ExMuslimgirl (Former Muslim)
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Testimony of Leaving Islam
I was never the typical child, who spent hours watching cartoons, playing video games and so on. As far as I could remember, I was a weird child and very odd indeed. I would contemplate the beauty of nature. For instance, the shape of the clouds and the stars which to me appeared as tiny cracks to daylight. I would play with ants in my garden and do much more silly things. However, with deep interest and curiosity of my surroundings, this supreme being who is invisible and untangle, rather an abstract so called 'God' was what I wasn't sure about. I would try to speak to God and wait for a response or some sort of signals to appear. I eventually got over these childish things.
Many of you now may think I've rejected Islam due to restrictions and the emotion burden. Well partly, yes. Though my parents are quite westernized, they did not care about my clothing. Also not praying and fasting did not bother them either. Sometimes they didn't pray their five daily prayers which would arguably make them non Muslims too, though they love Islam with passion but and class themselves as one. Because of this freedom I was granted with, I did not abuse it.
There was a time I was a devout, practicing Muslim in fact. The more I studied the Qur'an in my spare time, the more Allah appeared to me as contradictory, threatening, unequal, homophobic and more. I was now filled with doubts and felt a bit lost. As a stubborn person, I never thought I would have a dramatic change of mindset. The more questions I raised about Islam, people would respond with the same thing and refer to how to devil is in control of me.
I was introduced to psychology in my mid teens. The beauty and power of the brain is absolutely incredible. The study in psychology has lead to me to conclude that perhaps the prophet was hallucinating or probably was schizophrenic. Such mental illnesses are common today, but off course if one said angel appeared to them, we would probably prescribe them with medication to help reduce these symptoms of hallucinating.
Later on, purchasing philosophical books by Hume, Aquinas, Kant, Russel has lead me to understand that even if science attempts to prove a creator, it does not prove the God of past or present religion such as Krishna, Jesus, Zeus and Allah and so on.
Reading those books has lead to become obsessed with Scientific books regarding the cosmology and evolution. This work as never made any more sense. It brought me closer to my love for nature which I had as a child. Also made me appreciate the one and only life we are lucky enough to experience. After reading them it made me realized that lived in darkness and blindly followed a faith which I did not really understand. Science was not compatible with my faith, yet I still feared Allah though I had the slightest faith in him.
Attending atheistic talks and ordering books such as The God delusion has helped me realize the truth is in science and defiantly not religion. Many may wonder if I've tried studying other religions such as Christianity. The six day creation is enough to reject it altogether as it makes no claim to scientific truth.
Islam promises many things in the hereafter which appears to me as a comfort blanket for people to forget the meaningless suffering life on planet earth and maintaining social order, as for every religion. Qur'an promises a river of honey in heaven. But what am I meant to do with that? I don't even like honey.
To conclude, I've never felt this comfortable in my life. I don't feel claustrophobia any more, I could breathe. I don't live in fear and guilt anymore. Though it'll be tough to break this to my Somali Muslim family, however I don't feel the need to as I'm lucky to have lenient parents when it comes to my practicing religion although rejecting it is a wholly different situation.
Add Your Testimony | Other Apostates | Core Article | Qur'an, Hadith & Scholars | Resources | Helpful Hints
