from wikiislam
My Testimony of Leaving Islam
I was tired of living a lie - of pretending to be straight, of praying and reading the Quran in Arabic; a language I didn't understand. Tired of being offered bribes by my mother to pray, just so that SHE can go to heaven, tired of being part of a group of people who seem to be saying and doing things that even they don't fully understand; of being pressured to believe in things or explanations that just doesn't make any sense. I was just tired of being herded around like a flock of dumb sheep.
While I respect the idea that religion might be good for some people, I don't think that religion is for everyone. In a lot of instances, religion seems to be the root cause for hatred, bigotry, war, and human atrocities. People can have their religion as long as they don't shove in my face,
December 20, 2009
December 18, 2009
Suman Turhan (former Muslim)
from wikiislam
My Unbelief
[edit] Part 1
I was born in a typical Muslim family in Moulvibazar, Bangladesh. In 1984, the year of my birth, Bangladesh was passing a critical stage of her history. Olive colored darkness spread all over the country and everyone was living under the shadow of a terrible military dictatorship.
As a Muslim boy, I learned the Quran in my early childhood. The local cleric used to come to our house and teach the Quran. I used to recite the verses as he instructed and I managed to finish the entire Quran twice before my 12th birthday. My parents were very religious, practicing Muslims. Although I never felt like, I had to pray regularly to please my father, I can’t recall whether I ever really prayed to please Allah.
This was my childhood, very typical and very ordinary until I turned 15. I was the 1st boy of the Moulvibazar Government High School. My parents loved me, my teachers loved me, and friends admired me because I was a good student.Suddenly though, something changed radically and I fell in love with poetry and books. I started to read all the classical poets, romantics, and modern poets of Bengali literature. I was always a bookworm, but my parents didn't allow me to read anything other than the boring textbooks that mostly contained artless, and lowly language of poetry. Despite my father’s repeated warnings, I started to buy books by the writers that fascinated me - I used my scholarship money. My world of beliefs and traditions began to fall apart.
[edit] Part 2
In Moulvibazar, a tiny bookshop named "Utsarga" (Offering), changed my life significantly. Soumitra Dev, a famous and talented poet of the 1990's was the owner of that shop. During my study during year 8 in Moulvibazar Government High School, I became a frequent visitor to that shop during my lunch break. The shop was close to my school. Not only the personality of Soumitra Dev, but also the books attracted me so much so that I started to skip my classes to spend time with him to discuss poetry, literature, religion and politics etc. Soumitra Dev became my personal guru and I started to dislike my traditional teachers, as they couldn't fulfill my thirst of knowledge. Soumitra became my friend, philosopher and guide.
Since then, I started to write seriously. My poetry and literary criticism started to appear all over the country; even in India. It was too much for a small country town to digest. My parents became worried; they thought I was doing too much for my age. My teachers started to complain about my absence. In the meantime, I was arranging poetry festivals, publishing and editing little magazines and above all, buying and reading more and more books and enriching myself.
I first started to doubt religion when I looked for the answer to a thousand year old question: "where we have come from"? My biology book gave me the answer based on Evolution by Natural Selection - along with significant proofs. However, my Islamic studies textbook told me a completely different story. To find the answer, I started to read Gita, MahaVarat, Ramayana, the Bible and the Quran - all in Bengali. I read the Quran over and over again and couldn’t believe what I was reading. I started to mark the questionable verses and wrote comments beside them. These versus full of hate are being spread and preached every Friday in all corners of my town? I was completely dumbstruck. Initially I thought it was a problem with the translation I was reading, but I collected many different translations of the Quran, and very reputable Islamic scholars have translated some of them. My world of beautiful beliefs turned out to be full of lies, ignorance and hate verses. I started to understand the true nature of Islam.
Where was the God (Whoever he his supposed to be up there) when the Nazi army in death chambers killed millions? Or where was our all-merciful Allah during the 1971 massacre? How can he ignore the cry of millions in Africa today? I realized there is no one up there, and there never was.
[edit] Part 3
I collected books by Araj Ali Matubbar, Probir Gosh, Vobaniprasad Sahu, Joyantanuj, Bertrand Russell, Ahmed Sherif and many other writers. But it was the book “Amar Obishwas” (My Unbelief) by Humayun Azad that gave me true insight about religions and how they evolved. I realized religions are not divine - they were created and proposed by humans, partly because of their ignorance about natural events, but mostly to establish a certain social system and to chain everyone within that system. There is no God or Allah, no one kicked out my ancestors from the garden of heaven. The history of religion is only 5000 years old, but human beings have developed through the passage of millions of years and we, modern humans, are the excellence of evolution and so are the other species. There is no afterlife. Life itself is meaningless, and life is beautiful and precious because it is meaningless. I realized Islam is the preacher of death and thus it is the enemy of life. All those verses in Holy Scriptures are completely absurd; they are the greatest example of our ancestor’s ignorance and they are full of countless lies . Nothing is divine, nothing is everlasting, and everything is meaningless; there is no judgment day, no heaven or hell. But I also realized that we can make our lives meaningful, and we can make ourselves humanly divine’ by practicing humanity and morality. This morality has to come from someone’s instinct and common sense and certainly not from a ‘Holy Book’ proposed by a killer prophet 1400 years ago.
