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A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:29am On Mar 05, 2015
Though am also an ex Muslim (doesn't mean am a Christian or atheist now), came across this testimony a couple of years ago and just like to share it with you today, you wouldn't regret the read.
From Belief to Enlightenment:
The treacherous and arduous path

by Ali Sina
I was born into a moderately religious
family. On my mother’s side I have a few
relatives who are Ayatollahs. Although my
grandfather (whom I never met) was
somewhat a skeptic, we were believers.
My parents were not fond of the mullahs.
In fact, we did not have much to do with
our more fundamentalist relatives. We
liked to think of ourselves as believing in
“true Islam,” not the one taught and
practiced by the mullahs.
I recall discussing religion with the
husband of one of my aunts when I was
about 15 years old. He was a fanatical
Muslim who was very concerned about
the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). It
prescribes the way Muslims should pray,
fast, run their public and private lives, do
business, clean themselves, use the
toilet, and even copulate. I argued this
has nothing to do with true Islam, that it
is a fabrication of the Mullahs, that
excessive attention to fiqh diminishes the
impact and importance of the pure
message of Islam, to unite man with his
creator. This view is mostly inspired by
Sufism. Many Iranians, thanks to Rumi's
poems, are to a great degree Sufis in
their outlook.
In my early youth I noticed
discriminations and cruelties against the
members of religious minorities in Iran.
This was more noticeable in provincial
towns where the level of education was
low and the mullahs had a better grip
over gullible people. Due to my father’s
work we spent a few years in small towns
out of the capital. I recall one of my
teachers who planned to take the class
swimming. We were excited and looked
forward to it. In the class there were a
couple of kids who were Baha'i and
Jewish. The teacher did not let them
accompany us. He said they are not
allowed to swim in the same pool that
Muslims swim in. I cannot forget the kids’
disappointment as they left school with
tears in their eyes, subdued and
heartbroken. At that age, maybe nine or
ten, I could not make sense of and was
saddened by this injustice. I thought it
was the kid’s fault for not being Muslims.
I believe I was lucky for having open-
minded parents who encouraged me to
think critically. They tried to instill in me
the love of God and his messenger, yet
upheld humanistic values like equality of
rights between man and woman, and love
for all humankind. In a sense, this is how
most modern Iranian families were. In
fact, the majority of Muslims who have
some education believe Islam is a
humanistic religion that respects human
rights, that elevates the status of women
and protects their rights. Most Muslims
believe that Islam means peace. Needless
to say, few of them have read the Quran.
I spent my early youth in this sweet
dream, advocating “true Islam” as I
thought it should be, and criticizing the
mullahs and their deviations from the
real teachings of Islam. I idealized an
Islam that conformed to my own
humanistic values. Of course my
imaginary Islam was a beautiful religion.
It was a religion of equality and peace. It
was a religion that encouraged its
followers to go after knowledge and be
inquisitive. It was a religion that was in
harmony with science and reason. In fact,
I thought that science got its inspiration
from this religion. The Islam I believed
was a religion that sparkled with modern
science, which eventually bore its fruit in
the West and made modern discoveries
and inventions possible. Islam, I believed,
was the real cause of modern civilization.
The reason Muslims were living in such a
miserable state of ignorance, I thought,
was all the fault of the self-centered
mullahs and religious leaders who for
their own personal gain had
misinterpreted the real teachings of
Islam.
Muslims honestly believe that the great
Western civilization has its roots in Islam.
They recall great Middle Eastern scientific
minds whose contributions to science
have been crucial in the birth of modern
science.
Omar Khayyam was a great
mathematician who calculated the length
of the year with a precision of .74% of a
second. Zakaria Razi can very well be
regarded as one of the first founders of
empirical science who based his
knowledge on research and
experimentation. Avicenna's (Bu Ali Sina)
monumental encyclopedia of medicine
was taught in European universities for
centuries. There are so many more great
luminaries who have “Islamic names” who
were the pioneers of modern science
when Europe was languishing in the
medieval Dark Ages. Like all Muslims, I
believed all these great men were
Muslims, that they were inspired by the
wealth of hidden knowledge in the Quran;
and that if today's Muslims could regain
the original purity of Islam, the long lost
glorious days of Islam would return and
Muslims would lead the advancement of
World civilization once again.
Iran was a Muslim country but it was also
a corrupt country. The chance of getting
into a university was slim. Only one in ten
applicants could get into the university.
Often they were forced to choose
subjects that they did not want to study
because they could not get enough points
for the subjects of their choice. Students
with the right connections often got the
seats.
The standard of education in Iran was not
ideal. Universities were under-funded, as
the Shah preferred building a powerful
military might to become the gendarme
of the Middle East rather than build the
infrastructure of the country and invest in
people’s education. These were reasons
why my father thought I would be better
off to leave Iran to continue my education
elsewhere.
We considered America and Europe, but
my father, acting upon the counsel of a
few of his religious friends, thought
another Islamic country would be better
for a 16 year old boy. We were told that
the West’s morality is too lax, people are
perverted, the beaches are full of nudes,
and they drink and have licentious
lifestyles, all of which are dangers to a
young man. So I was sent to Pakistan
instead, where people were religious and
thus it was safe and moral. A friend of
the family told us that Pakistan is just like
England, except that it is cheaper.
