JEWISH CONVERTS TO ISLAM

Conversion of Jews to Islam :

In the past groups of Jews and individual Jews have converted to Islam.

A number of groups who converted from Judaism to Islam have remained Muslim, while maintaining a connection to and interest in their Jewish heritage. These groups include the anusim or Daggataun of Timbuktu who converted in 1492, when Askia Muhammed came to power in Timbuktu and decreed that Jews must convert to Islam or leave,and the Chala, a portion of the Bukharan Jewish community who converted voluntarily

Approximately 35 of Israel's 6 million Jews convert to Islam each year, mostly Jewish and Christian women who convert after choosing to marry Muslim men.

Since the start of the Twentieth century conversion of Jews to Islam has generally been voluntary, and a small number of Jews have converted to Islam. The most notable of these include:

* Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss) , a Galician Jew who converted to Islam in 1926.

* Leila Mourad (former Leelee Murdakhai) , an Egyptian Jew, who converted to Islam in the 1940s.

* Lev Nussimbaum , an Azerbaijani Jew, who converted to Islam in 1922.

* Shabbetai Tzevi - seventeenth-century Turkish Jew who had claimed to be Messiah and attracted a large following. His conversion to Islam largely dissolved this mass messianic Jewish movement, but also resulted in the development of the ongoing Donmeh religious movement.

*Maryam Jameelah - Jewish American essayist and poet. Formerly Margaret Marcus.

*Jemima Goldsmith - daughter of British billionaire Sir James, who married Imran Khan. Changed name to Haiqa Khan.