I became addicted to the books of Humayun Azad. I read all of Humayun Azad’s writings in quick succession and it influenced me so heavily that I started to write and talk like him. My prose was so influenced by Dr. Azad that even Soumitra Dev sometimes got confused whether it was my work or Dr. Azad’s. I became a fanatic fan of Dr. Azad and no one ever dared to say anything bad about him in my presence. My very first little magazine ‘Khatrio’ was dedicated to Humayun Azad. We first met when Humayun Azad came to Moulvibazar to inaugurate the ‘Monipuri Ras Purnima’; a yearly tribal festival for commemorating the Radha-Krishna legend. Dr. Azad was surprised when I claimed that I have read all his books at my age. To further his astonishment, I remember telling him: “Sir, your novel ‘Suvhabrata, and gospel was actually based on the life of Muhammad. If you would have used Semitic names for the characters instead of the Indian ones, I am sure you would become world famous like Salman Rushdie.” Humayun Azad admired my ability of understanding metaphor. That was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Although, it was Soumitra Dev who first lit the candle inside me, it was Humayun Azad who influenced and fascinated me most.
At home, I completely stopped praying, fasting and going to mosques because all these appeared stupid and ridiculous to me. My parents noticed the change. They discovered the books I was reading and couldn’t accept a year 10 student was reading all these. I refused to go to Eid prayer, and my father was so angry that he burned most of my books in the roof. He said I should not see that “Malaun” (Filthy Hindu) librarian again. I didn’t listen to him and I met Soumitra Dev at the very first chance I got. I didn’t realize my father was following me. He verbally insulted Soumitra for ‘spoiling’ me with all those infidels’ books. He also went to Soumitra’s home, complained and insulted his mother and accused her of intentionally driving her son to spoil a ‘Muslim’ student.
This was the most terrible time of my life. I was locked in my home. When I went to school, my father’s spies were always following me. I couldn’t see Soumitra or collect any books for the rest of the year. Later on, we used to avoid the bookshop and meet in secret places.
[edit] Part 4
In 1999, when I was the student in year 10, the headmaster assigned me as the editor of the School Magazine. This offer came to as a welcome relief at that terrible time. I started to collect writings from students and teachers. The Magazine was published. It was the most enriching publication in the history of our school. Then something happened which forever changed my life and my way of thinking; my teachers accused me of blasphemy. It was one of my poems in the magazine that raised questions among them. The poem was:
‘Moulobadi Toskorera Bostuto Nosshor
Januk tara kobi-i holen oditio isshor’
(Translation: "Bigots are basically mortal, but a poet is like the God - immortal")
All of my Muslim teachers became very angry. The Hindu teachers remained silent for understandable reasons. The teacher of Islamic Studies - Sahidullah Sir - started to beat me with a cane like a mad person.
In the afternoon all the teachers held a meeting. I was standing quietly in the corner of the room accused of blasphemy. Some teachers said: “You are a shame of this institution; therefore, you should be permanently expelled from the school.” The mullah teacher said, “How could you write something like this? You were born in a Muslim family!” Others said: “You didn’t write the poem; it was the Hindu Soumitra who wrote it for you.” I just said: “If our national poet could write – ‘jagadisshor isshor ami purusuttom sotto’ (“I am the God of this universe, I am the man, I am the truth!”) then why can’t I?” They didn’t accept my logic. The Headmaster said, “You have to buy loads of correction fluid and delete those two lines from the 10,000 copies of the magazine. We will only circulate the copies once you are done. You are not allowed to attend classes until you finish. From now on you will come to school at 10 am and continue with correction until 4pm”. I did so for more than two weeks. For more than two weeks I went to school, sat in the floor of the headmaster’s office and deleted my starry verses with the correction liquid.
After I finished all 10,000 copies, I was allowed to join the class just prior to my test exam. The magazines were circulated all over town. That was the most monumental event of my life. Hundreds of people who admired me for my free speech and cultural activities started to show me support. They scratched and removed the white layer of the correction liquid and read my poem. Local newspapers condemned the school authority for their action. Poet Soumitra Dev wrote his famous poem “Kalo Kobita” (Black Verse) in his book “Bon Porjotok” (Forest wonderer):
Translation
“Black and white always want to stay together. That's why the boy wrote the black verse in the white page. The poem eventually appeared in his school magazine.
But the fanatics at school were not ready for this. The cleric said, “ We do not understand the meaning of your poem. Therefore, O boy, you are guilty of blasphemy!”
Then the White terrorism came down on him. With the help of the correction liquid, He had to wipe out the starry verses he wrote. In the meantime, as none noticed, the boy wiped tears from his eyes.
Surprise! Defeating the barriers of white fluid, those unbeatable verses started to appear
everywhere. And, everyone saw the black minds of the white clad clerics.”
Black Verse by Soumitra Dev
During the farewell ceremony of SSC students I delivered a fiery speech in front of all the teachers. At the end of the ceremony, I refused to join the prayer led by one of the fundamentalist teachers. When everyone stood up to join the prayer I remained seated.
