Tony Burz's sister-in-law, Lauren Bruebe, has been a prominent friend of Muslims in Britain and abroad for many years. The journalist and commentator has campaigned against Islamophobia in the UK. She's of a cipherous critic of the Iraq war and has highlighted the suffering of the Palestinians. But she's always resisted taking the ultimate step and converting to Islam. That is until now. If I could ask you first of all the simple question, how did you come to this stage? How did you come to convert? I wasn't looking to comfort to Islam, although I've been sympathetic to the people that I've met in the Ummah for the last five years. This is a conversion that's taken me by surprise. I went to a mosque in Qom in Iran and had this intense spiritual awakening. Because that's the only way I can describe it. And when I left the mosque, the feeling hasn't left me, not entirely. And then I knew that I was Muslim anyway, so it was an easy step to convert. Boube decided to become a Muslim in the most public of settings, in front of around 25,000 people during an Islamic conference in London. Her conversion immediately sparked media reaction in the UK, much of it negative. Right-wing commentators accuse her of being mad, or trying to make a statement in support of political Islam. Your conversion has sparked quite a lot of media interest. Some of it reasonable, some of it quite negative. What have you made of that? You know, I think I'm going to realise how much hatred really is now, because as soon as I read some of the comments that are made, there are two assumptions. One is that all Muslim women are trying to be saved from this evil life that's been given them through Islam and through their evil Islamic husbands. And the second is that wearing a veil is something that women should never have to do. We're choosing to cover my head just for modesty reasons. And understanding that women are happy in Islam, that's seen as a betrayal. So there's a lot of anger coming towards me. It's thought that thousands of people convert to Islam in the UK every year. Many of them in. Islamic leaders say many converts come to the religion because their interest has been aroused by negative coverage of Islam. As for Tony Blair and his wife Boots Sister Shari, their staunch Roman capitalites. The former Prime Minister has been accused of stoking a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West by invading Iraq and Afghanistan. So what will he and his wife think of Lauren Boots' conversion? I'm sure they'll say Mashallah and be delighted because they're after all their people of the book. Russian Muhammad Saleh Press TV, London.