Religion - peace or repression?
5 Muslim girls reveal their experiences

'You have become Muslim – how could you do that to your family?'

Tina Ehrhardt is facing rejection from her family BECAUSE she follows Islamic rules.

The 20-year-old German married Abdulrahman Alsultan from Saudi Arabia after being his flat neighbour in Bournemouth and converted to Islam.

Tina’s family back home in a village in Germany still refuses to understand.

“My mother keeps asking why I rejected Christian values,“ Tina sighs, “and my grandmother can’t stop crying.

" She even refuses to go out of the house when I am wearing my headscarf!”

For Tina however Islamic rules are nothing that you could take off like a scarf.

She finds it hard to understand why other Muslim girls want to marry outside their religion.

“Most Muslim women want a Muslim husband because we are proud of our religion,” Tina claims, “Islam is not only a religion, but a lifestyle.”

She doesn’t mind the restrictions that come with her new way of life: she must not talk to other men but family members, she should not show hair, arms and legs in public, going to the beach in a bikini lies in the past.

“I enjoy life with Islamic values, much more than before converting.” 

The word “Islam” means peace and this is how Tina feels about her new faith.

Her parents however worry about her future: what happens if Abdulrahman takes Tina to Saudi Arabia, one of the strictest Islamic countries in the world?

What if she decides to come back to Europe one day, but has to leave her children with her husband’s family as the Islamic law stipulates?

What if…
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