Although this event made me instantly famous, it affected my traditional studies. I was expected to achieve a place on the merit list, but I only managed to get a 76% mark in my SSC exam in the year 2000. Ironically, my first collection of poetry got published by Sarabanjon, Aziz market Dhaka on the very day (11 June 2000) when my SSC results were published. The book was titled “aai pakhir probaha, aai rituboti megh” (This flow of birds, this seasonal cloud). An Islamic organization named ‘ Hilful Fujul Poronjoy’ declared a few freethinkers of the town including Soumitra Dev and me as ‘Nastik-Murtad’ (Apostate-infidel) and demanded exemplary punishment. They pointed out one of the poems from my books:
Murkhotar Dhormo Tontro konokale hobe nako joi-i
Mohabissho chirokali kobider proti muhomoi-i
("The stupidity of the religion will never win over us, As the poets are blessed in this universe”)
E metal jane feraun chilo thik
Meyemosader kore ene tai vara
Sinai pahare allahr protirudh
Sob matha noto sudhu ekjon chara
Bidrohi field marshal nomrud.
Solomon ar Judaser moto Dugdho
Pan kore nil, amio korchi ukti
Tomar viruta dekhei hoechi mughdo
Please Allah eibar dao mukti
(“This drunker knows, The Pharaoh was the man!
So Allah hired the female mosquitoes
And faced his enemies in Sinai Mountain
Everyone have collapsed, except one
The field Marshal himself, rebel Nimrod.
I drank just like Solomon and Judas
And I am saying in cool brain
I am sick of your coward ness
For God’s sake, O God, Give us a break!”)
A vicious retaliatory attack was followed by a death threat. A group of young fundamentalists in Motorbike attacked me on a dark night behind the quiet street of Moulvibazar Government College as I was returning home after visiting a friend. The three attackers laid me on the ground and tried to cut a vein in my left hand with a sharp paper-cutting knife (Anti- cutter).I managed to shout out and students from College Boarding ran over to rescue me. The attackers eventually fled and the rescuers took me to their hostel and gave me first aid. No serious damage was done. I am still not sure why they attacked my left hand first, as I am right-handed writer. However, The marks in my left hand are still visible.
After the incident, I realized that it is not safe for me to stay in the town. Since passing the SSC, I was thinking about going to India for HSC, as I disliked Dhaka and didn’t want to go there. I got admitted in St. Edmund’s College in Shillong, India. Even in Shillong, Bangladeshi students beat me at my hostel for calling Muhammad a ‘liar’. They beat me with chairs and cricket stumps. I didn’t share this horrifying experience with anyone except Dilip Lahiri; my Bengali teacher at St. Edmund’s College. However I managed to pass my HSC in 2002 and in 2003 I came to Australia. Last year I went to Bangladesh in order to marry my childhood sweetheart - a girl from Kushtia. She eloped with me and we eventually got married on the 5th of December, 2005. Our parents didn’t accept our union for no apparent reason. (I Probably shouldn’t have told them that I didn’t recite those meaningless Arabic verses during my marriage!).
[edit] Part 5
Life is not easy for freethinker and for someone who breaks with tradition. But somebody has to stand up and point out the cruelty and ignorance that religions have offered us. One doesn’t have to be a scholar to become a believer. Any idiot can follow tradition. But it takes knowledge and courage to ask the questions and to find and accept the answers. I left Islam because it is the most violent and aggressive of all religions. I consider myself as a human being and I choose ‘humanism’ as my one and only virtue. I am grateful to all those freethinkers and writers who helped to make my decision to leave Islam. Now I know that I am a human being. I was born due to one course of natural activities and I will die due to another course of natural activities. I found all my answers in science and rationalism; not in a 1400 year old so-called holy book, full of ignorance and violence.
Darkness and religious beliefs goes hand in hand. But it is my unbelief which led me to the path of brightness, knowledge, and humanity.
My Unbelief
[edit] Part 1
I was born in a typical Muslim family in Moulvibazar, Bangladesh. In 1984, the year of my birth, Bangladesh was passing a critical stage of her history. Olive colored darkness spread all over the country and everyone was living under the shadow of a terrible military dictatorship.
As a Muslim boy, I learned the Quran in my early childhood. The local cleric used to come to our house and teach the Quran. I used to recite the verses as he instructed and I managed to finish the entire Quran twice before my 12th birthday. My parents were very religious, practicing Muslims. Although I never felt like, I had to pray regularly to please my father, I can’t recall whether I ever really prayed to please Allah.
This was my childhood, very typical and very ordinary until I turned 15. I was the 1st boy of the Moulvibazar Government High School. My parents loved me, my teachers loved me, and friends admired me because I was a good student.Suddenly though, something changed radically and I fell in love with poetry and books. I started to read all the classical poets, romantics, and modern poets of Bengali literature. I was always a bookworm, but my parents didn't allow me to read anything other than the boring textbooks that mostly contained artless, and lowly language of poetry. Despite my father’s repeated warnings, I started to buy books by the writers that fascinated me - I used my scholarship money. My world of beliefs and traditions began to fall apart.
