towards retaining 'the youth' who were born to Muslim parents. Most of the converts that we saw in our masjids where we lived, very few of them remained in the jamaat for any length of time, by which I mean more than a year. However, most of my friends, many of whom were converts, didn't go to the jamaat at all, which is why those Muslim organisations and mosques aren't very reliable in some cases, as far as who is Muslim and how many Muslims live in an area.
Also the sugar coating still applies, because when people see the Taliban and they say 'What is this Islam?' then they get the same old tired pamphlets and books that they were handing out to Muslimahs at the masjid 15 years ago about how Islam is the 'shelter of peace for women' and all that.
Topic: Western Ladies