"My name is Lauren Booth and I'm a Muslim"

From Hamastan to Islam - Allahu Akbar

I've written about Booth in the past.

Here is the latest youtube vid in which she announces her spiritual epiphany one night in an Islamic shrine in Iran, at the end of which she woke up a changed person and submitted to the joys of Islamitude.

In this article she explains a remarkable achievement:

"Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day. I’m on page 60. I also haven’t had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years,' she said.

'The strange thing is that since I decided to convert I haven’t wanted to touch alcohol, and I was someone who craved a glass of wine or two at the end of a day.’"

If you have the patience to watch the video you will notice that she crowns her speech by [re?] introducing herself to the crowds in the following way:

"My name is Lauren Booth and I'm a Muslim"

What's interesting is her impossibility to see the irony she epitomizes in anything she says. Clearly the most important aspect of her conversion, for her, thus far has been a newly-discovered ability to withstand the lures of alcohol. Alcohol is obviously paramount on her mind since she chooses to present herself in the words of someone attending Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time:

"My names is Such-and-such and I'm an alcoholic".

It's impossible not to notice that somewhere in her mind she associates being a Muslim with being an addict.

The mutual help group, AA, that tries to get alcoholics to withdraw from chronic alcohol consumption has its own codified set of rules, called The Twelve Steps.

• admitting that one cannot control one's addiction or compulsion;
• recognizing a greater power that can give strength;
• examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member);
• making amends for these errors;
• learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior;
• helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.

As we can hear from her description, she has already managed to fulfill some of those steps: She admits that she could not control her alcohol craving, she recognized a greater power that gives her strength, and she learns to live a new life according to new rules.

Let's wish Lauren Booth much success in her quest to battle her addictions.