My Experience With Islam
(An apostate’s testimony) 

Jahed Ahmed
E-mail: worldcitizen73@yahoo.com

"That which is most personal is most universal." - Henri Nouwen, Catholic Writer

My Childhood/Adolescence Period (1973 to 1992) as a Pious Muslim Boy:  Up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, I spent time in my village. My childhood education started both in the school and mosque simultaneously. From the age of six, I started going to the government funded primary school in the village for primary education, and to the mosque in the neighborhood for Islamic education. I will mainly focus on Islamic education that I received in mosque from the Maulana (a Muslim priest, we called him 'hujoor'). My Islamic education consisted of lessons on reading, reciting and occasionally memorizing verses, suras, of the Quran. Besides, we were taught- how to perform Islamic rituals like daily five time prayers, how to eat, bath and do toilets in an Islamic way; then fasting for a month in a year dictated by the Islamic calendar, performing Muslim funerals etc. A significant portion of our Islamic education consisted of listening to the fabricated and passionate stories of the Prophet Muhammad’s life and sayings (Hadeeth). We were reminded every now and then - Islam is the truest religion, there is no God but Allah; Prophet Muhammad is Allah’s last messenger, and Quran is Allah’s message toward mankind through His messenger. We were often told about stories focusing supernatural abilities of Prophet Muhammad (e.g. Prophet Muhammad’s meeting with Allah during an event known as Miraj;  stories about how Prophet received Allah’s instructions through angel Gabriel etc). Any person even with slightest trace of a doubt in these stories, we were told, lacks 'Iman', which constitute first of the five main pillars of Islam. All the Maulanas and pious Muslims I knew thus created a kind of impression of Prophet Muhammad in my mind, which was mixed with fear, devotion and awes. Many considered it not only inappropriate, but also sinful to think of Muhammad as an ordinary human being. How could he be an ordinary person, who has shown so many supernatural activities (Mujejas)? – we heard from Maulana and other orthodox Muslims. On one occasion, we were told, with the mere raise of Prophet’s index finger, the whole moon broke into two pieces! ‘Still, non-believers didn’t have faith in him,’ said the Maulana. We were told, only Muslims shall enter the heaven after death (among them, first, would enter those, who have lived their lives as true Muslims). We were repeatedly told- among the Allah’s cursed people and serious enemies are the idol worshippers (Hindus), Nasara (Christians), and Jews. As we were being told, often the narration was supplemented by tales from the Prophet’s life; things he said about these groups of people, and the troubles Prophet faced from such people during his life time. We were told- idle worshippers (Hindus), Nasara (Christians), and Jews are the enemies of Islam, and we should always keep distance from them. I remember, on more than one occasions, we were punished by the Maulana for attending the Hindu village fair (Rat Jatra). I had yet to meet any Christian or Jew in person, and only occasionally saw some Hindus. But every time I saw them, I kept a safe distance. Ah! only if I could convert just one of them to Islam!  Sometimes I thought. We were warned repeatedly to be alert- so as never to commit Sheerk, the gravest sin in Islam, which means, equating Allah with any other entity. Since Hindus believe in many Gods/Goddesses (polytheism), they are among the most dangerous sinners in the world, we were told. And since Hindus commit Sheerk, unlike for Muslims, you cannot wish eternal peace for a Hindu, not so even upon his/her death. If we heard the death of a Muslim, we were taught to recite an Arabic prayer (Inna Lillahi Oa Inna Ilahi Rajeon), which is totally different from what we would recite upon hearing the death of a Hindu (Fee nari jahannama khalidin- wishing eternal hell fire!). As for Christians and Jews, we were told, even though their scriptures (New & Old Testament in Bible) once contained words from the Allah through authentic Prophets, whom Quran and Muhammed acknowledge; nevertheless, they (Christians and Jews) have deteriorated their scriptures, don’t have faith in Muhammad, and therefore, are not true believers! Girls were instructed to cover their body and put veils on heads, according to Islamic ways. I clearly remember having heard from Maulana on one occasion that, a woman who doesn’t cover her body and put veils on head, is like a peeled off banana sold in the open market. If a peeled off banana is sold in the market, would you buy it? asked the Maulana. So is a woman without coverings! No body is going to like her. This is what constituted my childhood Islamic education. Needless to say, I took all such sayings and instructions in plain faith, and never doubted it for all the people in my world were Muslims at that time. I was quite pious myself. I said five times prayers and recited Quran almost on a daily basis. Often I thanked Allah for having created me as a Muslim. I will give one more example to illustrate- how Maulana’s teaching shaped my views about other religions. Starting from third standard, we had a subject called Dharma Shikhsa ('Religion Study') in our school. For us, Religion Study meant Islamic studies since there were no Hindu students in our class. Since question papers were not made by our own school teachers, rather, by a group of teachers of the local Thana (police station), same set of question papers were sent to different schools, of which some had Hindu students. Therefore, the question paper on Religion Study had two different sections. First half was on Islam and second half was on Hindu Religion. During exam, once we were handed over question papers, the first thing we, the Muslim students, would do was crossing out questions on Hindu Religion. We crossed out the Hindu section such a way that almost nothing would be readable thereafter. We did so this because we thought, even looking at questions on Hindu Religion was a great sin!  Later in life, after being doubtful about Maulana’s teaching, I tried to learn the basis of such parochial and dogmatic views, and I found my answer in Quran itself. I will come to that later. 