This, of course, proved to be untrue. I
found Pakistanis to be as immoral and
corrupt as Iranians. Yes they were very
religious. They did not eat pork and I saw
no one consuming alcohol in public, but I
noticed they had dirty minds, lied, were
hypocrites, were cruel to women, and
above all, were filled with hatred of the
Indians. I did not find them better than
Iranians in any way. They were religious
but not moral or ethical.
In college, instead of taking Urdu I took
Pakistani Culture to complete my A level
FSc (Fellow of Science). I learned the
reason for Pakistan's partition from India
and for the first time heard about
Muhammad Ali Jinah, the man Pakistanis
called Qaid-e A’zam, the great leader. He
was presented as an intelligent man, the
Father of the Nation, while Gandhi was
spoken of in a derogatory way. Even then,
I could not but side with Gandhi and
condemn Jinah as an arrogant, ambitious
man who was the culprit for breaking up
a country and causing millions of deaths.
You could say I always had a mind of my
own and was a maverick in my thinking.
No matter what I was taught, I always
came to my own conclusion and did not
believe what I was told.
I did not see differences of religion as
valid reasons for breaking up a country.
The very word Pakistan was an insult to
the Indians. They called themselves pak
(clean) to distinguish themselves from
the Indians who were najis (unclean).
Ironically I never saw a people dirtier
than the Pakistanis both physically and
mentally. It was disappointing to see
another Islamic nation in such intellectual
and moral bankruptcy. In discussions with
my friends I failed to convince anyone of
“true Islam.” I condemned their bigotry
and fanaticism while they disapproved of
me for my un-Islamic views.
I related all this to my father and decided
to go to Italy for my university studies. In
Italy people drink wine and eat pork, but
they were more hospitable, friendlier, and
less hypocritical than Muslims. I noticed
people were willing to help without
expecting something in return. I met a
very hospitable elderly couple, who
invited me to have lunch with them on
Sundays, so I would not have to stay
home alone. They did not want anything
from me. They just wanted someone to
love. I was almost a grandson to them.
Only strangers in a new country, who do
not know anyone and cannot speak the
language, can truly appreciate the value
of the help and hospitality of the locals.
Their house was sparkling clean, with
shiny marble floors. This contradicted my
idea of Westerners. Although my family
was very open towards other people,
Islam taught me that non-Muslims are
najis (Q. 9:28 ) and one should not
befriend them. I still have a copy of the
Farsi translation of the Quran I used to
often read from. One of the underlined
verses is:
“O you who believe! Take not the Jews
and the Christians as awliya’ (friends,
protectors, helpers, etc.), they are but
awliya’ to one another… Q.5: 51
I had difficulty understanding the wisdom
of such a verse. I wondered why I should
not befriend this wonderful elderly couple
who had no ulterior motives in showing
me their hospitality than just making me
feel at home. I thought they were “true
Muslims” and I tried to raise the subject
of religion hoping they would see the
truth of Islam and embrace it. But they
were not interested and politely changed
the subject. I was not stupid enough at
anytime in my life to believe that all non-
believers would go to hell. I read this in
the Quran before but never wanted to
think about it. I simply brushed it off or
ignored it. Of course, I knew that God
would be pleased if someone recognized
his messenger but never thought he
would actually be cruel enough to burn
someone in hell for eternity, even if that
person only does good deeds, just
because he was not a Muslim. I read the
following warning:
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 ,
Yet I paid little heed and tried to
convince myself the meaning is
something other than what it appears to
be. At that moment this was not a
subject that I was ready to handle. So I
did not think about it.
I hung around with my Muslim friends
and noticed that most of them lived a
very immoral life of double standards.
Most of them found girlfriends and slept
with them. That was very un-Islamic, or
so I thought at that time. What bothered
me most was the fact that they did not
value these girls as real human beings
who deserved respect. These girls were
not Muslim girls and therefore were used
just for sex. This attitude was not
general. Those who made less show of
religiosity were more respectful and
sincere towards their western girlfriends
and some even loved them and wanted to
marry them. Paradoxically. those who
were more religious were less faithful
towards their girlfriends. I always thought
that true Islam is what is right. If
something is immoral, unethical,
dishonest or cruel, it cannot be Islam. I
could not see how the behavior of these
immoral and callous Muslims could be the
result of what was taught in Islam.
Years later I realized that the truth is
exactly the opposite. I found many verses
that were disturbing and made me revise
my whole opinion of Islam.
As I saw it, the tragedy was that the very
same people who lived unethically and
immorally were the ones who called
themselves Muslims, said their prayers,
fasted and were the first to defend Islam
angrily if anyone raised a question about
it. They where the ones who would lose
their temper and start a fight if someone
dared to say a word against Islam.
Once I befriended a young Iranian man at
the university restaurant, later
introducing him to two other Muslim
friends of mine. We were all about the
same age. He was an erudite, virtuous,
wise, young man. My other two friends
and I were captivated by his charm and
high moral values We used to wait for
him and sit next to him during lunch
hour, as we always learned something
from him. We used to eat a lot of
spaghetti and risotto and craved a good
Persian ghorme sabzi and chelow . Our
friend said his mother sent him some
dried vegetables and invited us to his
house the next Sunday for lunch. We
found his two-room apartment very
clean, unlike the houses of other guys. He
made us a delicious ghorme sabzi which
we ate with great gusto and then sat back
chatting and sipping our tea. It was then
we noticed his Baha’i books. When we
asked about them, he said he was a
Baha’i.