[edit] Part 2
In Moulvibazar, a tiny bookshop named "Utsarga" (Offering), changed my life significantly. Soumitra Dev, a famous and talented poet of the 1990's was the owner of that shop. During my study during year 8 in Moulvibazar Government High School, I became a frequent visitor to that shop during my lunch break. The shop was close to my school. Not only the personality of Soumitra Dev, but also the books attracted me so much so that I started to skip my classes to spend time with him to discuss poetry, literature, religion and politics etc. Soumitra Dev became my personal guru and I started to dislike my traditional teachers, as they couldn't fulfill my thirst of knowledge. Soumitra became my friend, philosopher and guide.
Since then, I started to write seriously. My poetry and literary criticism started to appear all over the country; even in India. It was too much for a small country town to digest. My parents became worried; they thought I was doing too much for my age. My teachers started to complain about my absence. In the meantime, I was arranging poetry festivals, publishing and editing little magazines and above all, buying and reading more and more books and enriching myself.
I first started to doubt religion when I looked for the answer to a thousand year old question: "where we have come from"? My biology book gave me the answer based on Evolution by Natural Selection - along with significant proofs. However, my Islamic studies textbook told me a completely different story. To find the answer, I started to read Gita, MahaVarat, Ramayana, the Bible and the Quran - all in Bengali. I read the Quran over and over again and couldn’t believe what I was reading. I started to mark the questionable verses and wrote comments beside them. These versus full of hate are being spread and preached every Friday in all corners of my town? I was completely dumbstruck. Initially I thought it was a problem with the translation I was reading, but I collected many different translations of the Quran, and very reputable Islamic scholars have translated some of them. My world of beautiful beliefs turned out to be full of lies, ignorance and hate verses. I started to understand the true nature of Islam.
Where was the God (Whoever he his supposed to be up there) when the Nazi army in death chambers killed millions? Or where was our all-merciful Allah during the 1971 massacre? How can he ignore the cry of millions in Africa today? I realized there is no one up there, and there never was.
[edit] Part 3
I collected books by Araj Ali Matubbar, Probir Gosh, Vobaniprasad Sahu, Joyantanuj, Bertrand Russell, Ahmed Sherif and many other writers. But it was the book “Amar Obishwas” (My Unbelief) by Humayun Azad that gave me true insight about religions and how they evolved. I realized religions are not divine - they were created and proposed by humans, partly because of their ignorance about natural events, but mostly to establish a certain social system and to chain everyone within that system. There is no God or Allah, no one kicked out my ancestors from the garden of heaven. The history of religion is only 5000 years old, but human beings have developed through the passage of millions of years and we, modern humans, are the excellence of evolution and so are the other species. There is no afterlife. Life itself is meaningless, and life is beautiful and precious because it is meaningless. I realized Islam is the preacher of death and thus it is the enemy of life. All those verses in Holy Scriptures are completely absurd; they are the greatest example of our ancestor’s ignorance and they are full of countless lies . Nothing is divine, nothing is everlasting, and everything is meaningless; there is no judgment day, no heaven or hell. But I also realized that we can make our lives meaningful, and we can make ourselves humanly divine’ by practicing humanity and morality. This morality has to come from someone’s instinct and common sense and certainly not from a ‘Holy Book’ proposed by a killer prophet 1400 years ago.
I became addicted to the books of Humayun Azad. I read all of Humayun Azad’s writings in quick succession and it influenced me so heavily that I started to write and talk like him. My prose was so influenced by Dr. Azad that even Soumitra Dev sometimes got confused whether it was my work or Dr. Azad’s. I became a fanatic fan of Dr. Azad and no one ever dared to say anything bad about him in my presence. My very first little magazine ‘Khatrio’ was dedicated to Humayun Azad. We first met when Humayun Azad came to Moulvibazar to inaugurate the ‘Monipuri Ras Purnima’; a yearly tribal festival for commemorating the Radha-Krishna legend. Dr. Azad was surprised when I claimed that I have read all his books at my age. To further his astonishment, I remember telling him: “Sir, your novel ‘Suvhabrata, and gospel was actually based on the life of Muhammad. If you would have used Semitic names for the characters instead of the Indian ones, I am sure you would become world famous like Salman Rushdie.” Humayun Azad admired my ability of understanding metaphor. That was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Although, it was Soumitra Dev who first lit the candle inside me, it was Humayun Azad who influenced and fascinated me most.
At home, I completely stopped praying, fasting and going to mosques because all these appeared stupid and ridiculous to me. My parents noticed the change. They discovered the books I was reading and couldn’t accept a year 10 student was reading all these. I refused to go to Eid prayer, and my father was so angry that he burned most of my books in the roof. He said I should not see that “Malaun” (Filthy Hindu) librarian again. I didn’t listen to him and I met Soumitra Dev at the very first chance I got. I didn’t realize my father was following me. He verbally insulted Soumitra for ‘spoiling’ me with all those infidels’ books. He also went to Soumitra’s home, complained and insulted his mother and accused her of intentionally driving her son to spoil a ‘Muslim’ student.
