My journey from Islam to apostasy

[apostate]

I was from a bohra muslim sect(an off-shoot of shia sect). It was in 1992 that programs of IRF were telecasted on cable TV. I used to watch these programs which included debates of Ahmen deedat, zakir naik and the likes. At that point I didn't knew the detailed history of islam but was following religious beliefs just like any person born into any religion would follow. When I watched the programs broadcasted by IRF I was very impressed especially by the talks of Dr. Zakir. The absurdities of quran present as scientific fact by zakir naik in his talk "Quran and modern science" made me conclude that quran is a word of god and islam a true religion. Though I took the lies of Zakir Naik as true and didn't cross check that what meanings of the arabic words Zakir Naik is taking if it is actually true. I started going to the lectures conducted at IRF premises conducted every sundays. And it was soon enough that I changed from bohra shia sect to sunni wahabi sect of islam of which Zakir Naik is a ardent follower and preacher. Slowly I came to know the various concepts of islam like about hadiths etc. I used to read the hadiths from hadith books and I came across certain hadiths which were against logic and reasoning like drinking of tea in which house fly has fallen, sun going below the thrown of Allah etc. These Hadiths started creating doubts in my mind. I suppressed these questions saying to my self may be these hadiths may not be true but atleast quran has no fallacies and that way convinced my self that I am on true path. During these days I also used to read about taliban in news papers specially about the condition of women they had made in afganistan. In IRF lectures they would justify taliban by saying that world media wants to put islam in bad light and hence does not give correct picture of islam and the muslims. I used to think that entire world media is lying and only the muslims are telling the truth and this way again I used to subdue all my doubts. But it was not far that with these questions in my mind I again turned back to to my original sect.

During my college days I met one guy who was a twelver shia. I became a close friend with him and he would show me the illogicalities of sunni hadiths and try to convince me that twelver shia sect is the only true sect out of all the sects of islam and only this sect will get heaven and all the other sects will go to hell. We also had one maths professor in our college who was a ahle-hadith. My shia friend would argue with him regarding the illogicalities of sunni hadiths and I used to watch him argue.I also started going with my shia friend to the shia majlis(religious sermons). And slowly I was more closer to shia twelver sect more so because my original sect had many similarities in its belief with twelver shia sect.

After completing my college, one of my colleague whom I met was a staunch sunni. He and I used to argue on length about shiaism and sunnism. He used to tell that shias are kafirs and that they do lots of shirk. We should only bow down to Allah and nothing else and all these stuff. Slowly I again started going with him to the sunni masjid to offer Namaz. And this was again my next transition to sunni-wahabism. This continued for few years. During these years I got a job in another company which had a muslim owner. My manager in this company was from tablighee jamaat sect. He used to argue in favour of tableghee jamaat. Since he knew that I had come from shiasm to sunnism, he told me that it is good that I came to sunnism but I should follow either one of four imams of sunnis islamic jurisprudence. Taking lessons from Zakir Naik talks, I used to argue with him that there are no sects in islam and we should only call ourselves muslims. Till then I was not aware that even in wahabism itself there are so many sects. He told me I am actually following salafism(the strict saudi version of islam). We used to discuss on various differences in fiqh between Tableeghee hanafis and salafis. Discussions with him, increased my faith more towards salafism. It was here that I started growing big beard and cut my pants short above the ankles, looking like a joker (according to mohammad, allah is so mercifull that if a person commits an non harming act of just wearing his pants below the ankles, he will reward him in the hell fire out of his unbound mercy). Soon after this I switched my job to another big company. When I joined here, employees in this company used to laugh at me behind my back because of me looking like a joker because of my pants. But I used to console my self with all these insults that I will get the reward in the hereafter.

My path on salafism continued for all these years but the questions were there in my mind. Being a physics graduate my mind was unable to accept many illogicalities in Quran & hadiths. Also many things which I came to know about prophet during these years seemed humanely unethical like him marying a six year old child when he was more than the age of his grand-father, keeping slave girls and having sex with them outside marriage but giving death penalty for others who had sex outside marriage. But I used to suppress all these questions.

