Islam Fanatic Sir Winston Churchill Urged Not to Convert

An interesting letter from his sister-in-law urged Sir Winston Churchill's to "fight against" the urge to convert to Islam.

"I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise, Pasha-like tendencies, I really have," the letter from Lady Gwendoline Bertie, who was to marry Churchill's brother, Jack, said.

Dated August 1907, the letter added that if Churchill came in touch with Islam, he might be converted faster than he may have supposed, according to The Independent.

"Call of the blood, don't you know what I mean, do fight against it," she wrote.

Warren Dockter, a historian at a Cambridge University, found the letter while working on some information for his book, 'Winston Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East'.

Docker added that the former UK Prime Minister was curious about Islam as well as oriental culture. However, he never toyed with the idea of converting to the religion, said Dockter. By then he was almost an atheist, according to rt.com.

Churchill was simply curiously fascinated by Islam, a fact that was common among Victorians, pointed out Dockter. Churchill got familiar with Islamic culture when he was in army service at Sudan.

Churchill used to just don some Arabian garbs with his friend Wilfrid S. Blunt, who was a poet and supported Muslim causes. He was drawn towards a "romanticized version of Islam". Like all Victorians, he was struck by the nomadic culture and honour culture of the Bedouins.

However, people close to Churchill need not have been worried about his fascination, felt Dockter. Though he was appreciative of it, he was also critical.

In 1899, Churchill wrote after a stint in North-West India and Sudan: "The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men," he said. "No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."

In 1940, during World War II, he agreed to the building of the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park. He put by £100,000 for it, hoping to win over the support of Muslim countries for the war.