That did not bother me at all, but on the
way home my two friends said they did
not wish to continue their friendship with
him. I was surprised and asked why. They
said that being a Baha’i makes him najis
and had they known he was a Baha’i, they
would not have befriended him. I was
puzzled and enquired why they thought
he was najis if we all were complementing
him on his cleanliness. We all agreed he
was a morally superior man than all of the
Muslim young men we knew, so why this
sudden change of attitude? Their
response was very disturbing. They said
the name itself had something in it that
made them dislike this religion. They
asked me if I knew why everyone disliked
the Baha’is. I told them I didn’t know,
and that I liked everyone. But since they
disliked the Baha’is, perhaps they should
explain their reasons. They did not know
why! This man was the first Baha’i they
knew this well, and he was an exemplary
man. I wanted to know the reason for
their dislike. There was no particular
reason, they said. It’s just they know that
Baha’is are bad.
I am happy I did not continue my
friendship with these two bigots. From
them I learned how prejudice is formed
and operates.
Later I realized the prejudices and hatred
that Muslims harbor against almost all
non-Muslims is not the result of any
misinterpretation of the teachings of the
Quran, but is because this book teaches
hate and encourages prejudice. Those
Muslims who go to the mosques and
listen to the sermons of the mullahs are
affected. There are many verses in the
Quran that call believers to hate non-
believers, fight them, call them najis,
subdue and humiliate them, chop off
their heads and limbs, crucify them, and
kill them wherever they find them.

2 Likes

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by vjsmiles: 8:30am On Mar 05, 2015
LEMMME FINISH READING
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by simplemach(m): 8:31am On Mar 05, 2015
Summary pls
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:32am On Mar 05, 2015
I LEARNED THE TRUTH FROM THE QURAN.
I left the religion on the backburner for
several years. Not that my views about
religion had changed or I didn’t consider
myself religious any more. I just had so
much to do that expending time on
religion had become scarce. Meanwhile I
learned more about democracy, human
rights and other values, like equality of
rights between men and women, and I
liked what I learned. Did I pray?
Whenever I could, but not fanatically.
After all, I was living and working in a
Western country and did not want to look
too different.
One day, I decided that it was time to
deepen my knowledge of Islam and read
the Quran from cover to cover. I found
an Arabic copy of the Quran with an
English translation. Previously I read only
bits and pieces of the Quran. This time I
read all of it. I would read a verse in
Arabic, then its English translation, then
refer back to the Arabic, and did not read
the next verse until I was completely
satisfied I understood the Arabic.
It didn’t take long before I came upon
verses I found hard to accept. One of
these verses was:
“Allah forgiveth not that partners
should be set up with Him; but He
forgiveth anything else, to whom He
pleaseth; to set up partners with Allah
is to devise a sin Most heinous
indeed.” 4:48
I found it hard to accept that Gandhi
would burn in hell forever because he
was a polytheist with no hope of
redemption, while a Muslim murderer
could hope to receive Allah’s forgiveness.
This raised a disturbing question. Why is
Allah so desperate to be known as the
only God? If there is no other god but
him, what is the fuss? Against whom is he
competing? Why should he even care
whether anyone knows him and praises
him or not.
I learned about the size of this universe.
Light, which travels at a speed of 300
thousand kilometers per second takes 20
billion years to reach us from the galaxies
that are at the edges of the universe.
How many galaxies are there? How many
stars are there in these galaxies? How
many planets are there in this universe?
These thoughts were mind-boggling. If
Allah is the creator of this vast universe,
why he is so concerned about being
known as the only god by a bunch of apes
living on a small planet down the Milky
Way?
Now that I had lived in the West, had
many western friends who were kind to
me, liked me, opened their hearts and
homes to me, and accepted me as their
friend, it was really hard to accept that
Allah didn’t want me to befriend them.
Let not the believers Take for friends
or helpers Unbelievers rather than
believers: if any do that, in nothing
will there be help from Allah 3:28 ,
Isn’t Allah the creator of the unbelievers
too? Isn’t he the god of everybody? Why
he should be so unkind to the
unbelievers? Wouldn’t it be better if
Muslims befriended unbelievers and
taught them Islam by a good example? By
keeping ourselves aloof and distant from
unbelievers, the gap of misunderstandings
will never be bridged. How in the world
will unbelievers learn about Islam if we
do not associate with them? These were
the questions I kept asking myself. The
answer to these questions came in a very
disconcerting verse. Allah’s order was to,
“slay them wherever ye catch
them.” (Q. 2:191 )
I thought of my own friends,
remembering their kindnesses and love
for me, and wondered how in the world a
true god would ask anyone to kill another
human being just because he does not
believe. That seemed absurd, yet this
concept was repeated so often in the
Quran there was no doubt about it. In
verse 8:65 , Allah tells his prophet:
“O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the
fight. If there are twenty amongst
you, patient and persevering, they will
vanquish two hundred: if a hundred,
they will vanquish a thousand of the
Unbelievers.”
I wondered why would Allah send a
messenger to make war? Shouldn’t God
teach us to love each other and be
tolerant towards each other’s beliefs? And
if Allah is really so concerned about
making people believe in him to the
extent that he would kill them if they
don’t believe, why would he not kill them
himself? Why does he ask us to do his
dirty work? Are we Allah’s hit men?
Although I knew of Jihad and never
questioned it before, I found it hard to
accept that God would resort to imposing
such violent measures on people. What
was more shocking was the cruelty of
Allah in dealing with unbelievers.