One fine day I got a email forward from one of my muslim friend with the subject islamic library with the link of the library page from faithfreedom.org. When I read the articles on this website, I realized that they were anti-islamic. I was very furious on my friend initially for forwarding me an anti-Islamic website. But due to my curiosity I started exploring more of this site. I came across all these questions which I used to suppress all these years and many more. All these questions again started leaving me restless. I offered night prayers and asked Allah for guidance but nothing happened. I was still restless, I didn't knew what to do. Should I follow my reasoning or continue following my way blindly. But this time I couldn't stop my self. In the mean time I continued investigating this site further and came across Ali Sina's rebuttal of the debate of Dr. Zakir Naik with Dr. William Campbell. I read Sina's rebuttal throughly and investigated many of the quranic word meanings which which Dr. Naik claimed. Since I don't know arabic as a language. I took help of my friend who had his education in saudi and knows arabic very well. I found that indeed the meanings of quranic words taken by Dr. Naik to prove his point were his own and in many instances no other translater had taken these meanings. I also went through other websites like faithfreedom.com etc which gave answers to Ali Sina's challenges but those replies did not seem convincing to me from any point. I prepared my list of doubts and went to islamic scholars so that I could be convinced that Islam is a true religion and my mind could allow me to revert back to Islam, but I did not received satisfying answers. All the answers seem to be hocus-pocus to justify all misdeeds of Mohammad and I did not re-enter this cult of terror called Islam again.

[Chewchy]

Apostate, thank you for taking the time and effort to write your story; I found it to be honest and heartfelt.

Welcome to FFI :reg:

[Forever Young]

Nice story , apostate.
Thank you for sharing it .

[ShoeShiner]

Thanks for sharing your story! Looks like you were searching for the truth all along. Where do you stand right now? Did you join another religion?

[enceladus]

Welcome, apostate! Well done for leaving Islam!
I'm looking forward to seeing more of your posts here!
Bye for now -
- enceladus

[God Bless America]

Welcome to FFI apostate-

Loved your story and I wish you all the best. :reg:

Regards,
Pam

[Mangga Manis]

What a truly eye-opening testimony apostate! Hope many more people like you will come out and share their experience here in FFI.

regards

[Ram]

apostate, Congratulations and welcome to humanity. I have known many Bohras and I always found them to be moderate in their outlook. Unlike Sunnis and Shias of Iranian ilk Bohras are friendly towards Hindus. Nevertheless, I am glad that you are not a Muslim anymore.

[winston]

Very good testimony apostate. If only more Muslims had the courage to face the difficult questions about their religion!

Winston

[apostate]

Looks like you were searching for the truth all along. Where do you stand right now? Did you join another religion?

Hi ShoeShiner,

It's not that I was religiously searching the truth. But when truth was presented to me I can not ignore it. At time when Salafism was presented by people like Naik, I felt that it was the truth and I accepted him blindly because I didn't do my research(or rather people are just shown only the good things about Islam). Similarly when I read the the hidden picture of Islam and Mohammad on this site, I couldn't ignore the truth. My mind just refused to follow an character less person but still my heart had some hope that may be I am wrong. My logic used to dictate me that how can I take lessons of Morality from a person who himself was one of the most immoral person. And ultimately my mind overtook my heart and I left Islam for better.

After going through so many ups and downs in my life, I have ultimately come to a conclusion that religion is not for me. And now I practice only humanity as my religion. According to me all religions are human made. If God did exits then he would not play hide & seek with his creatures. Why would he keep himself hidden when his creatures are confused while seeking him, with each religion claiming their religion and God to be the only true one. All the religions were just created by people, some morally good (like Buddha) and some morally bad(like Mohammad).

Thanks

[enceladus]

Hi again apostate!

I agree with you (especially the "all religions are man-made" part).

I think I've seen that comment several times before in people's testimonies here. Very true - religion's just a relic of the ages when a given group needed explanations for things they didn't know the causes of, plus a way to keep the masses "toeing the line". Very useful if you're (say) an imam, priest or whatever.

I'm atheist too (as you seem to have become), although I do have a lot of time for Buddhists. I know a Buddhist guy at work and he's great. He describes it as a "faith", and as much of a lifestyle (and set of values) as a "faith".

Anyway, it's great to have you here!
Bye for now -
- enceladus

[Ex_muslimah]

Well done for leaving this cult

[IamFound]

;;

[natural_person]

Welcome Apostate,

Impressive story.

I always wondered how highly educated people just like you manage religion ? Islam especially... How can be possible to balance such deep modern knowlege with violent teaching and practices and stupid superstitions ??? And the disgusting behavior of Muhamad (chosen by Allah ???) Or his criminality ?

