Mzilikazi (former Muslim)
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Testimony of Leaving Islam
Well, my story is a long story. I was born to Muslim parents. I grew up in an extended family with lots of aunts and uncles, who above all showered me with love and affection. My parents however were not doing so well. My father had joined the tabligh jamaat and was radically changing into a religious zealot. He ordered my mom to burn all photos and publications containing pictures. He used to have 'ta'lim' after Isha salaah during the evenings much to the distress of my uncles and aunts who were younger than he was. My father was often not at home, visiting other towns and basically so caught up with his 'divine' calling, that my mom and I were completely neglected. If it wasn't for my kind aunts, my mom would have left my dad. Maybe she would have just stayed on, as she did, given the fact that divorce was such a taboo topic, and that she was not going back to the home of her father. In any event the uncles and aunts grew up and left, along with my grand parents and my mom was left to suffer the exploits of this cruel man alone. From the beginning I could tell that women were sub-humans, and they were basically there to do all the chores at home, while it was OK for the man to go to work, come home to eat, be pissed off with mom for no reason and then bugger off to spend the evening with fellow tablighis planning their next trip out of town.
I attended Madrassah until the 11th year, which is pretty much when I decided that Islamic Studies were useless in the real world. I used to excel in madrassah, getting good results; and my father was very disappointed that I abandoned it, though I was keen on science and biology and that appealed to me more than any religious hocus pocus. After school I eventually went to University, which was the turning point of my life. Many different cultures and races, and people from all walks of life, rastas, wiccans, atheists, all the sort of people that you don't encounter in daily life. I spent time with these people and learned about their culture and way of life; differing philosophies and teachings. Also I was a member of MSA (Muslim Students Association) and we had to elect a new imam some time during that year. Needless to say, South Africa is now free of apartheid, but during that year, the local Muslims who are of Indian descent sidelined our native brothers, so they went out and created their own group calling themselves the sons and daughters of Bilal. I was very much disgusted with that, and still live in disgust as people descended from hyderabadis and other southern Indian Muslim descendants are looked down on. These Gujarati jamaat Muslims only think that they are Muslims, they often boast that the Islam they practice is more purer than the Saudis and anyone else in the world. Yes, South Africa unfortunately has become a haven for them. We have Darul ulooms churning out aalims like anything, and all these aalims teach at madrassah, teaching all the Muslim kids a very extreme form of Islam.
In any event, it was at varsity that I witnessed these double standards. But none more shocking than the double standards of my father. Here is a man, who gave my mom lots of grief all of our lives, gets involved with another female, doing her in our house, under my mom's nose. When he gets caught he denies it.Yet this is the same man who lectured me about not having a girlfriend as it is against Islam. When the news came to my ears I was devastated. This female happened to be my mom's brother's wife, I mean how could he think of her! Fuck I lost it then. I resolved to be the most disgraceful son to my father yet. As I was working I eventually got into the wrong crowd (also Muslim mind you), and we went on all sorts of sprees. We would go out to clubs, drink do drugs, pick up white girls and use them, fight with other groups and basically that showed me that Muslims can pretend like they're oh so fucking righteous but I've seen a lot of them, truly at their best too. The way they would treat these girls, waiting in line to get some, after getting them so drunk. I couldn't believe what I witnessed, though I could understand that if my father was that way, what says that these young Muslim punks aren't the same.
Eventually I lost faith in my friends as they turned out to be real swines, leaching off me, stealing my things, and messing with my sister. As much as they despise that creature, I can vouch for any pig being better than anyone of them. Eventually I had a Hindu girlfriend much to both parents' and the family's dismay. I slept with her and they knew it, but I loved her immensely, and they were afraid that we would elope. I was threatened with excommunication and I really gave up my love for her because of my mom and those people in the family I had respect for. I should have actually eloped in retrospect, as I'm now married to what they think is an ideal partner for me.Anyway being young certainly played on my insecurities, I couldn't sway my girlfriend into converting so we mutually called an end to it.
In the meantime, my drug abuse problem was growing out of hand. I was basically doing it to anger my dad and Allah too, because being spiteful to him is my ultimate revenge. I would gladly wipe my ass with the Quran and piss on the walls of a mosque given the chance. As much as most Muslims tell you how they love Allah, I hate him. At my worst, my words of consolation from my father was to ask Allah for forgiveness as I have angered him and that is why he was punishing me. I don't believe that now, and as long as I was a Muslim I was always doing drugs and then trying to make up with Allah. I lost it finally and it was no thanks to him that I'm now clean. I went searching or answers, turning to meditation and reading up on religion. Finally I concluded that there is no real religion. Each of these have been created to cause disunity among men and have been the major cause of wars and turmoil in the world. Most certainly if all religions were banned and all texts burnt, we humans would be much better off. I am now anti-religious and I do what I want within the limits set out by myself. I now feel much lighter, not having that guilt complex that was so rife during those Muslim years. I can have a glass of wine and not wonder what punishment I'm going to receive. I just feel sorry for those who are still blinded by the delusion of religion, who refuse to see the light and abandon these silly rituals and false beliefs that most people on this planet engage in.
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