The Data · Every Figure
All Charts
The figures of the thesis, Figures 1 through 24, presented for all 257 American female converts to Islam who completed both the quantitative and qualitative portions of the study in full.
Companion Annex
Owning Islam: the 66 Blackamerican women within the study, charted in full.
View the annex →
Figure 5
Geographic Distribution
257
Respondents
40+
States & territories
represented
257
Women across the U.S.
and worldwide
1
Nation, many
voices, one study
Respondents came from across the continental United States, plus Hawaii and Puerto Rico, reflecting the geographic breadth of Muslim women's conversion experiences nationwide.
Feeling Muslim Study · 2014
Figure numbering follows the thesis. Figures 1 and 2, a visual summary from the Runnymede Trust Report and the convergent-design flowchart adapted from Creswell, are reproduced works of other authors and appear only in the thesis itself; the survey figures begin at Figure 3.
All 257 respondents in the analyzed cohort self-identified as female. The survey offered the options of male or female; the thesis notes that future studies will include categories beyond the traditional dichotomy.
Of the 459 women who participated, 281 completed both the quantitative and qualitative portions of the study. Of those 281, 24 were converts born outside the United States and were excluded from the final study, leaving 257 complete quantitative-and-qualitative responses, the cohort analyzed throughout the thesis. Counting every participant who completed the quantitative portion in full, the total quantitative cohort is n = 400.
90.7% of the 257 respondents resided in the United States across 40+ states and territories; the remaining 9.3% resided in 18 countries around the world and were not mapped, out of an abundance of caution for anonymity. The full geographic presentation, including the world map first published in the foreword to
Project Lina (2020), appears on the
Demographics page.
African American or Black
20%
2+ Races or Ethnicities
14%
A highly educated group, 62% hold a Bachelor's degree or higher, including 30% with a Master's or Ph.D.
76.3% identified as Christian before converting, making prior Christian belief the overwhelming majority experience.
Unitarian Universal
1.53%
Seventh Day Adventist
1.02%
The majority of women converted in their twenties and thirties, 63% between ages 20 and 34.
55% were single, never married at the time of their conversion, the majority converting as single women.
Single, never married
55%
Married w/out children
7%
At the time of the survey, 57% were married, a significant shift from the 55% who were single at the time of conversion.
Single, never married
14%
Married w/out children
18%
Respondents represent a wide range of experience, from new converts to women who have been Muslim for 20+ years.
Over half of respondents identify as Sunni. Nearly 1 in 4 blend traditions, Sunni-Sufi, Sufi, or other combinations.
Nation of Islam-Sunni
0.77%
By a wide margin, 73.15% of the 257 affirmed a difference between being or becoming Muslim by taking the shahada and feeling Muslim. This distinction is the heart of the thesis.
Yes, there is a difference
73%
A slight majority did not instantly feel Muslim upon conversion. The follow-up question of when feeling began (Figure 17) opens the answers the yes-or-no format could not hold.
Yes, instantly felt Muslim
47%
Fifteen themes emerged across the open-ended responses; many women fit more than one category, so the percentages sum to more than 100%. The largest theme by far describes feeling Muslim as gradual, a continual process rather than a moment.
Over time, gradual process
42%
Community, acceptance, belonging
16%
At the time of shahada
16%
Accepting Islam as true
5%
Self-directed ownership of faith
5%
Applying Islam to a life event
4%
Hearing Qur'an or adhan
3%
An overwhelming majority reported outside influences on their feelings of Muslimness, some nurturing, some hindering, and some both.
Yes, nurtured or hindered
81%
A majority of the 257 stated that Islamic gender roles play no part in their feelings of Muslimness. Read alongside Figure 21, where 73% wear outwardly identifying attire, this complicates assumptions that visibility and gender-role frameworks travel together.
Yes, gender roles play a part
45%
Yes, satisfied or content
72%
Yes, attire identifies as Muslim
73%
Yes, attire is related
60%
Nearly half of the 257 do not feel they are an integral part of their Muslim communities, the counterpart to Figure 24, where 87% say they would like to be.
No, not an integral part
48%
The vast majority of the 257 are ready and willing to be integral parts of their communities. Set against Figure 23, the gap between this hope and the reality on the ground is the study's call to American Muslim communities.
Yes, would like to be integral
87%
This question was not charted in the thesis; the coding was first published in 2020. 42.8% of the 257 admitted thoughts of leaving Islam. The full presentation, with the women's own words, lives on the
Leaving Islam page.
Yes, have thought about leaving
43%
How to Cite This Research
APA (7th ed.)
Evans, K. N. (2015). Feeling Muslim: Prolegomena to the study of American female converts to Islam [Master's thesis, University of Georgia]. UGA Electronic Theses & Dissertations.
Chicago (17th ed.)
Evans, Karla Nicole. "Feeling Muslim: Prolegomena to the Study of American Female Converts to Islam." Master's thesis, University of Georgia, 2015.
ASA (7th ed.)
Evans, Karla N. 2015. “Feeling Muslim: Prolegomena to the Study of American Female Converts to Islam.” Master’s thesis, University of Georgia, Athens, GA.
A Note on the Data
All figures presented here are drawn from the original 2014 to 2015 survey conducted as part of the M.A. thesis research at the University of Georgia under IRB-approved protocol. The survey gathered 481 responses, 459 of them from American women converts; the figures on this page describe the 257 women who completed both the quantitative and qualitative strands in full. Data collection, research design, and analysis were conducted by Karla Nicole Kovacik (formerly Evans). The survey remains the only known study of this scope focused specifically on the psychological and sociological dimensions of Muslim identity formation among American female converts.