I will instill terror into the hearts of
the unbelievers: smite ye above their
necks and smite all their fingertips off
them 8:12
It seemed Allah was not just satisfied
with killing unbelievers, he enjoyed
torturing them before killing them.
Smiting people’s heads from above their
necks and chopping their fingertips were
very cruel acts. Would God really give
such orders? And yet the worst is what he
promised to do with unbelievers in the
other world:
These two antagonists dispute with
each other about their Lord: But those
who deny (their Lord),- for them will
be cut out a garment of Fire: over
their heads will be poured out boiling
water. With it will be scalded what is
within their bodies, as well as (their)
skins. In addition there will be maces
of iron (to punish) them. Every time
they wish to get away therefrom, from
anguish, they will be forced back
therein, and (it will be said), “Taste ye
the Penalty of Burning!” 22:19-22
How could the creator of this universe be
so cruel? I was shocked to learn that
Quran tells Muslims to:
- kill unbelievers wherever they find them
(Q. 2:191 ),
- murder them and treat them harshly
(Q. 9:123 ),
- fight them, (Q. 8:65 ), until no other
religion than Islam is left (Q. 2:193 )
- humiliate them and impose on them a
penalty tax if they are Christians or Jews,
(Q. 9:29 )
- slay them if they are Pagans (Q. 9:5 ),
crucify, or cut off their hands and feet,
- expel them from the land in disgrace.
And as if this were not enough, “they shall
have a great punishment in world
hereafter” (Q. 5:34 ),
- not befriend their own fathers or
brothers if they are not believers
(Q. 9:23 ), (Q. 3:28 ),
- kill their own family in the battles of
Badr and Uhud and asks Muslims to
“strive against the unbelievers with great
endeavor” (Q. 25:52 ),
- be stern with them because they belong
to hell (Q. 66:9 ).
How can any sensible person remain
unmoved when he or she finds the Quran
saying: “strike off the heads of the
unbelievers” then after a “wide slaughter
among them, carefully tie up the
remaining captives” (Q. 47:4 ).
I was also shocked to learn the Quran
denies freedom of belief for all and clearly
states Islam is the only acceptable
religion (Q. 3:85 ). Allah relegates those
who do not believe in the Quran to hell
(Q. 5:11 ) and calls them najis (filthy,
untouchable, impure) (Q. 9:28 ). He says
unbelievers will go to hell and will drink
boiling water (Q. 14:17 ). Further, “As for
the unbelievers, for them garments of
fire shall be cut and there shall be poured
over their heads boiling water whereby
whatever is in their bowls and skin shall
be dissolved and they will be punished
with hooked iron rods” (Q. 22:9 ). How
sadistic!
The book of Allah says women are inferior
to men and their husbands have the right
to beat them (Q. 4:34 ), and that women
will go to hell if they are disobedient to
their husbands (Q. 66:10 ). It says men
have an advantage over women
(Q. 2:228 ). It not only denies women
equal right to their inheritance
(Q. 4:11-12 ), it also regards them as
imbeciles and decrees that their
testimony alone is not admissible in court
(Q. 2:282 ). This means that a woman who
is raped cannot accuse her rapist unless
she can produce a male witness, which of
course is a joke. Rapists don't rape in the
presence of witnesses. But the most
shocking verse is where Allah allows
Muslims to rape women captured in wars
even if they are married before being
captured (Q. 4:24 ) (Q. 4:3 ). The holy
prophet raped the prettiest women he
captured in his raids on the same day he
killed their husbands and loved ones. This
is why anytime a Muslim army subdues
another nation, they call them kafir and
rape their women. Pakistani soldiers
raped up to 250,000 Bengali women in
1971 and massacred 3,000,000 unarmed
civilians when their religious leader
decreed that Bangladeshis are un-Islamic.
This is why the prison guards in the
Islamic regime of Iran rape the women
and then kill them after calling them
apostates and the enemies of Allah.
The whole Quran is full of verses that
teach killing of unbelievers and how Allah
would torture them after they die. There
are no lessons on morality, justice,
honesty, or love. The only message of the
Quran is to believe in Allah and his
messenger. The Quran coaxes people
with celestial rewards of unlimited sex
with fair houris in paradise and threatens
them with blazing fires of hell. When the
Quran speaks of righteousness, it does
not mean righteousness as we understand
it, but it means belief in Allah and his
messenger. A Muslim can be a killer and
murder non-Muslims and yet be a
righteous person. Good actions are
secondary. Belief in Allah and his
messenger are the ultimate purpose of a
person’s life.
After reading the Quran I became greatly
depressed. It was hard to accept it all. At
first I denied and searched for esoteric
meanings to these cruel verses of the
Quran, all in vain. There was no
misunderstanding! The Quran was
overwhelmingly inhumane. Of course it
contained a lot of scientific heresies and
absurdities, but they were not what
impacted me the most. It was the
violence of this book that really jolted me
and shook the foundation of my belief.

2 Likes

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:35am On Mar 05, 2015
THE TREACHEROUS PASSAGE TO ENLIGHTENMENT
After my bitter experience with the
Quran I found myself traveling on a
torturous road riddled with torments. I
was kicked out of the blissful garden of
ignorance, where all my questions were
answered. There I did not have to think.
All I had to do was believe. Now,the
gates to that garden were closed to me
forever. I had committed the unthinkable
sin of thinking. I had eaten from the
forbidden tree of knowledge, and my eyes
had been opened. I could see the fallacy
of it all and my own unclothedness. I knew I
would not be let into that paradise of
oblivion again. Once you start thinking,
you don't belong there anymore. I had
only one way to go and that was forward.