Many apostates say the same thing... "I used to ignore those nagging questions inside my mind...." HOW ?

Nice to "meet" you. Please write more. You are very clear.

PS I understand faith in a Supreme being - I have a problem with Religions

A Natural

[apostate]

HI Natural Person,

Its not just Islam. it goes for all religions. As far as I know, idotic teachings are there in many other religions. If you have heard of Satya Saibaba. Many highly educated people, even scientist from Indian Institute of Science are his disciples. Many People from West are his devotes. He had molested children of People who were his Disciple which was exposed by media like BBC. He uses trickery to produce things out of thin air. His trickery has been throughly exposed. Still Many educated people stick to him and even justify his actions.

This has lot to do with psycology. All minds think differently and they sometimes develop reasons to justify their beliefs. For example when I was a Muslim, I used to stick to my faith ignoring those questions because I had many unanswered questions. How did I came out into being from Nothingness? How can such a complex world be designed, without any great designer, just by chance? It is the same psycology due to which many muslims have developed reasons to justify all the immoral deeds of Mohammad and continue in their belief. I guarantee you that even though they justify actions of Mohammad but deep in their heart they must have felt that these actions of Mohammad are morally wrong. Another reason is most Muslism themselves are not aware of all these immoral deeds of Mohammad. They are just shown the good picture of islam.

And finally, most of the people continue believing in religion ignoring all the reasons. Minds of these people are so accustomed that it does not allow them to think beyond their belief.

Regards,
Apostate

[parvez mushtaq]

hello apostasy
your introducing post seems to be very long and i could not go beyond few lines , i apologize
so i have decided to answer this post
you are correct in the following quote

Its not just Islam. it goes for all religions. As far as I know, idotic teachings are there in many other religions. If you have heard of Satya Saibaba. Many highly educated people, even scientist from Indian Institute of Science are his disciples. Many People from West are his devotes. He had molested children of People who were his Disciple which was exposed by media like BBC. He uses trickery to produce things out of thin air. His trickery has been throughly exposed. Still Many educated people stick to him and even justify his actions.

people some how or other take some one or other as their role model
usually their leader
and i think , ffians are no exception to this
here , they took ali sina as their role model immaterial of what he says
usually they keep their eyes closed
and usally , their leader cheats them in all cases

rest of your post is a presumptuous

[Chief Chingachgook]

Congratulations apostate on your leaving The Cult of Death.

people some how or other take some one or other as their role model
usually their leader
and i think , ffians are no exception to this
here , they took ali sina as their role model immaterial of what he says
usually they keep their eyes closed
and usally , their leader cheats them in all cases

rest of your post is a presumptuous

But Ali Sina is way, way better than Mr. PissBUH, if you don't already know

[parvez mushtaq]

chief chin said

But Ali Sina is way, way better than .......

first , i like your name ,chief chin (very rhythmic)
here comes a die hard fan of sina
i read his challenge lol
it was a big joke
i think i have wasted time on that
he himself contradicting in his articles
some times he makes his own tafsir neglecting the Islamic tafsirs
some times he takes the same neglected tafsirs to fabricate some thing new
totally waste of time
it was nothing but a old christian gimmick
i don't know how you people turn blind to this mistakes
seems your prejudice has made you blind
and the best joke is he needs a scholars to answer him , lol
first ask him to read his article carefully and then ask for a Muslim scholars ,at least let him consult haik (if he(haik) doesn't mislead him as well , lol)
i tell you one thing , if at all is there some one who can pose a challenge on ff to Muslims , then it is haik
you can make him as a role model if you are that much dieing for a leader
but Islam got answers to him also

[apostate]

people some how or other take some one or other as their role model
usually their leader
and i think , ffians are no exception to this
here , they took ali sina as their role model immaterial of what he says
usually they keep their eyes closed
and usally , their leader cheats them in all cases

I am not a fan of Ali Sina nor do I follow him. But I have found many of his charges against Mohammad correct and confirmed from authentic sources. It is people like you who infact keep your eyes closed and follow Mohammad blindly irrespective of all the immoral acts he has committed.

[winston]

Attacking the messenger instead of his message is a tactic of someone how is desperate. If you can defend the charges made by Ali Sina then open up a new thread and start doing so. By critising AS personally you are not accomplishing anything.