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Dubai:
Mélanie Georgiades, a popular rapper in France where hijab
- the Islamic veil is banned by the state surprised fans by
announcing her conversion to Islam and choosing to wear a
headscarf, a media report said.
Mélanie, known as Diam’s,
has gone through what onlookers have described as a “complete
transformation” from an image she had prior to 2009.
Since 2009, Diam’s had been unusually absent from the mainstream
rap scene, prompting more than three years of controversy over her
whereabouts, despite making the odd public appearance with her
scarf.
But recently the French rapper made her first television
appearance with her new image, Dubai's leading media house Al
Arabiya reported.
Diam’s appeared in an exclusive TV interview with French TV
station TF1, to talk about a past experience with drugs, including
hallucinating narcotics, and being in a mental asylum until she
discovered the “serenity of Islam.” The rapper said the religion
was introduced to her by coincidence, when she saw a Muslim friend
praying, Al Arabiya reported.
Diam’s, said she has been married for over a year and is a now a
new mother, moving far away from her drug-relate past.
In her TV interview she said her “conversion to Islam was the
result of a personal conviction, after understanding the religion
and reading the Holy Quran.”
When asked about wearing the hijab in France, a country which has
banned the niqab, she said: “I believe that I live in a tolerant
society, and I don’t feel hurt by criticism, but by insults and
stereotyping and ready-made judgments.”
Asked by her host about why she is wearing a hijab while many
Muslim women don’t wear it, and don’t find it to be a religious
obligation, she answered: “I see it as a divine order or a divine
advice, this brings joy to my heart and for me this is enough.”
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