Muslim White Female

After 9/11, many Muslims in Britain experienced an upsurge of suspicion and hostility from people around them.

At the same time, paradoxically perhaps, the number of white converts to Islam began to rise.

In Britain, it has doubled in the last ten years – and nearly two-thirds of those who embraced Islam during that time are women.

Miriam O’Reilly meets three of them:

Lauren Booth, a journalist, single mother, and sister-in-law to Britain's former Prime Minister, Tony Blair;

Myriam Francois Cerrah, a successful child actress who appeared in Sense and Sensibility, alongside Emma Thompson and gave up her dreams of Hollywood when she embraced Islam;

and Fatiha Iman, who grew up in a family wary of Islam and is now trying to mediate between her English family and her Pakistani fiance.

Miriam explores what drew them to a faith that exposed them to hostility after 9/11, and - in the eyes of their non-Muslim sisters – has forced them to give up much of their personal freedom.