My Stay in India (1993 to 1998)--Beginning of Skepticism:  Staying in India for five long years is one of the most significant events in my life. It was in India when I experienced my first love, memory of which I cherish to date. Often, the name ‘India’ gives me feelings of nostalgia, more than the word ‘Bangladesh’- my own country. I met quite a few very decent, liberal and caring people; we became good friends and are so till now. Again, it was in India, for the first time in life, I experienced and was taken aback by the anthropological, cultural and religious diversity of human beings. So many people of such a diverse nature, so many cultures, so many language; yet it is a single country! My acquaintance with such amazing diversity of people and their culture in India played an important role in later development of humanist philosophy in my mind. Of my five years of stay, I spent first three years in Bangalore, the capital city of Karanataka, a south Indian state, and next two years in Mysore, another well known and historic town in Karnataka state. I need to elaborate a bit about my first love as this experience is related to later development of the skepticism in my mind.

It was while I was in Bangalore doing my first year of B.Sc course, I fell in love with a school going Hindu girl living in the neighborhood. I had a small motorbike and it was probably July, 1993: just two months ago we came to India. We, the five Bangladeshi students (three Hindus, two Muslims), rented a house in an area which was within the 2-3 kilometers distance from our college. One day afternoon, after the college, I was roaming on my motorbike with my roommate on the backseat. We were simply watching the residences, shops, people in the neighborhood and thinking how they were different than what we saw back home. I saw a girl on the roof of a house, near by the Hindu temple, located just a two blocks down the road from our house. I don’t know why, I got off my motorbike, kept staring at the girl for quite sometime and was not feeling to turn my eyes away at all. She was not any beauty queen or the kind of heroin we see in popular Hindi films. She was just a plain girl in plain attire and was looking at us with her friend standing next to her. Yet I seem to have lost myself in her plain beauty. I experienced what people call ‘love at the first sight’. This girl has been created just for me. I took delight in thinking so. For days and nights she was in my mind, often appearing in dreams. I gave her the nick ROJA, after the title of a south Indian super hit film at that time, which was based on a romantic love story between a Muslim girl and a Hindu boy. I found out Roja was a student of ninth standard in the local school (Auden High School, Banashankari 1st Stage, Bangalore). Within a few days, I got it all by heart- time she would go to school at, her returning time from the school, and the time when she would go to the temple in the evening, often with her friend. I followed her silently for two years without daring to talk to her. At last one day after two years, I followed her to the school in a bus with the courage of a close friend of mine, who accompanied me to her school. I talked to her and liked it very much. She herself also appeared to be interested in me. A month went by, I didn’t let her know- I was from Bangladesh. Instead, I said, I was from West Bengal, a province of India, where people speak same language as people do in Bangladesh. After a month, I disclosed my real identity and said, I am a Bangladeshi Muslim. After two weeks, she declined to continue relationship on the ground that an uncle of hers has seen her with me and informed her parents. It should be mentioned that her parents were south Indian Brahmins--known to be very orthodox among Indian Hindus. To date I wonder, why did she withdrew herself from the relation? Is it because once she learned I was a Muslim from Bangladesh, she didn’t see much hopes in our relation? Although she was not an orthodox girl herself, her parents were and so was her society. Later, when I told my brother and mother about this incident, I was rebuked for being so close with a 'Hindu girl.' My first love ended painfully leaving a big question in my mind. Why did it happen that I--despite being a Muslim--fell in love with a Hindu girl, and that too, so passionately? Why did I feel so much for her when there were so many other girls elsewhere? Why couldn’t my religion stop me? Is then what people say right, meaning- love is blind and doesn’t care about the boundaries of race, religion and country? So only rational explanation I came up with was--for a young boy of my age, falling in love with a young girl is very natural, there is nothing wrong with it since we both are humans with emotions. It's not love but the religion which must be artificial, I thought. Unlike my affiliation with religion where many people influenced me, no one induced me to love Roja. It just happened because we bothl are humans.

