Raza Pehlavi (former Muslim)
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Testimony of Leaving Islam
Dear Sir, I am writing my testimony of leaving Islam as follows:
I am a born Muslim belonging to Shia faith of Islam . My age is ** years. I am an educated person doing a job in a multinational company in ***, ***. I am from a middle class back ground. My father worked throughout his life and my mother is a housewife. I have * brothers and * sisters. We all have a good education thanks to my fathers burning ambition for us to be highly qualified. I am a *** by profession. Raza is not my real name for obvious reasons.
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:
- Why all the big inventions have been made in last 50-60 years and not in the era of magnificent Mohammed?
- Why did God rescind His own scriptures and came up with new revelations as if He acquired some new knowledge about humanity afterwards!
- When Allah is indifferent, why would He punish us for not offering prayers?
- 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?
- Why is life in Heaven is so bloody Earthly?
- How come 'might is right' only? No miracles from God for poor and wretched.
- Why did Muhammad condemn apostates to death? WHY?
- 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.
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