This was the most terrible time of my life. I was locked in my home. When I went to school, my father’s spies were always following me. I couldn’t see Soumitra or collect any books for the rest of the year. Later on, we used to avoid the bookshop and meet in secret places.
[edit] Part 4
In 1999, when I was the student in year 10, the headmaster assigned me as the editor of the School Magazine. This offer came to as a welcome relief at that terrible time. I started to collect writings from students and teachers. The Magazine was published. It was the most enriching publication in the history of our school. Then something happened which forever changed my life and my way of thinking; my teachers accused me of blasphemy. It was one of my poems in the magazine that raised questions among them. The poem was:
‘Moulobadi Toskorera Bostuto Nosshor
Januk tara kobi-i holen oditio isshor’
(Translation: "Bigots are basically mortal, but a poet is like the God - immortal")
All of my Muslim teachers became very angry. The Hindu teachers remained silent for understandable reasons. The teacher of Islamic Studies - Sahidullah Sir - started to beat me with a cane like a mad person.
In the afternoon all the teachers held a meeting. I was standing quietly in the corner of the room accused of blasphemy. Some teachers said: “You are a shame of this institution; therefore, you should be permanently expelled from the school.” The mullah teacher said, “How could you write something like this? You were born in a Muslim family!” Others said: “You didn’t write the poem; it was the Hindu Soumitra who wrote it for you.” I just said: “If our national poet could write – ‘jagadisshor isshor ami purusuttom sotto’ (“I am the God of this universe, I am the man, I am the truth!”) then why can’t I?” They didn’t accept my logic. The Headmaster said, “You have to buy loads of correction fluid and delete those two lines from the 10,000 copies of the magazine. We will only circulate the copies once you are done. You are not allowed to attend classes until you finish. From now on you will come to school at 10 am and continue with correction until 4pm”. I did so for more than two weeks. For more than two weeks I went to school, sat in the floor of the headmaster’s office and deleted my starry verses with the correction liquid.
After I finished all 10,000 copies, I was allowed to join the class just prior to my test exam. The magazines were circulated all over town. That was the most monumental event of my life. Hundreds of people who admired me for my free speech and cultural activities started to show me support. They scratched and removed the white layer of the correction liquid and read my poem. Local newspapers condemned the school authority for their action. Poet Soumitra Dev wrote his famous poem “Kalo Kobita” (Black Verse) in his book “Bon Porjotok” (Forest wonderer):
Translation
“Black and white always want to stay together. That's why the boy wrote the black verse in the white page. The poem eventually appeared in his school magazine.
But the fanatics at school were not ready for this. The cleric said, “ We do not understand the meaning of your poem. Therefore, O boy, you are guilty of blasphemy!”
Then the White terrorism came down on him. With the help of the correction liquid, He had to wipe out the starry verses he wrote. In the meantime, as none noticed, the boy wiped tears from his eyes.
Surprise! Defeating the barriers of white fluid, those unbeatable verses started to appear
everywhere. And, everyone saw the black minds of the white clad clerics.”
Black Verse by Soumitra Dev
During the farewell ceremony of SSC students I delivered a fiery speech in front of all the teachers. At the end of the ceremony, I refused to join the prayer led by one of the fundamentalist teachers. When everyone stood up to join the prayer I remained seated.
Although this event made me instantly famous, it affected my traditional studies. I was expected to achieve a place on the merit list, but I only managed to get a 76% mark in my SSC exam in the year 2000. Ironically, my first collection of poetry got published by Sarabanjon, Aziz market Dhaka on the very day (11 June 2000) when my SSC results were published. The book was titled “aai pakhir probaha, aai rituboti megh” (This flow of birds, this seasonal cloud). An Islamic organization named ‘ Hilful Fujul Poronjoy’ declared a few freethinkers of the town including Soumitra Dev and me as ‘Nastik-Murtad’ (Apostate-infidel) and demanded exemplary punishment. They pointed out one of the poems from my books:
Murkhotar Dhormo Tontro konokale hobe nako joi-i
Mohabissho chirokali kobider proti muhomoi-i
("The stupidity of the religion will never win over us, As the poets are blessed in this universe”)
E metal jane feraun chilo thik
Meyemosader kore ene tai vara
Sinai pahare allahr protirudh
Sob matha noto sudhu ekjon chara
Bidrohi field marshal nomrud.
Solomon ar Judaser moto Dugdho
Pan kore nil, amio korchi ukti
Tomar viruta dekhei hoechi mughdo
Please Allah eibar dao mukti
(“This drunker knows, The Pharaoh was the man!
So Allah hired the female mosquitoes
And faced his enemies in Sinai Mountain
Everyone have collapsed, except one
The field Marshal himself, rebel Nimrod.
I drank just like Solomon and Judas
And I am saying in cool brain
I am sick of your coward ness
For God’s sake, O God, Give us a break!”)
A vicious retaliatory attack was followed by a death threat. A group of young fundamentalists in Motorbike attacked me on a dark night behind the quiet street of Moulvibazar Government College as I was returning home after visiting a friend. The three attackers laid me on the ground and tried to cut a vein in my left hand with a sharp paper-cutting knife (Anti- cutter).I managed to shout out and students from College Boarding ran over to rescue me. The attackers eventually fled and the rescuers took me to their hostel and gave me first aid. No serious damage was done. I am still not sure why they attacked my left hand first, as I am right-handed writer. However, The marks in my left hand are still visible.