Back to Bangladesh (1998-2000)--My Faith Becomes Shaken:   I came back to Bangladesh and started preparing myself for graduate studies in the USA. From mid July 1998 to mid July 2000, I was in Bangladesh.  At that time, I started collecting books on philosophy, mostly written in Bangla. I learned about rationalism, atheism, skepticism and was particularly attracted by the writings of Aroj Ali Matubbor, a self–made Bangladeshi Philosopher with no academic training or background. I was happy to learn there are others who also don’t take religious teachings in plain faith. Aroj Ali’s books were interesting, provocative but his style was more like Socrates— not to draw any ultimate conclusion about a topic himself but to leave the readers’ with a question in mind. It was like a ‘compare and contrast’ approach. He would question and discuss validity of many Islamic theories, rituals alongside their rationalistic explanations. I believe this was a brilliant style to avoid attacks from the mullahs. For example: Aroj Ali asked, is it possible for a single individual to be the kindest and the most just at the same time? According to him, a person sticking to justice can’t always indulge in kindness, or the kindest person always cannot be the most just. But we know, according to Quran, Allah is said to be the kindest and the most just!

In USA- I Become a Humanist (July 2000 till present): By the end of July 2000, I came to the USA on student visa (F-1) and joined Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, to do Ph.D. studies in Cell & Molecular Biology. It was indeed a big transition in my life. A new culture, a new population and a new country several thousand miles apart from my own.  Interestingly, I didn’t at all experience what is known as ‘cultural shock.' Probably, the liberal philosophical outlook that developed in my mind over past years was a reason. Often on the campus I saw boys and girls in their late teenage or early 20s walk, roam together and kissed each other in public. Though at times I felt miserable at myself, I was impressed to notice the trend of American culture that unlike back home, when a boy and a girl meet and like each other; race, religion hardly matter in their friendship or romantic relation (except for a few isolated cases). Sometimes I wished I met my Roja in USA, instead of India! For the first time I had free access to internet, in my lab, departmental library and Morgan library on the campus. A new world opened up before me. I got absorbed into surfing websites that contained articles which I was looking forward to read. Never before did I have a chance to read so many articles by so many great thinkers such as Spinoza, Voltaire, John Locke, Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Darwin, Thomas Pine, and Jefferson.   

The Birth of Mukto-Mona:  It was most probably Mr. Jamal Hasan, a Bangladeshii-American activist, who wrote to me personally with a request to join a popular Bangladeshi forum called NFB (News from Bangladeshi). He collected my address from the ISIS website.  At the NFB site, I came across quite a few fellow-Bangladeshi freethinkers living abroad, who considered themselves as apostates. Only a handful of secularists and freethinkers fighting the large circle of mullahs amid great spirit and enthusiasm at that time ( second half of the year 2000) at NFB included Syed Kamran Mirza, Jamal Hasan, fatemolla, Dr. Jaffor Ullah, late Narayan Gupta and Dr. Shabbir Ahmed, Aparthib Zaman. Avijit and I were just new additions to the "kafir-nastik" group and I was the youngest member. We wrote articles on a regular basis. It was interesting to see how crazily Mullas reacted to our sharp criticisms of Islam. Often we received hate mails from Mullas. While most of those 'hate-mails' were from Bangladeshi Muslims, others were from Islamic fanatics outside Bangladesh. The Mullas were enraged by our effort to demystify Islam. Sometimes, I wrote articles using my real name (Jahed Ahmed), other time I used pseudonym such as Satya Sondhani (truth seeker), Ray. J. Akash.

To facilitate the communication among us, the likeminded freethinkers, we created a yahoo groups named as Voops (Voice Of the OPpressed) which also included members such as Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina & Taslima Nasrin. Voops didn't last long due to some ideological differences and the group split apart. Ali Sina's personal website at the time was known as golshan.com and the name by which his website is known now i.e. Faith Freedom Internationa (FFI) was initially proposed as Faith Freedom Foundation (FFF) by all members in Voops with an aim of creating a common platform. Avijit Roy also created a yahoo group known as Mukto-Mona (meaning, 'a freethinker' in Bangla) which was later developed into a full website. We discussed critical issues concerning Islam & other religions on a regular basis. In particular, our focus was on how to devise an effective way to rationalize Islam & Muslim societies. We all agreed with the statement that is posted in Ibn Warraq’s ISIS website under goals and missions: ”…Islamic society has been held back by an unwillingness to subject its beliefs, laws and practices to critical examination, by a lack of respect for the rights of the individual, and by an unwillingness to tolerate alternative viewpoints or to engage in constructive dialogue.”

