{"id":2428,"date":"2008-11-24T17:02:34","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T17:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html"},"modified":"2008-11-24T17:02:34","modified_gmt":"2008-11-24T17:02:34","slug":"michael-jackson-converts-to-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html","title":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson Converts to Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"michaejacksonpic.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/michaejacksonpic.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"193\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>Don&#8217;t call him the King of Pop anymore, because Michael Jackson has converted to Islam and wants to be called Mikaeel.<br \/>\nThe 50-year-old pop star took his shahada (oath of faith) in Los Angeles on Friday, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/hasen\/spages\/1039906.html\" target=\"_blank\">as reported by news sites and blogs<\/a>. Michael, oops, I mean Mikaeel, has gone from the highest of the highs with a thriving music career to the lowest of the lows when he faced child molestation charges.<br \/>\nI got nothing against a brother who has found faith and is making a sincere effort to change. Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, made a beautiful transition to Islam years back and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Faiths\/Islam\/2006\/12\/Floating-On-A-Cloud-Of-Mercy.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">recently returned to music <\/a> when he released his album <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/yusuf-islam-beyond-pop-music.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Cup of Tea.&#8221;<\/a> I hope being Muslim is good for Mikaeel and keeps him grounded.<br \/>\nCheck out what Aziz Poonawalla, Beliefnet&#8217;s Muslim blogger, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html\" target=\"_blank\">has to say about Mikaeel Jackson&#8217;s conversion<\/a>. (He writes what has to be my favorite line about this story: &#8220;I will note that Islam is big enough to contain me and Jackson within itself. &#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t call him the King of Pop anymore, because Michael Jackson has converted to Islam and wants to be called Mikaeel. The 50-year-old pop star took his shahada (oath of faith) in Los Angeles on Friday, as reported by news sites and blogs. Michael, oops, I mean Mikaeel, has gone from the highest of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[302,127,303,301,300],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-conversion","tag-islam","tag-king-of-pop","tag-michael-jackson","tag-muslim"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael Jackson Converts to Islam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Jackson Converts to Islam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Don&#8217;t call him the King of Pop anymore, because Michael Jackson has converted to Islam and wants to be called Mikaeel. The 50-year-old pop star took his shahada (oath of faith) in Los Angeles on Friday, as reported by news sites and blogs. Michael, oops, I mean Mikaeel, has gone from the highest of the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-24T17:02:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/michaejacksonpic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dali\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Michael Jackson Converts to Islam","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Michael Jackson Converts to Islam","og_description":"Don&#8217;t call him the King of Pop anymore, because Michael Jackson has converted to Islam and wants to be called Mikaeel. The 50-year-old pop star took his shahada (oath of faith) in Los Angeles on Friday, as reported by news sites and blogs. Michael, oops, I mean Mikaeel, has gone from the highest of the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2008-11-24T17:02:34+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/michaejacksonpic.jpg"}],"author":"dali","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html","name":"Michael Jackson Converts to Islam","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/michaejacksonpic.jpg","datePublished":"2008-11-24T17:02:34+00:00","dateModified":"2008-11-24T17:02:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/1c359286fc3938ed5ae08184194496aa"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/michaejacksonpic.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/michaejacksonpic.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/11\/michael-jackson-converts-to-is.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Michael Jackson Converts to Islam"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/1c359286fc3938ed5ae08184194496aa","name":"dali","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8c1\/8c1eb776a285bc2cee3fd4c978ebd09bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8c1\/8c1eb776a285bc2cee3fd4c978ebd09bx96.jpg","caption":"dali"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/dali"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}