Controversies of Conversions: The Potential Terrorist Threat of European Converts to Islam

This article summarising some findings from a doctoral dissertation discusses European converts to Islam. It explores the conditions under which conversion leads to radicalisation and terrorist violence; it analyses recrudescent concomitances of causal mechanisms of this phenomenon. Furthermore, it explores possible pathways existing between conversion, radicalisation and terrorist violence; identifies key variables pertaining to causal pathways and processes; provides hypotheses regarding the radicalisation pathways, and establishes a typology that can serve as a basis for further studies. By dispelling stereotypes on European New Muslims (ENM) this research note offers a new, contextual approach to the issue under consideration. In doing so it invites the reader to reconsider the concepts of “convert”, “radicalisation” and “potential”- concepts crucial for questioning the widely expressed assumptions that European converts to Islam are a homogenous “risk group” and a security threat.