This road to enlightenment proved to be
more arduous than I was prepared for. It
was slippery. There were mountains of
obstacles to climb and precipices of errors
to avert. I traveled uncharted territories
alone, not knowing what I would find
next. It would become my odyssey in the
realm of understanding and discovering
truth, eventually leading me to the land
of enlightenment and freedom.
I will chart these territories for all those
who also commit the sin of thinking, find
themselves kicked out of the paradise of
ignorance and are en route to an
unknown destination.
If you doubt, if the mantle of ignorance in
which you wrapped yourself is shredded
to pieces and you find yourself naked,
know that you cannot stay in the paradise
of ignorance any longer. You have been
cast out forever. Just as a child, once out
of the womb, cannot go back, you will not
be readmitted into that blissful garden of
oblivion again. Listen to one who has
been there and done that, and don't cling
despondently to the gates. That door is
locked.
Instead look forward. You have a trip
ahead of you. You can fly to your
destination or you can crawl. I crawled!
But because I crawled, I know this path
quite well. I will chart the road, so
hopefully you don't have to crawl.
The passage from faith to enlightenment
consists of seven valleys.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:38am On Mar 05, 2015
1. SHOCK
After reading the Quran my perspective
of reality was jolted. I found myself
standing face to face with the truth and I
was scared to look at it. It certainly was
not what I was expecting to see. I had no
one to blame, to curse and call a liar. I
found all the absurdities of Islam and
inhumanity of its author by reading the
Quran. And I was shocked. Only this
shock made me come to my senses and
face the truth. Unfortunately this is a very
difficult, painful process. The followers of
Muhammad must see the naked truth and
they must be shocked. We cannot keep
sugarcoating the truth. The truth is bitter
and it must be accepted. Facts are
stubborn and refuse to go away. Only
then does the process of enlightenment
start.
But because each person’s sensitivity is
different, what shocks one person may
not shock the other. Even as a man I was
shocked when I read that Muhammad
instructed his followers to beat their
wives and called women “deficient in
intelligence.” Yet I have come to know
many Muslim women who have no
difficulty accepting these derogatory
statements uttered by their prophet. It’s
not that they agree they are deficient in
intelligence or they believe the majority
of the inhabitants of hell are women just
because the Prophet said so, but they
simply block out that information. They
read it, but it doesn’t sink in. They are in
denial. The denial acts as a shield that
covers and protects them, that saves
them from facing the pain of reality.
Once that shield is up, nothing can bring it
down. At this point their beliefs must be
attacked from other directions. We have
to bombard them with other shocking
teachings of the Quran. They may have a
weak spot for one of them. That is all
they need: a good shock. Shocks are
painful, but they can be lifesavers. Shocks
are used by doctors to bring back to life a
dead patient.
For the first time, the Internet has
changed the balance of power. Now the
brutal force of the guns, prisons and
death squads are helpless and the pen is
almighty. For the first time Muslims
cannot stop the truth by killing its
messenger. Now a great number of them
are coming in contact with the truth and
they feel helpless. They want to silence
this voice, but they cannot. They want to
kill the messenger, but they cannot. They
try to ban the sites exposing their
cherished beliefs, sometimes they
succeed momentarily, but most of the
time they don't. I created a site to
educate Muslims about true Islam. I
hosted it at Tripod.com. The Islamists
forced Tripod to shut it down and they
cowardly complied to appease them
Muslims. I got my domain and the site
was back again in a couple of weeks. So
the old way of killing the apostates,
burning their books and silencing them by
terror does not work. They cannot stop
people from reading. Even though my site
is banned in Saudi Arabia, Emirates and
many other Islamic countries, a great
number of Muslims who never knew the
truth about Islam are being exposed to
the truth for the first time, and are
shocked.
I met a lady on the net who converted to
Islam and started to wear the Islamic veil.
She had a web site with her picture
completely covered in a black veil along
with her story of how she became a
Muslim. She was very active and she used
to advise others not to read my writings.
But when she read the story of Safiyah,
the Jewish woman that Muhammad
captured and raped after killing her
father, husband and many of her relatives,
she was shocked. She questioned other
Muslims about this in vain. Then the door
was open and she was cast out of the
paradise of ignorance. She kept writing to
me and asking questions. Finally, she
passed through the other stages from
blind faith to enlightenment very quickly
and wrote thanking me for guiding her
though this arduous path. She withdrew
from the Yahoo Islamic clubs altogether.
When people learn about the unholy life
of Muhammad and the absurdities of the
Quran they are shocked. I want to expose
Islam, write the truth about Muhammad’s
unholy life, his hateful words, his
senseless assertions, and bombard
Muslims with facts. They will be angry.
They will curse me, insult me and tell me
that after reading my articles their faith in
Islam is “strengthened.” But that is when
I know that I have sown the seed of
doubt in their mind. They say all this
because they are shocked and have
entered the stage of denial. The seed of
doubt is planted and it will germinate. In
some people it takes years, but given the
chance it will eventually germinate.
Doubt is the greatest gift we can give to
each other. It is the gift of
enlightenment. Doubt will set us free, will
advance knowledge, and will unravel the
mysteries of this universe. Faith will keep
us ignorant.
