Global wars, perceptions of a world ‘unfair to Muslims’ attract people to Islam: report

Global wars, particularly Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza, have been found to be a key element, driving people, particularly in Britain, to embrace Islam as the world is increasingly perceived as unjust and unfair towards Islam, and Christianity experiences the highest ratios of departures to conversions, resulting in the largest net losses.

Researchers at the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) have placed these shifts within a broader re-composition of belief across the country, and their new findings indicate that conflict-linked motivations are emerging as a significant factor behind faith transitions.

The IIFL reported that global conflict was the most common motivation cited for adopting the Muslim faith, and it said that this could support “widespread claims of a rise in conversions to Islam amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict”.

The author of the report noted, “Those who convert to Islam often do so in search of purpose. Compared with Christian converts, they are two and a half times more likely to be drawn to ritual, to display high levels of media scepticism, and to view the world as increasingly unjust. Taken together, these factors position Islam as a normative-structural framework that offers discipline, moral clarity, and a sense of meaning in a world perceived as unfair.”

The IIFL surveyed 2,774 people who had experienced a change in their religious beliefs – either coming to, changing or abandoning faith – and found that motivations and outcomes differ sharply by religion.

For those converting to Islam, global conflict (20 per cent) and mental health (18 per cent) were the life events most often cited as contributing to a respondent’s switch to the faith, while bereavement (31 per cent) and mental health (23 per cent) were the biggest drivers behind conversions to Christianity, and for those adopting Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh beliefs, the major factors were mental health (35 per cent) and conflict (16 per cent).

The report found that converts say the world is “increasingly unfair”, and stated that “media suggestions” linking interest in Islam to conflicts affecting Muslim communities “may hold some weight”, as converts “cite contemporary global conflicts and perceptions of injustice as having featured during their faith journey into Islam”.

The report added: “This pattern may support media reports throughout late 2023 and 2024 identifying a visible increase in conversions to Islam following the most recent Israel-Gaza war. The high proportion of younger converts who describe the world as ‘increasingly unfair’ and express media scepticism may further corroborate a more morality and justice-centred turn toward Islam…

In contrast, the report suggested that a “trickle” into Christianity could have been prompted by people seeking solace in the wake of COVID-19-related loss.

These findings come as the Church of England continues to grapple with declining participation among younger generations in an increasingly secular society, and the latest census data reinforce this trajectory.

The ONS recorded that Christians now account for fewer than half of the population of England and Wales for the first time, with 46.2 per cent describing themselves as Christian in 2021, marking a significant fall from 59.3 per cent in 2011, and although Christianity remained the most common response, every other major religion increased over the period, according to The Telegraph.

The IIFL concluded that Britain is not secularising in a straightforward manner, and argued that the shift reflects a move away from inherited institutions towards personalised, practice-based and wellbeing-oriented forms of faith.

It found that 39 per cent of participants had become atheists, and Christianity recorded the heaviest outflow, with 44 per cent leaving the faith, usually into no faith rather than another religion.

A recent Pew Research report, summarised alongside these findings, analysed 13 Muslim-majority countries and revealed that very small proportions of adults have left Islam, resulting in high retention rates, and it found that the United States and Kenya have the highest levels of accession into Islam, with most new Muslims having been raised Christian, a trend that contributes further to Christianity’s overall net losses.