After the incident, I realized that it is not safe for me to stay in the town. Since passing the SSC, I was thinking about going to India for HSC, as I disliked Dhaka and didn’t want to go there. I got admitted in St. Edmund’s College in Shillong, India. Even in Shillong, Bangladeshi students beat me at my hostel for calling Muhammad a ‘liar’. They beat me with chairs and cricket stumps. I didn’t share this horrifying experience with anyone except Dilip Lahiri; my Bengali teacher at St. Edmund’s College. However I managed to pass my HSC in 2002 and in 2003 I came to Australia. Last year I went to Bangladesh in order to marry my childhood sweetheart - a girl from Kushtia. She eloped with me and we eventually got married on the 5th of December, 2005. Our parents didn’t accept our union for no apparent reason. (I Probably shouldn’t have told them that I didn’t recite those meaningless Arabic verses during my marriage!).
[edit] Part 5
Life is not easy for freethinker and for someone who breaks with tradition. But somebody has to stand up and point out the cruelty and ignorance that religions have offered us. One doesn’t have to be a scholar to become a believer. Any idiot can follow tradition. But it takes knowledge and courage to ask the questions and to find and accept the answers. I left Islam because it is the most violent and aggressive of all religions. I consider myself as a human being and I choose ‘humanism’ as my one and only virtue. I am grateful to all those freethinkers and writers who helped to make my decision to leave Islam. Now I know that I am a human being. I was born due to one course of natural activities and I will die due to another course of natural activities. I found all my answers in science and rationalism; not in a 1400 year old so-called holy book, full of ignorance and violence.
Darkness and religious beliefs goes hand in hand. But it is my unbelief which led me to the path of brightness, knowledge, and humanity.
December 16, 2009
Arslan Shaukat (former Muslim) Pakistan
from wikiislam
Testimony of Leaving Islam
I am Arslan, a medical scientist, ex-Muslim, hardline atheist and an anti-theist. Currently I am in UK.
I left Islam when I had the opportunity to study about Islam, its history, the life of its founder.
It's a wonder as to why so many people hold allegiance to this ideology, whose founder actively took part in dozens of wars, ordered assassinations, delved in booty looting, had nearly a dozen wives (including a six year old and the wife of his foster son), and who was simply an average seventh-century warlord.
It's, in fact, a wonder.
One doesn’t even have to delve very deep. The truth about Islam is manifest.
I am at peace after leaving it. But I do fear for my future prospects as I am a Pakistani citizen and my life will be in clear and present danger in my country.
But I am a non-conformist, an idealist, and I always speak out against Islam.
That's the fate that awaits people like me, who are unfortunate enough to be nationals of a country where blasphemy is punishable by death.
(The recent Gojra incident, where, over a rumored blasphemy charge, seven Christians were burned alive, is one example.)
I have been an active member of Leeds Atheist Society, and have participated in debates and presentations about Islam. I have actively debated with Muslims and tried to reason with them, and, to my surprise, I was able to convince one girl to rethink about her religion.
I have already received death threats from a few Muslim fanatics here in United Kingdom, albeit in a very concealed and subtle way, as they know that here law actually is functional.
But I do wonder about my fate in my home country.
But to live the life as a hypocrite and feigning to be a Muslim is something I am unable to do.
One can be a hypocrite, but for one day or one week, not whole life. Never!
We must speak out. It’s our sovereign right. We must speak out no matter what.
Peace
Arslan
Proud ex-Muslim.
Testimony of Leaving Islam
I am Arslan, a medical scientist, ex-Muslim, hardline atheist and an anti-theist. Currently I am in UK.
I left Islam when I had the opportunity to study about Islam, its history, the life of its founder.
It's a wonder as to why so many people hold allegiance to this ideology, whose founder actively took part in dozens of wars, ordered assassinations, delved in booty looting, had nearly a dozen wives (including a six year old and the wife of his foster son), and who was simply an average seventh-century warlord.
It's, in fact, a wonder.
One doesn’t even have to delve very deep. The truth about Islam is manifest.
I am at peace after leaving it. But I do fear for my future prospects as I am a Pakistani citizen and my life will be in clear and present danger in my country.
But I am a non-conformist, an idealist, and I always speak out against Islam.
That's the fate that awaits people like me, who are unfortunate enough to be nationals of a country where blasphemy is punishable by death.
(The recent Gojra incident, where, over a rumored blasphemy charge, seven Christians were burned alive, is one example.)
I have been an active member of Leeds Atheist Society, and have participated in debates and presentations about Islam. I have actively debated with Muslims and tried to reason with them, and, to my surprise, I was able to convince one girl to rethink about her religion.
I have already received death threats from a few Muslim fanatics here in United Kingdom, albeit in a very concealed and subtle way, as they know that here law actually is functional.
But I do wonder about my fate in my home country.
But to live the life as a hypocrite and feigning to be a Muslim is something I am unable to do.