 “…Quran tells us to: "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians" (Q. 5:51 ), fight them "until they pay the Jizya (a penalty tax for the non-Muslims living under Islamic rules) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Q. 9:29 ).  "kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (Q. 2:191 ), "murder them and treat them harshly" (Q. 9:123 ), "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (Q. 9:5 ). 

Quran says that all those who disbelieve in Islam go to hell (Q. 5:10 ), they are najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (Q. 9:28 ), and orders us to fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left (Q. 2:193 ). It prohibits a Muslim to befriend a non-believer even if that non-believer is the father or the brother of that Muslim (Q. 9:23 ), (Q. 3:28 ). 

It says that the "non-believers will go to hell and will drink boiling water" (Q. 14:17 ). It asks the Muslims to "slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have great punishment in the world hereafter" (Q. 5:34 ). And tells us that "for them (the unbelievers) garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods" (Q. 22:19-22 ) and that they not only will have "disgrace in this life, on the Day of Judgment He shall make them taste the Penalty of  burning (Fire)" ( 22:9 ). 

Quran says that "those who invoke a God other than Allah not only should meet punishment in this world but the Penalty on the Day of Judgment will be doubled to them, and they will dwell therein in ignominy" (Q. 25:68 ). For those who "believe not in Allah and His Messenger, He has prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing Fire!" (Q. 48:13 ). 

As for him who does not believe in Islam the Prophet says that after he dies it will be announced with a "stern command": "Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (Q. 69:30-37 )

The holy Prophet prescribes fighting for us and tells us that "it is good for us even if we dislike it" (Q. 2:216 ). Then he advises us to "strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (Q. 47:4 ). Our God has promised to "instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers" and has ordered us to  "smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them" (Q. 8:12 ). and "to strike terror into (the hearts of the enemies" (Q. 8:60 ). 

He has made the Jihad mandatory and warns us that "Unless we go forth, (for Jihad) He will punish us with a grievous penalty, and put others in our place" (Q. 9:39 ). Allah speaks to our Holy Prophet and says "O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be stern against them.  Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed" (Q. 9:73 ). 

He promises us that in the fight for His cause whether we slay or are slain we return to the garden of Paradise (Q. 9:111 ). In Paradise he will "wed us with Houris (celestial virgins) pure beautiful ones" (Q. 56:54 ), and unite us with large-eyed beautiful ones while we recline on our thrones set in lines (Q. 56:20 ). There we are promised to eat and drink pleasantly for what we did (56:19). And have sex with "boys like hidden pearls" (Q. 56:24 ) and "youth never altering in age like scattered pearls" (Q. 76:19 ) 

As you see, Allah has promised all sorts of rewards, gluttony and unlimited sex to Muslim men who kill the unbelievers in his name, not forgetting even those with pedophilic inclinations. We will be admitted to Paradise where we shall find "goodly things, beautiful ones, pure ones confined to the pavilions that man has not touched them before nor jinni" (Q. 56:67-71 ).

In the West we enjoy freedom of belief but we are not supposed to give such freedom to anyone else because it is written "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (all spiritual good) (Q. 3:85 ). 

Like the Greek philosopher I quoted in the beginning, I’m a citizen of the world. I don’t need any divine guidance for living a responsible and a decent life. All I need- common sense, compassion and reasons. I love to dream- there would come a time in our world, when one person wouldn’t judge another person based on race, religion and ethnicity. Our first and last identity would be- humans, inhabitants of the planet earth Superiority of any particular religion or culture over another wouldn’t prevail. I’m sure, I’m not alone in having such a dream. But I will do my part of the job. Through my writings, I would like to stimulate minds of educated Muslims throughout the world. I aspire to revive the lost trends of ‘Golden Age of Islam’ (9^th century to 13^th century), which was marked by traditions of Muslim rationalists called Mutazillatese. Inspired by the Greek learning, and adhering to rational inquiry, Muslim world flourished remarkably in Astronomy, Medicine, Mathematics, Arts and philosophy. Some great thinkers of golden age are- astronomer Al Sufi, Al Biruni (born in 973), physician Ibne Sina (born in 981), physicist Al-Haytham (born in 965). However, this trend didn’t last. With the change of social-political phenomena, fundamentalism rose and rationalist traditions submerged in the ocean of darkness, from which the Muslim world has yet to emerge. Yet I am very optimistic, since the people who love truth, reason and freedom—however small or big in number—always existed in the human history. There is absolutely no reason to think- they are all gone by now.