LONDON: Michael Jackson is likely to convert to Islam, his brother said in an interview with a British Muslim newspaper.
Jermaine Jackson said his younger brother has shown a strong interest in the faith and has been reading about it, in an interview with The Muslim News, a monthly newspaper.
“I think it is most probable that Michael will convert to Islam,” Jermaine Jackson was quoted as saying.
Jermaine, 52, converted to Islam in 1989 and now lives in Bahrain, where Michael has also recently taken up residence.
“When I came back from Mecca I got him a lot of books and he asked me lots of things about my religion and I told him that it’s peaceful and beautiful,” Jermaine Jackson was quoted as saying.
“He read everything and he was proud of me that I found something that would give me inner strength and peace,” he said.
Michael used bodyguards from the Nation of Islam, a militant U.S. black empowerment group, during his prosecution on child molestation charges in 2005. The pop star was later acquitted.
Jermaine, a singer and bassist, appeared on the British reality television show “Celebrity Big Brother” last month and is now developing a musical about the Jackson Five.