LONDON: Outspoken Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has announced she has converted to Islam and changed her name to Shuhada.
Having adopted the name Magda Davitt last year, the 51-year-old is now called Shuhada Davitt.
She also changed her Twitter avatar to a black-and-white image of the Nike Swoosh logo and the slogan: “Wear a hijab. Just do it.”
“This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey,” she tweeted.
“All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant. I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada.”
Her Twitter account says the singer now lives in “Direland.”
O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” became a global hit, with her haunting voice, shaved head and single-tone outfits turning her into both an enigmatic and captivating figure.
But her career began to falter after she tore up a picture of the late Pope John Paul II while appearing as a musical guest on US television in 1992.
She said she was protesting sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, but her gesture was roundly condemned in the media and she was eventually forced to apologize.
Yet her fight against the Catholic Church continued, and in 1999 O’Connor was ordained as a priest by a breakaway church based in the French city of Lourdes.
Catholicism does not sanction priesthood for women.
O’Connor told Billboard magazine in 2014 that she was still ordained but had stepped away from priesthood because “I’m not interested in causing more trouble than I already am.”
Singer Sinead O’Connor converts to Islam
Singer Sinead O’Connor converts to Islam
- O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” became a global hit, with her haunting voice, shaved head and single-tone outfits turning her into both an enigmatic and captivating figure
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
