Dr. Katherine Bullock, an Australian-born convert to Islam in 1994, is a lecturer in Islamic politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Her research focuses on Muslims in Canada, their history, contemporary lived experiences, political and civic engagement, and media representations of Islam and Muslims. Her books include Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves and Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes, which has been translated into several languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, and Turkish. Over the past few years, she has co-founded and served on the boards of several grassroots and academic organizations.
Dr. Katherine, could you tell us a little bit about yourself, please?
I was born in North Fremantle in Western Australia, a city close to the capital of the state, Perth. I grew up in the 70s attending the local state primary school. For high school, I attended a private all-girls school, Presbyterian Ladies College. This school imparted many good values that are also part of Islamic values, such as the importance of family, honesty, integrity, working hard, discipline, friendship, and so on. As an all-girls school, we were focused on our studies.
We know that you were raised in Australia as an Anglican Church of England. How was your life regarding faith back then?
I used to attend Church and Sunday school with my family each week. At my high school, we had weekly religious services and religion classes. Our school employed a reverend who was part of our school life. I began to have doubts about Christianity around grade 3, but when you are that young, and surrounded by Christians, even secularized Christians, these thoughts and feelings just stay in the background. I was confirmed when I was 12. In high school, I enjoyed the weekly church service and always ignored my friends who sat next to me whispering while the reverend spoke. Yet, once I started university, I found it difficult to be a person of faith. Our philosophy of religion class showed arguments against the existence of God, and political science emphasized Marx’s notion of religion as the “opium of the people.” Feminism emphasized the idea of religion as patriarchal and anti-woman. All this made it easy to become agnostic and then an atheist.
We’d love to know what your views were on Islam and Muslims before your conversion. Did you have any prejudices?
I hadn’t learned anything about Islam growing up. Well, we had a world religions class in high school, but I remember little of it. I remember a focus on cults, as there was a concern about girls being susceptible to cults. I had a vague impression of a famous singer, Cat Stevens, joining a cult. I later learned that he’d become Muslim. At university, I had a Muslim friend and a Muslim professor. But they were so quiet and guarded about “being Muslim” that I had no idea what it meant. We never talked about religion, and they seemed “normal” Aussies to me, except my professor, who always wore shalwar kameez. I don’t remember ever seeing a Muslim woman in hijab on campus.
In this state, I arrived in Canada to do a Master’s degree. Here was where I met many Muslims for the first time in my life. We were all international students hanging around the International Student Centre at the university. I felt scared when I met a Muslim guy from Libya. I thought the women were oppressed. I asked the Muslim women what they were doing here. And when they told me, about medicine, and engineering, I said, “No. I mean at University, I thought your culture oppressed women and didn’t let you be educated.”
Thank God these young Muslims were patient and kind to me! It was that helped me see that I was unconsciously biased against Muslims. It was that opened my eyes to wanting to know more about Islam as a religion.
How did you first hear about Islam?
As I just said, it was these encounters with Muslims in the International Student Centre that I first started learning about Islam. I was still an atheist (or so I thought), and not too interested in religion, but the Muslim students organized lectures on social justice issues that interested me. Along the way, I started to wonder why I was an atheist. I started asking everyone around me if they believed in God. I was surprised by how many MA and PhD students, in engineering, history, and political science, answered yes.
Everyone has their unique story of embracing Islam, how was your story started?
In the midst of what became a gripping three[1]year intellectual journey to embracing Islam, I got engaged to a Muslim. I had to leave Canada because my visa expired, but he gave me a copy of the Qur’an to take with me. Later he came to my city in Australia for the marriage and honeymoon. We returned to Canada where I started my PhD. The first thing I had to study was whether or not I believed God existed. In some ways, this was the hardest part of my journey. I spent time reading works by lay physicists where they make the case for the “Intelligent Design” of the Universe. They mostly do not call the Designer “God,” and they do not follow organized religion. Once I was convinced by their arguments, I didn’t find it hard to call the Designer, God. I asked myself, OK, so which religion? I looked at Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. Islam always shone as the religion that best matched the notion of the “Intelligent Designer.” Unexpectedly the Qur’an was answering questions I had had since third grade. I was drawn to Islam, but scared of the consequences (losing my family, and friends, not being able to find a PhD supervisor, leaving my culture, etc). For about six months I had a daily battle with myself. It was very intense. Every hour I would change my mind... convert...not convert... convert…not convert. Exhausting! Finally, someone sat me down and said, “If you die while believing you should have become Muslim, what will you tell God on the Day of Judgment?” So, on July 1, 1994, I went down to the local mosque to say my shahadah. And, the mosque was closed!
My husband said I didn’t need an imam to become Muslim. He led me to the shahadah, standing outside the mosque on the pavement. We went home and he showed me how to make wudu and led me in my first prayer. The next day we attended an Islamic conference at the University. By then some of my husband’s friends knew. One of them told the organizer and I was brought up on stage where I did my shahadah again. After I stepped off the stage a crowd rushed to congratulate me. I was given a hijab and an exquisite prayer mat that became my favorite. Of course, all the hugging, gifts, and good words made me feel embraced by the community. It was a wonderful feeling.
Your husband was already a Muslim, he most probably felt very happy for you. What about your close circle? How did they react to this decision?
My close PhD circle took my conversion in stride. They continued to be good friends and strong supports for me. I found new Muslim friends in a weekly halaqa run by a local Egyptian woman for converts. That first year was very intense. I don’t think I would have survived as a Muslim were it not for that group. Some of my former friends in Australia dropped me. I think it was hard to communicate all this via letters, email, and phone calls. It might have been easier if I’d still been there, as they would have been with me through the journey. Alhamdulillah, my family, childhood friends, and cousins have stuck by me.
What aspect of your life has changed the most since you converted to Islam?
There are internal and external changes. The most impactful external change has probably been wearing hijab and adapting to the modesty aspects of religion. The most significant change is internal – the satisfaction of the heart, as the Qur’an calls it - through remembrance of God. Knowing one’s purpose on earth, what to prepare for (the afterlife), guidance for healthy living, and good character, all these are aspects of my life that have changed the most since becoming Muslim. One has a feeling of a solid foundation, or, to use another metaphor, of being wrapped in a comforting, protective coat.