One of hurdles we have to overcome is
the hurdle of tradition and false values
imposed on us by thousands of years of
religious upbringing. The world still values
faith and considers doubt as the sign of
weakness. People talk of men of faith
with respect and disdain men of little
faith. We are screwed up in our values.
The word faith means belief without
evidence; gullibility also means belief
without evidence. Therefore there is no
glory in faithfulness. Faithfulness means
gullibility, credulity, susceptibility and
easy to fleece. How can one be proud of
such qualities?
Doubt on the other hand means the
reverse of the above. It means being
capable of thinking independently, of
questioning, and of being a skeptic. We
owe our science and our modern
civilization to men and women who
doubted, not to those who believed.
Those who doubted were the pioneers;
they were the leaders of thought. They
were philosophers, inventors, and
discoverers. Those who believed lived and
died as followers, made little or no
contribution to the advancement of
science and human understanding.

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Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:40am On Mar 05, 2015
2. DENIAL
After being shocked, or maybe
simultaneously, one denies. The majority
of Muslims are trapped in denial. They
are unable and unwilling to admit the
Quran is a hoax. They desperately try to
explain the unexplainable, find miracles in
it and would willingly bend all the rules of
logic to prove that the Quran is right.
Each time they are exposed to a shocking
statement in the Quran or a
reprehensible act performed by
Muhammad they retreat in denial. This is
what I did in the first phase of my
journey. Denial is a safe place. It is the
unwillingness to admit that you have
been kicked out of the paradise of
ignorance. You try to go back, reluctant to
take the next step forward. In denial you
find your comfort zone. In denial you are
not going to be hurt, everything is okay;
everything is fine.
Truth is extremely painful, especially if
one has been accustomed to lies all his
life. It is not easy for a Muslim to see
Muhammad for who he was. It is like
telling a child that his father is a
murderer, a rapist, and a thief. A child
who adulates his father will not be able to
accept it even if all the proofs in the
world is shown to him. The shock is so
great that all he can do is to deny it. He
will call you a liar. hate you for hurting
him, curse you, consider you his enemy,
and may even explode in anger and
physically attack you.
This is the stage of denial. It is a self
defense mechanism. If pain is too great,
denial will take that pain away. If a
mother is informed that her child has
died in an accident, her first reaction is
often denial. At the moment of great
catastrophes, one is usually overwhelmed
by a weary sense that this is all a bad
dream and that eventually you’ll wake up
and everything will be okay. But
unfortunately facts are stubborn and will
not go away. One can live in denial for a
while, but sooner or later the truth must
be accepted.
Muslims are cocooned in lies. Because
speaking against Islam is a crime
punishable by death, no one dares to tell
the truth. Those who do, do not live long.
They are quickly silenced. So how would
you know the truth if all you hear are
lies? On one hand the Quran claims to be
a miracle and challenges anyone to
produce a Surah like it.
And if you are in doubt as to which We
have revealed to Our servant, then
produce a sura like it, and call on your
helper, besides Allah, if you are truthful.
(Q: 2:23)
Then it instructs its followers to kill
anyone who dares to criticize it or
challenge it. If you ever dare to take up
the challenge and produce a Surah as
poorly written as the Quran you will be
accused of mocking Islam for which the
punishment is death. In this atmosphere
of insincerity and deceit, truth is the
casualty.
The pain of coming face to face with the
truth and realizing all that we believed
were lies is extremely agonizing. The only
mechanism and natural way to deal with
it is denial. Denial takes away the pain. It
is a soothing bliss,even though it is hiding
one’s head in the sand.
One cannot stay in denial forever. Soon
the night will fall and the cold shivering
reality freezes one’s bones and you
realize that you are out of the paradise of
ignorance. That door is closed and the
key has been thrown away. You know too
much. You are an outcast. Fearfully you
look at the dark and twining road barely
visible in the twilight of your uncertainties
and gingerly you take your first steps
towards an unknown destiny. You grapple
and fumble, reluctantly trying to stay
focused. But fear overwhelms you and
each time you try to run back to the
garden you once again face the closed
door.
The great majority of Muslims live in
denial. They stay behind the closed door.
They cannot go back nor do they dare to
walk away from it. Those who are inside
the garden are those who never left it.
This door will only let you out. You cannot
get in. That blissful garden is the garden
of certitude. It is reserved for the faithful,
for those who do not doubt, for those
who do not think. They believe anything.
They would believe that night is day and
day is night. They would believe that
Muhammad climbed the seventh heaven,
met with God, split the moon and
conversed with jinns.
As Voltaire said, those who believe in
absurdities commit atrocities. They also
believe that killing infidels is good,
bombing is holy, stoning is divine, beating
wives is prescribed by God, and hating
unbelievers is the will of God. These
inhabitants of the paradise of ignorance
constitute the majority. Those who doubt
are still the minority.
These believers will never see the truth if
they are permanently kept cocooned in
lies. All they have heard so far is the lie
that Islam is good and if only Muslims
practiced true Islam, the world would
become a paradise, that the problems of
Islam are all the fault of Muslims. This is a
lie. Most Muslims are good people. They
are no worse and no better than others.
It’s Islam that makes them commit
atrocities. Those Muslims who do bad
things are those who follow Islam. Islam
rears the criminal instinct in people. The
more a person is Islamist, the more
bloodthirsty, hate mongering, and zombie
s/he becomes.
