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International audience ; This article presents a synthetic, historical-cum-anthropological overview of the collective trajec- tory of Ivoirian converts to Islam from southern autochthonous lineages who can be referred to--albeit unsatisfyingly--as 'native' Muslims. It focuses on what is effectively an invisible and silent minority within southern native groups and the majority Dioula Muslim society alike: a community that has barely received any attention from social scientists despite the transforma- tive impact of its slow but steady Islamization process. The study aims first at shedding light on salient socio-religious and political aspects of this group's development, from colonial to postco- lonial times. Given that this plural group is situated at the crossroads of various ethnic, national, and religious controversies, having enflamed Côte d'Ivoire in olden days as much as in recent years, the article eventually makes use of this group's distinct prism to question the contested Ivoirian interface between Islam, ethnic geography, and nationalism at large, and attempt some nuanced answers.

International audience ; This article presents a synthetic, historical-cum-anthropological overview of the collective trajec- tory of Ivoirian converts to Islam from southern autochthonous lineages who can be referred to--albeit unsatisfyingly--as 'native' Muslims. It focuses on what is effectively an invisible and silent minority within southern native groups and the majority Dioula Muslim society alike: a community that has barely received any attention from social scientists despite the transforma- tive impact of its slow but steady Islamization process. The study aims first at shedding light on salient socio-religious and political aspects of this group's development, from colonial to postco- lonial times. Given that this plural group is situated at the crossroads of various ethnic, national, and religious controversies, having enflamed Côte d'Ivoire in olden days as much as in recent years, the article eventually makes use of this group's distinct prism to question the contested Ivoirian interface between Islam, ethnic geography, and nationalism at large, and attempt some nuanced answers.

International audience ; This article presents a synthetic, historical-cum-anthropological overview of the collective trajec- tory of Ivoirian converts to Islam from southern autochthonous lineages who can be referred to--albeit unsatisfyingly--as 'native' Muslims. It focuses on what is effectively an invisible and silent minority within southern native groups and the majority Dioula Muslim society alike: a community that has barely received any attention from social scientists despite the transforma- tive impact of its slow but steady Islamization process. The study aims first at shedding light on salient socio-religious and political aspects of this group's development, from colonial to postco- lonial times. Given that this plural group is situated at the crossroads of various ethnic, national, and religious controversies, having enflamed Côte d'Ivoire in olden days as much as in recent years, the article eventually makes use of this group's distinct prism to question the contested Ivoirian interface between Islam, ethnic geography, and nationalism at large, and attempt some nuanced answers.

International audience ; This article presents a synthetic, historical-cum-anthropological overview of the collective trajec- tory of Ivoirian converts to Islam from southern autochthonous lineages who can be referred to--albeit unsatisfyingly--as 'native' Muslims. It focuses on what is effectively an invisible and silent minority within southern native groups and the majority Dioula Muslim society alike: a community that has barely received any attention from social scientists despite the transforma- tive impact of its slow but steady Islamization process. The study aims first at shedding light on salient socio-religious and political aspects of this group's development, from colonial to postco- lonial times. Given that this plural group is situated at the crossroads of various ethnic, national, and religious controversies, having enflamed Côte d'Ivoire in olden days as much as in recent years, the article eventually makes use of this group's distinct prism to question the contested Ivoirian interface between Islam, ethnic geography, and nationalism at large, and attempt some nuanced answers.

Abstract
This article discusses the conversion experiences as recalled by Irish women who converted to Islam during the so-called 'Celtic-Tiger' period—the years of Ireland's dramatic economic boom and major socio-cultural transformations between 1995 and 2007. In this period, the increasing religious diversity of Irish society and the decline of the social authority of the Catholic Church facilitated the exploration of alternative religious and spiritual affiliations. Irish women converts to Islam are an example of the emergence of a post-Catholic subjectivity in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger years. The women's agency is illustrated through the choice of Islam as a religion and a cultural space different to Catholicism in order to gain status, power and control within the various religious and ethnic communities. This article is the first major study on conversion to Islam in Ireland during this period.

This article studies what conversion to Islam meant in legal terms for women and how it affected their marriage, conjugal rights, children, and property rights in two circumstances: one, when conversion was of their own volition, and the other, when it was not their own decision, but that of their husbands or fathers. A cluster offive conversion documents-three for Christian, Jewish, and pagan males, and two for Christian and pagan females—from a notarial manual composed in tenth century Cordoba is used here to place the results of the investigation within the analytical framework of the study of Muslim women's legal status, and beyond, into the emotional and psychosocial environment of women's conversion and its significance as a life event.

"Der Vortrag präsentiert Zwischenergebnisse aus einer laufenden empirischen Untersuchung über die Konversion 'westlich' sozialisierter Personen zum Islam. Die Untersuchung stützt sich auf biographische Interviews mit deutschen Konvertiten, soll aber durch eine Erhebung in den USA ergänzt werden. Im Anschluß an Kuhn werden Konversionen zu Religionen aus fremden Kulturen als Paradigmenwechsel betrachtet, womit sowohl der Bezug auf einen anderen kulturellen Rahmen (paradigm), als auch eine neue Form der Problemlösung (exemplar) bezeichnet ist. Dabei wird eine biographieanalytische mit einer kultursoziologischen Perspektive verknüpft. Es geht zum einen um die Frage, welche typischen biographischen Problemlagen im Verlauf von Konversionen zum Islam bearbeitet werden und welche Lösungen sie finden. Zum anderen geht es darum herauszuarbeiten, inwieweit dabei auch ein Wechsel bezüglich grundlegender Charakteristika der soziokulturellen Realität stattfindet, wie dieser Wechsel aussieht und wie er motiviert ist. Dahinter steht die generelle Frage, auf welche Problemlagen in der angestammten soziokulturellen Realität derartige Konversionen verweisen. Der Vortrag präsentiert einen Fallvergleich, in dem Konversionen zum Islam eine Lösung darstellen für Probleme, die in Prozessen der Ent- und Umstrukturierung der Geschlechterbeziehungen begründet liegen. Zentral dabei ist, daß das Umbrechen kultureller Institutionen auf der Ebene des Körpers (Sexualität/Abtreibung/Gewalt) als problematisch erfahren wird. Über die Konversion zum Islam vermittelt sich vor allem eine Re-Konstruktion des Geschlechterverhältnisses, die begleitet wird von Praktiken und Symboliken, die charakteristischerweise ebenfalls direkt am Körper ansetzen: Verhüllung (bei der Frau) und Beschneidung (beim Mann)." (Autorenreferat)