One can be a hypocrite, but for one day or one week, not whole life. Never!
We must speak out. It’s our sovereign right. We must speak out no matter what.
Peace
Arslan
Proud ex-Muslim.
December 14, 2009
Peacebeuponme (former Muslim) UK
from wikiislam
Testimony of Leaving Islam
Hi
I have always had a nagging doubt about Islam and religion in general. When I was young, I asked my Aunty if my friends who were non-muslims, would all go to hell as they were not Muslim? This is what I was taught in Arabic class. After a moments thought, the answer was Yes. Also, I am left handed and I used to get scorned whenever I ate with my left hand because that's the part the devil has control over!! There were many other questions that I asked which I couldn't get answered satisfactorily.
Since then I have never felt religious as I was never satisfied with the logic. I went to Umrah with the family a few years ago with the family but never at any point felt spiritual.
I have researched Islam in detail and find it painfully obvious how false it all is. I'm glad I left at a young age (22) but unfortunately I have to live under the facade of being a Muslim man. Day to day, I come into contact with Muslims all day and I see how submerged they are with the religion and how much theirs lives have been affected due to the actions of one man, Muhammad.
Peace out
Testimony of Leaving Islam
Hi
I have always had a nagging doubt about Islam and religion in general. When I was young, I asked my Aunty if my friends who were non-muslims, would all go to hell as they were not Muslim? This is what I was taught in Arabic class. After a moments thought, the answer was Yes. Also, I am left handed and I used to get scorned whenever I ate with my left hand because that's the part the devil has control over!! There were many other questions that I asked which I couldn't get answered satisfactorily.
Since then I have never felt religious as I was never satisfied with the logic. I went to Umrah with the family a few years ago with the family but never at any point felt spiritual.
I have researched Islam in detail and find it painfully obvious how false it all is. I'm glad I left at a young age (22) but unfortunately I have to live under the facade of being a Muslim man. Day to day, I come into contact with Muslims all day and I see how submerged they are with the religion and how much theirs lives have been affected due to the actions of one man, Muhammad.
Peace out
December 13, 2009
Raza Pehlavi (former Muslim)
from wikiislam
Testimony of Leaving Islam
Dear Sir, I am writing my testimony of leaving Islam as follows:
Introduction:
I am a born Muslim belonging to Shia faith of Islam . My age is XX years. I am an educated person doing a job in a multinational company in XXX, XXX. I am from a middle class back ground. My father worked throughout his life and my mother is a housewife. I have X brothers and X sisters. We all have a good education thanks to my fathers burning ambition for us to be highly qualified. I am a XXX by profession. Raza is not my real name for obvious reasons.
Leaving Islam/any religion:
Since my childhood, I have been an accommodative and compassionate person towards all human beings irrespective of their religion, caste and color. I never liked compartmentalizing humanity. For the last eleven months, I have been avid visitor of faithfreedom.org which has given an independent platform for forming my own opinions about religion/faith etc. I have not been particularly religious all through my life; however, there were spurts in last 10-12 years when I tried to be a reasonably religious person. However, as far as I remember, there were few questions which were always in my mind since my teen years which never allowed me to reconcile the theology with rationality. For example:
1.Why all the big inventions have been made in last 50-60 years and not in the era of magnificent Mohammed?
2.Why did God rescind His own scriptures and came up with new revelations as if He acquired some new knowledge about humanity afterwards!
3.When Allah is indifferent, why would He punish us for not offering prayers?
4.Why doesn't the Quran (word of God) have any specific remedy for fatal diseases? Why do we have to rush to science to find a cure?
5.Why is life in Heaven is so bloody Earthly?
6.How come 'might is right' only? No miracles from God for poor and wretched.
7.Why did Muhammad condemn apostates to death? WHY?
8.Why does God curse we petty humans in the Quran?
Similar questions never allowed me to be a perfect zombie all throughout my life, despite my attempts. A very shocking thing for me is marital profile of Mohammad with Aisha. I read the debate of Sina with Muntazari. The weak arguments of Muntazari convinced me of pedophilic behavior of Mohammad. Secondly, the issue of bounty and slaves seems also very strange and indecent! This is all a power game after all. Somebody rightly said: 'life is short , nasty and brutish.'
Then I decided to discuss it with my father who had at least a heart big enough to give me a patient audience. He understood what I was telling him but did not leave Islam. I think he is happy in his own way, as he has his own filtered version of religion which comprises of all the upright traits and a few healthy rituals. We concluded our debate with a resolution that Islam is a mixed bag - choose only the right things from this bag. Moreover, I don’t have any right to shatter the life of anyone if he is leading a righteous life even with the crutches of religion. However, I have probably seen too much light and am in the process to of absorbing this light.
After leaving this cultish mentality, I feel myself as newborn from intellectual point of view. I am clearer in my thinking and approach. I am not biased against women and I really like women to smile , work and enjoy their lives. I don’t want to treat non-Muslims as my enemies. I think we all are one large family. Religious divide is one big time perception fraud created in every era of human history. What matters is spirituality which has got nothing to do with religiosity. Sprituality is purity of heart. I hope to attain this goal of spirituality without making any shadow from the past as my alibi.