I wanted to deny what I was reading. I
wanted to believe that the real meaning
of the Quran is something else, but I
could not. I could no longer fool myself
saying these inhumane verses were taken
out of the context. The Quran does not
have a context. Verses are jammed
together at random often lacking any
coherence.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:41am On Mar 05, 2015
3. CONFUSION
Those who read my articles and are hurt
by what I say about the Quran and Islam
are lucky. They have me to blame. They
can hate me, curse me and direct all their
anger at me. But when I read the Quran
and learned about its content, I could not
blame anyone. After going through the
stages of shock and denial, I was confused
and started to blame myself. I hated
myself for thinking, for doubting and
finding fault with what I regarded to be
the words of God.
Like all other Muslims, I was exposed to
and accepted all the many lies,
absurdities and inhumanities. I was
brought up as a religious person. I
believed in whatever I was told. These
lies were given to me in small doses,
gradually, since my childhood. I was
never given an alternative to compare. It
is like vaccination. I was immune to the
truth. But when I started to read the
Quran seriously from cover to cover and
understood what this book is actually
saying. I felt nauseated. All those lies
suddenly appeared in front of me.
I had heard them all and had accepted
them. My rational thinking was numbed.
I had become insensitive to the
absurdities of the Quran. When I found
something that did not make sense, I
brushed it off and said to myself that one
has to look at the “big picture.” That
idyllic big picture, however, was nowhere
to be found except in my own mind. I
pictured a perfect Islam. So all those
absurdities did not bother me because I
paid no attention to them. When I read
the whole Quran I discovered a distinctly
different picture than the one in my
mind. The new picture of Islam emerging
from the pages of the Quran was violent,
intolerant, irrational, arrogant, a far cry
from Islam as a religion of peace, equality
and tolerance.
In the face of this much absurdity, I had
to deny it, to keep my sanity. But how
long I could keep denying the truth when
it was out like the sun right in front of
me? I was reading the Quran in Arabic so
I could not blame a bad translation. Later
I read other translations. I realized many
translations in English are not entirely
reliable. The translators had tried very
hard to hide the inhumanity and the
violence in the Quran by twisting the
words and adding their own words
sometimes in parenthesis or brackets to
soften its harsh tone. The Arabic Quran is
more shocking than its English
translations.
I was confused and I did not know where
to turn. My faith had beeen shaken and
my world had crumbled. I could no longer
deny what I was reading. But I could not
accept the possibility that this was all a
huge lie. “How could it be, I kept asking
myself. that so many people have not
seen the truth and I could see it? How
could great seers like Jalaleddin Rumi did
not see that Muhammad was an impostor
and that the Quran is a hoax, and I see it?
It was then that I entered the stage of
guilt.

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:43am On Mar 05, 2015
4. GUILT
The guilt lasted for many months. I hated
myself for having these thoughts. I felt
God was testing my faith. I felt ashamed.
I spoke with learned people whom I
trusted, people who were not only
knowledgeable but whom I thought were
wise. I heard very little that could quench
the burning fire within me. One of these
learned men told me not to read the
Quran for a while. He told me to pray and
read only books that would strengthen my
faith. I did that, but it did not help. The
thoughts about the absurd, sometimes
ruthless, ridiculous verses of the Quran
kept throbbing in my head. Each time I
looked at my bookshelf and saw that
book, I felt pain. I took it and hid it
behind the other books. I thought if I do
not think about it for a while my negative
thoughts would go away and I would
regain my faith once again. But they
didn’t go away. I denied as much as I
could, until I could no longer. I was
shocked, confused, felt guilty and it was
painful.
This period of guilt lasted too long. One
day I decided enough is enough. I told
myself that it is not my fault. I am not
going to carry this guilt forever thinking
about things that make no sense to me. If
God gave me a brain, it is because he
wants me to use it. If what I perceive as
right and wrong is skewed, then it is not
my fault. He tells me killing is bad and I
know it is bad because I do not want to
be killed. Then why did his messenger kill
so many innocent people and order his
followers to kill those who do not
believe? If rape is bad, and I know it is
bad because I do not want it to happen to
people I love, why did Allah's prophet
rape the women he captured in war? If
slavery is bad, and I know it is bad
because I hate to lose my freedom and
become a slave, why has the Prophet of
God enslaved so many people and made
himself rich by selling them? If imposition
of religion is bad, and I know that it is bad
because I do not like another person to
force on me a religion that I don’t want,
then why did the Prophet eulogize Jihad
and exhort his followers to kill
unbelievers, take their booty, and
distribute their women and children as
spoils of war? If God tells me something is
good, and I know that it is good because
it feels good to me, then why did his
prophet do the opposite of that thing?

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:45am On Mar 05, 2015
5. DISILLUSIONMENT
When this guilt was lifted off my
shoulders, dismay, disillusionment, or
cynicism followed. I felt sorry for having
wasted so many years of my life,and for
all the Muslims who are still trapped in
these foolish beliefs, for all those who
lost their lives in the name of these false
doctrines, for all the women in virtually
all the Islamic countries who suffer all
sorts of abuses and oppression.s. They do
not even know they are being abused.
I thought of all the wars waged in the
name of religion, so many people died for
nothing. Millions of believers left their
homes and families to wage war in the
name of God, never to return, thinking
they are spreading faith in God. They
massacred millions of innocent people.
Civilizations were destroyed, libraries
were burned, and so much knowledge
was lost, for nothing. I recalled my father
waking up in the early hours of the
morning and in the icy water of the
winter performing voodoo. I recalled him
coming home hungry and thirsty during
the month of fasting, and I thought of the
billions of people who torture themselves
in this way for nothing. The realization
that all that I believed were lies and all
that I did was a waste of my life, and the
fact that a billion other people are still
lost in this arid desert of ignorance
chasing a mirage that to them appears to
be water was disappointing.
