Arjuna Haridas (former Muslim)
| |||||||||||||||||
Testimony of Leaving Islam
Peace be upon you, as a Hindu and not as a Muslim.
I know many [Muslims] won't believe me. Whenever a Muslim apostasizes, he is either killed before he can explain (as ordered in the Hadith) or he is not believed and is called either:
- A born Muslim who never believed
- One who never believed
- An idiot or some other insult
- "Employed" by an enemy of Islam to lie
- A liar
But it's OK, because I myself know that I am telling the truth. One verse in the Bible that I love is "The Truth shall set you free" (John 8:32). I also love when the Qur'an says "...Truth stand out clear from error" (Qur'an 2:256). Just think: if the above reasons that Muslims use to denounce an Apostate is valid, then why do Muslims mock the same reasons when the Christians use them for an Apostate from Christianity to Islam?
I became Muslim because I Apostasized from Christianity but I still believed in God. I was baptized on June 4th, 2006 but I was practicing Christian extremely devoutly (I was a Conservative Christian times 2) since the Easter of 2006 (I forgot the Easter date of that year). I stopped practicing sometime in July, and I Apostasized from Christianity. So many people were converting to Islam, so I decided to try it. I said the Shahadah (Muslim testimony of faith) on October 28th 2006 at 12:36 AM EST (GMT -5). I always keep my conversion dates handy. I converted just to try it. I then found an online Muslim community. This online Muslim community talked only about Islam. I listened to online lectures, met Muslim friends, and these people showed me the videos of "miracles" in the Qur'an and such.
I had an encounter with a person on, of all places, YouTube. He was a Shia, and he introduced me to his site which explained Shia Islam and compared it to Sunni Islam. I also found a site which attacked Sunni Islam, which made me lose faith in Sunni Islam. I became a Shia Muslim shortly after that, which was on February 14th 2007. I found a Shia Muslim online community which is a famous Shia Muslim forum. I became convinced that Shia Islam was the truth. Again and again throughout this whole journey as a Muslim, I was doubting my faith. Many times I was accidentally exposed to criticism of Islam and I also believed that I could face these criticisms while I couldn't. I also questioned some of the laws of Islam, even though I was forbidden to do so in the Qur'an (Qur'an 33:36).
One thing which really hurt my faith was when I read the Qur'anic inheritance laws (Qur'an 4:11 - 12 and Qur'an 4:176). I was trying various combinations in order to "prove" the divinity of the Qur'an. I tried one combination, and found out that the end result added up to more that could be given. Since I don't want to even touch the Qur'an any more, I'll take an example from a page on Quranic contradictions about an error in the supposed "Perfect Book" of God:
All of the Qur'an translators translated Qur'an 4:11-12 and Qur'an 4:176 as having the same meaning. So there was no "mistake-in-translation" here. If one was to read the Arabic, they'd know that the translators translated the verses correctly.
Another thing that hurt my faith was when my prayers went unanswered. I read a Hadith which stated that one who was fasting never has his prayers rejected. I also knew that one who worshiped Allah devoutly would get his prayers (both ritual (Salat) and personal (Du'a)) accepted. Not to brag, but I fasted for a week. From sunrise to sunset. Some days I woke up a little after sunrise, prayed the make-up for the first prayer of the day (Fajr), and immediately fasted without eating at all (which is what was allowed before sunrise). I prayed for something I needed, and this thing would allow me to worship Allah. This thing was that I would go to the Mosque of my town. This prayer wasn't answered, and an argument broke out between me, my mother, and my brother which eventually led to me crying (trust me: I don't cry a lot) and me not going to the Mosque. The same happened a little more than a month later. I fasted for a week and was very devout in worship and prayed for me to go to my local Mosque, but I was still not allowed to go and my prayer was, of course, rejected.
