Muslim converts: A lens to focus on integration complexities

The exact number of people who have embraced Islam in Western Europe remains subject to speculation. However, the involvement of a tiny minority of converts in terrorist attacks within Europe has prompted a lot of media coverage. The discourse around home-grown terrorism has presented this group of converts to Islam as a shadowy internal threat to national security. This report argues that converts represent a transitional population that has the potential to form an effective bridge between heritage Muslim communities and the larger non-Muslim European societies. Rather than dealing with them from a risk perspective of potential terrorism, they can be seen as part of the solution in bridging communities at an epistemological level.