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Sometimes I cannot help being suspicious of Damascene Conversions. Of course God can change all hearts, I remind myself, from the most wicked to the most gentle. And indeed in the story of the Muslim faith there is ample evidence of this. Amongst the greatest personalities of Islam are those who were once its greatest adversaries.

Beware of suspicion, comes another thought, for suspicion is the worst of falsities… And yet the suspicions remain; the conspiracy theories, if you will. As we know, chapter nine of the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian New Testament tells the story of the sudden conversion of that feared persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus.

Many hold his conversion up as a powerful illustration of God’s grace, so much so that his epistles — penned as the Apostle Paul — are thought to contain more theological guidance than any of Jesus’ words. Others, meanwhile, are more sceptical: his epistles, they complain, suggest that he seemed to know very little about Jesus except that he was crucified.

In the ancient world, argue some, there was the Christianity of Paul and the Christianity of James: the Man of Lying in Robert Eisenman’s reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls versus the Teacher of Righteousness. On the one hand Paul is considered by some as the greatest promoter of Christianity, on the other hand he is considered by others its greatest subverter.

This, I’m afraid, is the kind of dilemma I find myself facing when I hear of people once famed for attacking Muslims — or particular groups of Muslims — having a sudden change of heart.

On the one hand it is absolutely true that God’s grace is without limit, His mercy unrestricted: even if we were to come to Him with sins nearly as great as the earth and were we then to face Him, ascribing no partner to Him, He promises that He would bring us forgiveness nearly as great as it.

But on the other hand there are those niggling doubts: is this merely subversion by different means? Is this the next big agent provocateur or perhaps a new Pied Piper? Can this person really be trusted, we ask, remembering their past all too well.

Unfortunately for many a convert this kind of questioning of their faith becomes a painful obstacle to their integration into the community. Our integrity and sincerity is questioned, causing the nascent  traveller anguish. When my own faith was questioned in the early days of my journey by people who had played a part in guiding me, even if unknowingly, I was heartbroken.

Yet sometimes such doubts cannot be helped. Sometimes the transformation can be just too mind-boggling for some to comprehend. On other occasions it is the fruits that they seem to bear that cause doubt. Muslims tend not to be very impressed by converts who suddenly find themselves fixated with blowing people up, for example, and are rather more likely to be heard muttering the words ‘stitch-up’ for such souls, than ‘they were radicalised by our Foreign Policy’.

What the answer to this dilemna is, I do not know. A good guage for moving forward may be, perhaps, that old saying: by their fruits you shall know them. But perhaps that is not the case. Do we ignore them and hope that they will go away, or do the wise of our community engage them and offer them guidance? Do we look on from afar, but promise not to follow them? Or do we just go on pretending that these questions are not playing on our minds, as the latest episode unfolds before us.