In 2022, Andrew Tate was the most googled person in the United States. He had managed to build a massive following online—especially among young men and on the far-right—with a potent mix of cultural criticism, self-help bravado, and the sort of unvarnished misogyny that is rare even among misogynists. Then, in December, he was arrested in Romania on sex-trafficking charges. Until the platform banned him, TikTok videos of Tate had been viewed more than 11 billion times.
But I had been interested in Tate for another reason: his religious identity.
In October, the British-American ex-kickboxer had converted to Islam. Known for his libertine lifestyle—including running a sex-cam business—he seemed an odd fit for the moral strictures of Islam. And he was.
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