Largest long-term study on faith conversions in Sindh finds no evidence of ‘forced conversion’

Islamabad, 17 October 2021: There is no evidence suggesting
that non-Muslims, including underage girls, have been forcibly converted to
Islam in Sindh, shows a groundbreaking study by Institute of Policy Studies’
(IPS) researcher Sufi Ghulam Hussain based on his ten years of episodical
fieldwork, interviews with a cross-section of Sindhi society and statistical
analysis of data acquired from seminaries and courts across the province.

The
study – which was also consulted and by the parliamentary committee formed on
the controversial ‘anti-forced conversion bill’ rejected last week – is based
on exclusive IPS datasets.

The
extensive and exhaustive fieldwork consisted of 200
in-depth interviews with a cross-section of Muslim and non-Muslim population,
content analysis of over 400 audio recordings,
along with review of 19 NGO reports. The quantitative sample comprised 6,055
cases of converts documented and collected during 2008 to 2020. Some 32
families, 24 couples (of whom females were mostly neo-converts), 16 males, 24
leaders of the Hindu community, 22 religious clerics, 21 civil society
activists, eight lawyers, two police officers and two magistrates were
interviewed by the lead researcher Ghulam Hussain.

The key hypothesis was to investigate whether non-Muslim
girls below the age of 18 are forcibly converted to Islam. Analysis of data
shows that of the total recorded cases of conversion involving freewill
marriages in this study, only a fraction was minor. “Given the
prevalence of marriages below 18 years in rural Sindh, this is not
unexpected”, said Ghulam Hussain.

None of the cases verified by this research proved to be
forcible conversion whereby ‘force’ means coercion, blackmail, deception or the
threat to kill a person or his/her parents. Contradictory to the commonly
propagated perception, it was found that coercion is often used by parents and
the community of the converting individual to revert such a person. This is in
the form of political pressure, influencing the local administration and state institutions,
social media campaigning, NGO activism, invoking caste or community honor,
appealing to patriarchal ego, mobilizing separatist elements, and even torture.

The
study shows that religious conversions occur at Sindh’s main seminaries and
religious sites that take care of legal requirements and relevant
documentation, including through courts. During the
course of research, credentials of converts registered with prominent religious
seminaries/centers were obtained. These sites include Amrot Sharif (Shikarpur),
Barchoondi Sharif (Ghotki), Gulzar-i-Khaleel (Umerkot), Bait-us-Salam (Badin),
Madina Masjid (Mirpurkhas), and Jamia Binnoria (Karachi).

The related official documents that were collected and
analyzed included affidavits of freewill, petitions (seeking protection from
parents), court verdicts/orders, FIRs filed by parents/police record, CNICs of
the neo-converts, nikahnama or marriage certificates (issued by NADRA), primary
school leaving certificate/certificate of matriculation showing age, medical
certificate determining age, certificates of conversion, registers of
conversion, and pamphlets of conversion ceremonies.

The
study found that several socio-economic, religious,
and cultural push-and-pull factors come into play in the process of conversion
from one religion to another. In most cases, normative ritual to convert and
socio-economic incentive (push factors), desire to marry and inspiration from
Islam and its religious mentors (pull factors) are the key factors that
constitute the conversion process. Push factors are largely driven by the
context, the structural condition and the religious or the cultural milieu,
whereas pull factors are mainly driven by the agency of the individuals and
groups.

Among
the total sample, the 4,490 individuals who converted
as families were either sufficiently Islamized already over decades or they
were pulled by better social and economic support system among Muslims.

Presence
of 229 individual male converts in the sample negates
the popular perception of only women being converted to Islam. The 970
individuals who are couples included several widows who could not remarry while
being Hindu and individuals who wished to marry their cousins against the
dictates of Hindu society. Several marriages take place between the persons of
two distinct castes, which again is disallowed in Hindu ethos, and conversion
offers an option for them. This is a major push factor as out of the total
cases of conversion (723) involving marriage, 617 belong to Scheduled Caste
Hindus.

During the course of
research, this data has already been presented at various national as well as
international forums including the Parliament, Council of Islamic Ideology,
Islamabad Bar Council, and Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
at Brown University, USA.