Why We Left Islam (20 page)

I am glad they were not interested in my invitations and preaching. Westerners today tend to be so anti-Christian they want to turn to any other faith. Being a simplistic (read: primitive) religion and properly sanitized by deceiving Muslims, they find it appealing to convert to Islam. You particularly find that among non-white people who want to rebel against what they perceive to be an exclusively white religion.

Being an ex-Muslim, one would expect that I have been liberated and that I am living in happiness. You expect me to move on with my life and to put my past life of darkness and ignorance behind.

I truly wish that were the case. Don’t take me wrong. I have never felt more liberated than during the first days during which I felt I no longer feared the fictitious Allah. It’s an amazing feeling to realize that you can think for yourself, and be your own prophet. In fact, allow me to sound boastful when I say that leaving Islam is a powerful intellectual accomplishment. People who have not lived in
Dar Al-Islam
cannot and will not understand the level of indoctrination Muslims undergo for their entire lives. When you don’t train your muscles, you become physically weak. It’s no different with the mind. If you’ve never used your mind but rather simply lived under the culture of submission (“Islam” means “submission,” by the way), your ability to think withers.

Submission to whom? To your parents, to your teachers, to your local
imam
, to your king. Dare not question. Dare not think differently from the majority or you will face ostracism at best and death at worst. (Personally, I would prefer getting killed instead of facing humiliation from a community.)

Yet it is far from over. Being an ex-Muslim is just the beginning. When Neo swallowed the red pill, the movie did not end and we had two (poorly scripted) sequels of
The Matrix
.

The reasons I still seem attached to Islam are numerous. To name a few:

First off, I have to live as a closet apostate. The founder of Islam gave me good reasons fourteen hundred years ago:

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 83, Number 17: The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In
Qisas
for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims. (Repeated in Sahih Muslim.)

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57: Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him. (Repeated here.)

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 58: There was a fettered man beside Abu Muisa. Mu’adh asked, “Who is this (man)?” Abu Muisa said, “He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted back to Judaism.” Then Abu Muisa requested Mu’adh to sit down but Mu’adh said, “I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and His Apostle (for such cases) and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed. (Repeated here, and in Sahih Muslim as well.)

Phew.
Argumentum ad baculum
is definitely not a convincing argument for me to return to Islam, but this seventh-century madman sure did give me good reason to keep my apostasy to myself. I hate it. It seems that I can see the light and the world outside this cage but I still cannot go out and enjoy what life has to give. I still have to pretend I’m a Muslim. I am never at ease with myself when I’m not being myself. I was never a good liar (and that’s a blessing).

I would disagree that I’m safe to practice my faith (or “nonbelief”) in a Western democracy. Unfortunately, it looks more like a
dhimmicracy
to me each day. It frustrates me how the West tries to appease those who hate us and want us converted, subjugated, or killed (I’m looking at you, CAIR).

I want to save the product of Judeo-Christian reform called the West. Many of those born into the West do not appreciate what it means to be born with free will, with guaranteed free speech, and with a separation of the church and state. Coming from the hellhole of Islam, I do, and I intend to preserve it. I will not allow my
children to go through the psychological hell Islamic nations are going through. I will not allow it for your children.

Islam is a dangerous political ideology that separates the world into “us” versus “them,” into Muslim versus
kafir
, into
Dar Al-Islam
versus
Dar Al-Harb
. If there is anything I want you to learn from this boring rant, it’s this: Muslims cannot coexist in peace with non-Muslims. Muslims hate you and will never be pleased with you unless you’re a living Muslim, a humiliated
dhimmi
, or a dead infidel:

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
Qur’an 9:29

When we talk about tolerance, we mean one of two things: Either that Islam will be peaceful only when the whole world becomes Muslim, or that we are tolerant enough to allow Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to live among us as second-class citizens under the
dhimma
treaty.

I want to help my people. They are infected with the illness of Islam and I wish to save them from it. Unfortunately, I need to set my feelings aside and realize that it is unlikely to result in mass apostasy. Educating them into being human beings is slow compared to their high procreation rates, which was also ordered by their Prophet.

The West must, then, learn the truth about Islam so we can ban Muslim immigration and figure out how to handle the Muslim populations already living among us (well, near us—they usually live in ghettos and in closed circles).

Generally, I have been trying to help in other ways that I shall not disclose for obvious safety reasons. However, I have noticed the growth of apostate bloggers lately, and that got me thinking of having a blog for myself in support of those brave brethren. We need to stand together during this difficult time. What better place to do it than on the Internet and in the blogosphere, where the worst that can happen to us is to receive hate mail and death
threats? Thanks to the Internet, the truth will be shown. Muslims can no longer harm us because we use anonymous identities.

I urge all apostates of Islam to open up Web sites and blogs exposing the truth about Islam. In fact, you need not even write about Islam in your blog. Just mention that you are an apostate and write about anything else, be it your job, your dog, your obsession with Ann Coulter (off the top of my head), et cetera. Merely mentioning your apostasy is sufficient to sow the seeds of doubt in Muslims who find apostasy to be as impossible as dividing a number by zero.

Let us stand in solidarity with these fine soldiers!

And say: The truth has come and the falsehood has vanished; surely falsehood is a vanishing (thing).
Qur’an 17:81

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN
I MISSED A PRAYER AND DIDN’T TURN TO STONE

“When I was about ten years old, my father started hauling me along to the annual rites commemorating the seventh-century beheading of Imam Ali’s son Hussein. At first, I was allowed to simply slap my chest during the processions, but by the time I was twelve, I’d graduated to flogging myself with chains.”

