Book description
What drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of exile in Pakistan? The Convert tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore, one of the…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Convert as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This is a book about the collision of worlds and ideologies, told through the life of a single woman. This is a biography of Margaret Marcus, a small-town Jewish girl in midcentury America who converted to Islam, emigrated to Pakistan, and became a student of the Islamist political theorist Abul Ala Mawdudi. Under the name Maryam Jameelah, Margaret wrote many books condemning the corruption of Western capitalist society. And then came September 11…
I found this book absolutely gripping and no less absorbing—and unsettling—in its moral power. Deborah Baker is a truly extraordinary biographer, and I admire her artistry, research,…
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