Turanshah (Former Muslim)
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Testimony of Leaving Islam
I was born into a Kurdish family in Sulaymaniah. People here are generally secular, but you have the occasional fanatic here and there. Luckily, my family, and the people around me were secular. My mother was a Muslim, and my father was an Atheist. Father didn't really care about religion, so it was my mom who shaped my world view. From the very start, I learned about hell. Do this and you'll end up in hell. Be careful, or you might end up in hell. God will send you to hell for that. This really scared me as a kid. My father would tell me that it's all wrong and that one day I'll realize it and leave Islam.
My father was always relaxed. He never cared too much about anything. He wasn't well-educated, seeing as his part of the family was very poor. However, he had lots of knowledge about everything, especially natural science. He could explain all these different phenomenons, whereas Islam couldn't. Islam would tell me that it was the work of God. Not the most satisfying answer, so I'd stick to natural science and my father. My father would read whenever he could. For a kid like me, it was amazing to see a man being so fluent in so many different subjects. I really wanted to be like him when I grew up.
I started questioning Islam after travelling to Bulgaria. My grandmother was in need of an eye surgery, so me and my father went along to assist her. My father ate bacon at the hotel we were staying at. This was very weird for me, seeing as I had learned that eating pork will cause you to go to hell. At first I was very afraid and sad, because that meant that in the afterlife I wouldn't see my father. He'd be suffering in another place. And that really didn't make sense to me. Why would God be so cruel? Why would you be sent to hell for eating a certain type of food? Or why would I be going to hell for all those minor things I did when I was a kid? I asked my father about this, and he gave me satisfying answers. He was very neutral about it, in the sense that he would be quoting the Quran, using examples from everyday life, etc. A major difference between him and the Muslims I asked was that the Muslims would explain things as miracles, work of God and that certain things simply can't be questioned. It became a habit for me and him to talk about Islam (more like me listening to him talk about Islam) during breakfast and dinner. It was during this time that I learned about the Islamic invasions. I recall my father saying that Islam was spread by the sword.
My father was once again sent to war. This time it was against the Iraqi government (American-led 2003 invasion). The last time was back in 1991. I was very proud of my father. I became obsessed with the history of the Iranic people, especially the former empires. Leaving Islam became very natural after that. How could I, a proud Iranic boy, be a Muslim? Leaving Islam was not a problem. My father embraced it and my mother felt a little sad about it but she accepted it without any problems. I went straight from being Muslim to being an Atheist.
I'm not so nationalistic anymore and my interest for history and natural science has been largely replaced by pure mathematics. However, I still find natural science very amusing.
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