To me, Allah was an impersonal God even though I tried to convince myself otherwise. I had to approach Him through Muhammad (called "Tawassul"), and there were verses for and against this (contradiction). Recently, I read a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, the Song of the Divine which was revealed to man by an Avatar (Incarnation) of the Supreme and Only God, Lord Vishnu, and this Avatar is Lord Krishna: "Whenever and wherever there is a decline in righteousness, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of unrighteousness, at that time I Myself will come" (Bhagavad Gita 4:7). This told me that Lord Vishnu is a personal God, unlike Allah. However, I still tried to convince myself that Allah was personal and I just pushed this Bhagavad Gita quote away.
I also noticed how Islam is so shattered. It has 3 sects (Sunni, Shia, and Ibadi), each sect having many sub sects, and each sect and subsect calling themselves the "True Sect" and, in the case of Wahhabis/Salafis of the Sunni sect, calling all other sects incorrect and kuffar (an insulting term meaning non-believer).
As I am typing this, I see that Muhammad made a failed prophecy. He claimed in a Hadith that was declared authentic by every Scholar that there will be 72 sub sects after his death, with 1 sect being correct. There are many sects of Islam, but that number is probably in the 10s and 20s and not even close to 72. Since we, according to Muslims, are in the last days and nearing the coming of Al-Mahdi/Imam Mahdi, this number of sects (72) should have already appeared. Islam, unlike Hinduism, is supposed to have 1 path and 1 path only. The Qur'an is supposed to display this path "clearly" (as the Qur'an states in many places). However, so many people have memorized the whole Qur'an and studied the Qur'an their whole lives and yet still there are many sects and sub sects.
Each time my faith diminished, I read or listened to things which were very one-sided (I.E. only presented the positive things of Islam). The things stated in these lectures wasn't even in the Qur'an, which was supposed to be the complete book of God (even though you had to look in Hadith for the way to do things). Eventually, starting on April 10th 2007, my faith was taking a sharp decline. No matter what I did, I never became happy with my faith. As a matter of fact, I became very depressed because of this. As I was a Muslim, I was accidentally exposed to Hinduism. On, of all places, the show "The Simpsons", I heard a character say "I swear by the many arms of Vishnu". I later typed in Vishnu on Wikipedia in order to learn about Him (I only knew that Hindus worship Him). As stated in the other thread, the picture of Vishnu was peering into my soul and I could never get it out of my head.
One day, I spit on the picture of Lord Vishnu. I believed in Islam so much that I mocked all other religions and spit on Baha'ullah's (the founder of the Baha'i Faith) picture (which is considered sacred to Baha'is) and I spit on Lord Vishnu's picture. The only thing which kept me from spitting on Jesus' picture was that Jesus was a Prophet according to Islam. Conveniently, we started talking about Hinduism is school. The school was preaching the incorrect version of Hinduism, however, but oh well. I decided to study Hinduism. I believed in God. However, I had both Christianity and Islam disproved in my face, Judaism disproved, Sikhism was a mix of Islam and Hinduism (so it was obviously wrong), and the Baha'i Faith so young that it couldn't be the religion of God, as God would've revealed His Religion not in the 1800s (when the Baha'i Faith was created), but at the beginning of mankind.
When I was told that Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world, I decided to convert. However, I studied into it a little bit more. It made sense. I converted on April 15th, 2007, at around 9:00 AM EDT (GMT -6). I always keep my conversion dates handy. What keeps me staying as a Hindu? The fact that Hinduism means freedom, that it actually makes sense, that I, for the first time ever, am not pushing questions to the back of my head about this religion, and that I have finally found a religion that teaches that intelligence and reason are very important, and that you always should question what you hear; even if God said it. Not to mention that there were a few personal experiences, such as the 2 miracles that I experienced after becoming a Hindu (Lord Vishnu drinking milk I offered to guide me and then one of His Avatars, Lord Krishna, drinking milk I offered to guide me). I also was convinced that the Hindu Milk Miracle was true.
I shall end with a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, the Song of the Divine, revealed directly by an Avatar of Lord Vishnu, Lord Krishna, to man:
Peace Om Shanti Shanti Om (May Lord Krishna send peace be upon you)
Add Your Testimony | Other Apostates | Core Article | Qur'an, Hadith & Scholars | Resources | Helpful Hints