W
HILE THE TITLE of this chapter might sound preposterous, such is the level of indoctrination within Islam that Esfahani believed it. Time and time again we hear of indoctrination within Islam that breeds hatred and fear towards any other mindset, including freedom. Today, Esfahani is an apostate yet still has the dilemma of raising his children without faith.

Indeed, for many who leave Islam, it is not just a matter of no longer attending Friday prayer but a total change in their complete way of life. Consequently, those who say goodbye are sometimes left isolated, rejected, and confused. Who can they turn to for support, not only for themselves but also for their families? It is this sad reality that makes these stories all the more compelling.

Esfahani’s message is simple: Far better to raise a family outside of Islam than within it. He is glad he left Islam, and he urges Westerners to look hard at the dangers that come from the religion.

Esfahani’s Testimony

I am a forty-seven-year-old man, married with two teen children. I am originally from Esfahan. My city of origin, Esfahan, is considered one of the most religious cities in Iran. Esfahanis, in general, have been a source of reliance for the Islamic regime of Iran. My city of birth is notorious as the “number one” supplier of martyrs, intelligence agents, torturers, jailers,
mullahs
, and occasionally religious scholars, politicians, and intellectuals since the 1979 revolution. I grew up in such a religious environment in a very typical religious Esfahani family.

I was born in October 1961. I was the third of my parents’ five children. Like most Iranians, we were Shias. We weren’t zealots, but we were one of the more devout families in my neighborhood. My parents’ piety was, for me, the most salient feature of my childhood.

My father made sure that his children performed their daily prayers, and as we got older he saw to it that we observed the fasts of Ramadan. When I was about ten years old, my father started hauling me along to the annual rites commemorating the seventh-century beheading of Imam Ali’s son Hussein. At first, I was allowed to simply slap my chest during the processions, but by the time I was twelve, I’d graduated to flogging myself with chains. A few years later, when I was in high school, I often found myself alone in the school mosque during the noontime prayer. This was the atmosphere in which I spent most of my teen years.

By the late 1970s, dissatisfaction with the Shah was becoming universal. Many Iranians began to openly express their opposition to the Shah and their support for Khomeini. As this wave of opposition swept over Esfahan, I joined the Revolution.

At first, I participated in the actions of groups who opposed the Shah for religious reasons. These groups orchestrated the closing of Esfahan’s schools and prodded businesses in the city’s bazaars to shut down to demonstrate their solidarity. I also joined mobs that vandalized banks and other institutions on which the regime depended.

In the fall of 1978, I had a chance encounter with an older cousin. My cousin was also dedicated to the overthrow of the
Shah, but he belonged to a socialist group whose vision for Iran’s future was quite unlike that pictured by the religious right. We had a long discussion about the Revolution. I remember our conversation and my cousin’s scorn for my religious views.

When my cousin explained his own nonreligious reasons for opposing the Shah, I felt ashamed and foolish. That very day, I made the decision to neglect my evening prayers. As I fell asleep that night, I thought it unlikely that I’d wake the next morning. I expected—as my parents had raised me to expect—that I would be turned to stone.

When I woke up, flesh and blood, the next morning, I abandoned Islam! To this day, after almost thirty years of passage of time, I still feel ambivalent about the suddenness of this transformation. Nevertheless, the change must have been rooted firmly, as I have never been tempted to return to the fold.

How we overthrew the Shah of Iran, what I experienced as a soldier serving in the Iranian army in Mehran during the Iran/Iraq war, how I eventually escaped across the border into Pakistan, taking then a U-turn towards the West all the way into Mexico and across the Rio Grande River into the U.S.A., are all stories unrelated to what has caused me to write to you today. What I have mentioned to you so far is just an overview of what I stand for today and how I got to it.

Today, I have two children. My goal is to be a father who deserves respect and provides guidance. My children often confront me with questions I have a hard time responding to. Before I made a decision to become a father, I thought it would be wise to teach my children to be humans with love, respect, and tolerance for all. My mind was set to raise them free from the tight grasp of all religions with a mind not limited by the threat of the all-mighty God. What I had failed to anticipate was the reality of what our society is made of and how others’ culture and beliefs affect us.

How am I supposed to respond when my children come from school wondering why their classmates have stories about their weekend experience at Senegal, Church, Mosque, and Temple to share with each other while my children don’t even know what these places are for? How do I respond when they ask me, referring
to the Muslims’ Ramadan, the Christians’ Christmas, and the Jews’ Yom Kippur: “Daddy when or what do we celebrate?” How do I explain what “In God We Trust” embroiled on all our monetary notes means? In sum, how do I free my family from the grasp of religion while the Constitution only guarantees the freedom of religion?

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN
BORN INTO ISLAM, RAISED IN THE U.S.

“President Bush and others are dead wrong when they say that Islam is a great and peaceful faith that has been hijacked by a few extremists. In fact, Islam is a vile and violent faith that establishes extremism. . . ”

M
ANY PEOPLE have suggested that the violent strain within Islam is inspired through a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. However, some former Muslims contend that this violent strain is in fact the truest expression of Islam. It is interesting to note that this testimony does not come from the Middle East or an Islamic nation but here in the United States, a place where they feel free to question the notion that Islam is a religion of peace.