Religious conversions in forced migration: Comparative cases of Afghans in India and Iranians in Turkey

Abstract

This article examines closely the crucial link between religious conversions of two groups of refugees from Islam to Evangelism by taking up the cases of Afghan and Iranian refugees in India and in Turkey, respectively. India hosts many refugees from different parts of the world despite the absence of international protection laws, whereas Turkey is the country hosting the highest number of refugees since 2015, mainly due to the Syrian conflict. In this article, I first analyze the reasons why Afghan and Iranian refugees decide to change religious group membership from different sects of Islam and become members of the “born-again” evangelical Christian groups operating in South Asia and West Asia. By combining forced migration and religious identity issues in two different settings, I suggest that a combination of contextual and institutional factors explain this religious change and help us understand the sociocultural and political impacts of conversions.