Conversion as a Migration Strategy in a Transit Country: Iranian Shiites Becoming Christians in Turkey

Normally, religion is considered as an integrating agent, but for some Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey, religion and especially religious conversion is used as a tool for migration. This article
draws on the migration histories of Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey who initially intended to go further west only to have stayed in Turkey either because of the long procedures of asylum application in Turkey or because they were rejected and have become “illegal aliens” who do not want to return to Iran. Based on the extensive fieldwork carried out in various cities in Turkey where the Iranian migrants are heavily concentrated, this article demonstrates
how conversion from Shi’a Islam to Christianity is used as a migration strategy and how and to what extent these asylum seekers use religion and their newly acquired social and religious networks within churches of the transit country to reach ultimately the West as refugees. As conversion is sustained through social networks as well as churches and missionaries,
this unique situation can be explained by employing the social capital theory within the context of an institutional component.