Regarding after death , my view is ( hopefully) that we will sleep forever but our good deeds will blossom after us and will create a legacy of happiness and prosperity.
I hope we humans would start using our brains as soon as possible. The most important virtue / attribute in my view is to do good without expectation of any reward ( Heaven etc) and desist from evil without fear of Hell.
Testimony of Leaving Islam
Dear Sir, I am writing my testimony of leaving Islam as follows:
Introduction:
I am a born Muslim belonging to Shia faith of Islam . My age is XX years. I am an educated person doing a job in a multinational company in XXX, XXX. I am from a middle class back ground. My father worked throughout his life and my mother is a housewife. I have X brothers and X sisters. We all have a good education thanks to my fathers burning ambition for us to be highly qualified. I am a XXX by profession. Raza is not my real name for obvious reasons.
Leaving Islam/any religion:
Since my childhood, I have been an accommodative and compassionate person towards all human beings irrespective of their religion, caste and color. I never liked compartmentalizing humanity. For the last eleven months, I have been avid visitor of faithfreedom.org which has given an independent platform for forming my own opinions about religion/faith etc. I have not been particularly religious all through my life; however, there were spurts in last 10-12 years when I tried to be a reasonably religious person. However, as far as I remember, there were few questions which were always in my mind since my teen years which never allowed me to reconcile the theology with rationality. For example:
1.Why all the big inventions have been made in last 50-60 years and not in the era of magnificent Mohammed?
2.Why did God rescind His own scriptures and came up with new revelations as if He acquired some new knowledge about humanity afterwards!
3.When Allah is indifferent, why would He punish us for not offering prayers?
4.Why doesn't the Quran (word of God) have any specific remedy for fatal diseases? Why do we have to rush to science to find a cure?
5.Why is life in Heaven is so bloody Earthly?
6.How come 'might is right' only? No miracles from God for poor and wretched.
7.Why did Muhammad condemn apostates to death? WHY?
8.Why does God curse we petty humans in the Quran?
Similar questions never allowed me to be a perfect zombie all throughout my life, despite my attempts. A very shocking thing for me is marital profile of Mohammad with Aisha. I read the debate of Sina with Muntazari. The weak arguments of Muntazari convinced me of pedophilic behavior of Mohammad. Secondly, the issue of bounty and slaves seems also very strange and indecent! This is all a power game after all. Somebody rightly said: 'life is short , nasty and brutish.'
Then I decided to discuss it with my father who had at least a heart big enough to give me a patient audience. He understood what I was telling him but did not leave Islam. I think he is happy in his own way, as he has his own filtered version of religion which comprises of all the upright traits and a few healthy rituals. We concluded our debate with a resolution that Islam is a mixed bag - choose only the right things from this bag. Moreover, I don’t have any right to shatter the life of anyone if he is leading a righteous life even with the crutches of religion. However, I have probably seen too much light and am in the process to of absorbing this light.
After leaving this cultish mentality, I feel myself as newborn from intellectual point of view. I am clearer in my thinking and approach. I am not biased against women and I really like women to smile , work and enjoy their lives. I don’t want to treat non-Muslims as my enemies. I think we all are one large family. Religious divide is one big time perception fraud created in every era of human history. What matters is spirituality which has got nothing to do with religiosity. Sprituality is purity of heart. I hope to attain this goal of spirituality without making any shadow from the past as my alibi.
Regarding after death , my view is ( hopefully) that we will sleep forever but our good deeds will blossom after us and will create a legacy of happiness and prosperity.
I hope we humans would start using our brains as soon as possible. The most important virtue / attribute in my view is to do good without expectation of any reward ( Heaven etc) and desist from evil without fear of Hell.
December 11, 2009
Sabih Bob (former Muslim)
from wikiislam
My Testimony of Leaving Islam
I was never really into Islam much but when I was 12 years old I suddenly started questioning.
I started asking the anti-questions. How was God created if everything needs to be created and that was the start of my atheism.
Since that day no one has answered my question and I have remained a humble atheist.
My Testimony of Leaving Islam
I was never really into Islam much but when I was 12 years old I suddenly started questioning.
I started asking the anti-questions. How was God created if everything needs to be created and that was the start of my atheism.
Since that day no one has answered my question and I have remained a humble atheist.
December 9, 2009
Reza Nia (former Muslim)
from wikiislam
My Testimony of Leaving Islam
There is no reason why I shouldn't (leave Islam). The religion has been forced on me since I was a child. I find no sense in it and I find a great deal of nonsense in it. It’s a way of life for people with limited heart who suffer lack of brain and sense. As I don't believe in any religion because I believe they are all big lies to humanity. I specially define Islam as a violent religion which is against any aspect of human right to be free.
My Testimony of Leaving Islam
There is no reason why I shouldn't (leave Islam). The religion has been forced on me since I was a child. I find no sense in it and I find a great deal of nonsense in it. It’s a way of life for people with limited heart who suffer lack of brain and sense. As I don't believe in any religion because I believe they are all big lies to humanity. I specially define Islam as a violent religion which is against any aspect of human right to be free.
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