Afghan media sources have reported that a US military officer has accepted Islam in the Watapur district of the country’s eastern Kunar province. James Grant, from the American state of Tennessee, said he converted after reading books on Islam for the last seven months at a coalition camp in the town.
Grant changed his name to Muhammad Asif. He is the father of two children. He said; “My wife did not oppose my conversion to Islam. I would preach Islam to my family first, and then to others”.
Grant proclaimed “Kalima-i-Shahadat” (Word of Testimony) in front of a crowd of Afghan and foreign military officers through an imam (Muslim scholar) with the Afghan military named Hamidullah.
Over recent years, there have been regular reports of American servicemen who have been exposed to Muslims in their countries of operation, reverting to Islam.
In 2007 Reuters reported that two American soldiers in Afghanistan converted to Islam and got married in the war-torn country. The Hewad Daily reported at the time that the pair served as soldiers in the U.S. army at Bagram air base, which is the hub of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan.
Another soldier, Roman Catholic reared Spc. Chris Tarantino became a Muslim whilst serving with the US Army in 2010. He said: “I went to Kuwait and bought a prayer rug and started praying right there,” he told Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military's independent news source. He also regularly speaks to fellow servicemen about his faith. American soldiers also embraced Islam in large numbers whilst stationed in Saudi Arabia during the 1990/1 Gulf War.