Prior to that God was always in the back
of my mind. I used to talk to him in my
imagination and those conversations
seemed me. I thought God was watching
and taking account of every good act that
I did. The feeling that someone was
watching over me, guiding my steps and
protecting me was very comforting. It
was difficult to accept that there is no
such thing as Allah and even if there is a
God, it is not Allah. I did not give up the
belief in God, but by then I knew for sure
that if this universe has a maker, it
cannot be the deity that Muhammad had
envisioned. Allah was ignorant to the
core. The Quran is full of errors. No
creator of this universe could be as stupid
as the god of the Quran appeared to be.
Allah could not have existed anywhere
else except in the mind of a sick Man. I
understood that he was but a figment of
Muhammad’s imagination and nothing
more. How disappointed I was when I
realized all these years I had been
praying to a fantasy.

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:47am On Mar 05, 2015
6. DEPRESSION
This feeling of loss and disappointment
was accompanied by a sense of sadness,
or some kind of depression. It was as if
my whole world had fallen apart. I felt
like the ground I was standing on was no
longer there and I was falling into a
bottomless pit. Without exaggerating, it
felt like I was in hell.
I was bewildered, pleading for help and
no one could help. I felt ashamed of my
thoughts and hating myself for having
such thoughts. The guilt was accompanied
by a profound sense of loss and
depression. As a rule, I am a positive
thinker. I see the good side of
everything. I always think tomorrow is
going to be better than today. I am not
the kind of person who is easily
depressed. But this feeling of loss was
overwhelming. I still recall that weight in
my heart. I thought God has forsaken me
and I did not know why. “Is that God’s
punishment?” I kept asking myself. I do
not remember hurting anyone ever. I
went out of my way to help anyone
whose life crossed mine and asked me for
help. So, why did God want to punish me
in this way? Why was He not answering
my prayers? Why has He left me to
myself and these thoughts I could find no
answers to? Does he want to test me?
Then where were the answers to my
prayers? Would I pass this test if I
became stupid and stopped using my
brain? If so, why did he give me a brain?
Would only dumb people pass the test of
faith?
I felt betrayed and violated. I cannot say
which feeling was predominant. At times
I was disillusioned, sad, or dismayed.
Even if faith is false, it is still sweet. It is
very comforting to believe.
Juxtaposing my feelings of sadness and
loss, I felt liberated. Curiously I no longer
felt confused or guilty. I knew for sure
the Quran was a hoax and Muhammad
was an impostor.
To overcome this sadness I tried to keep
myself busy with other activities. I even
took dancing lessons and experienced
what it means to be alive, to be free of
guilt, to enjoy life and to just be normal. I
realized how much I had missed out on
and how foolishly I deprived myself of the
simple pleasures of life. Of course denial
is the way cults exert their control over
thier believers. I denied myself the
simplest pleasures of life, was living in
constant fear of God, and I thought this
was normal. I am talking of pleasures like
sleeping in the morning, dancing, dating,
or sipping a glass of fine wine.

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 8:52am On Mar 05, 2015
7. ANGER
At this time, I entered another stage of
my spiritual journey to enlightenment. I
became angry. Angry for having believed
those lies for so many years, for wasting
so many years of my life chasing a wild
goose. Angry at my culture for betraying
me, for the wrong values it gave me, with
my parents for teaching me a lie, with
myself for not thinking before, for
believing in lies, trusting an impostor,
with God for letting me down, for not
intervening and stopping the lies that
were being disseminated in His name.
When I saw pictures of millions of
Muslims who, with so much devotion,
went to Saudi Arabia, many of them
spending their life’s savings to perform
hajj, I became angry with the lies these
people were brought up with. When I
read someone had converted to Islam,
something Muslims love to advertise and
make a big issue of I became saddened
and angry. I was sad for that poor soul
and angry with the lies.
I was angry with the whole world that
tries to protect this lie, defend it, and
even abuse you if you raise your voice to
try to tell them what you know. It is not
just Muslims, but even westerners who
do not believe in Islam. It’s okay to
criticize anything but Islam. What amazed
me and made me even angrier was the
resistance I faced when I tried to tell
others that Islam is not the truth.
Fortunately this anger did not last long. I
knew that Muhammad was no messenger
of God but a charlatan, a demagogue
whose only intention was to beguile
people and satisfy his own narcissistic
ambitions. I knew all those childish
stories of a hell with scorching fire and a
heaven with rivers of wine, milk and
honey. orgies, were the figments of a
sick, wild, insecure and bullying mind of a
man in desperate need to dominate and
affirm his own authority.
I realized I could not be angry with my
parents; for they did their best and
taught me what they thought to be the
best. I could not be angry with my
society or culture because my people
were just as misinformed as my parents
and myself. Afer some thought, I realized
everyone was a victim. There are one
billion or more victims. Even those who
have become victimizers are victims of
Islam too. How could I blame Muslims if
they do not know what Islam stands for
and honestly, though erroneously, believe
that it is a religion of peace?
Muhammad the narcissist
What about Muhammad? Should I be
angry with him for lying, deceiving and
misleading people? How could I be angry
with a dead person? Muhammad was an
emotionally sick man who was not in
control of himself. He grew up as an
orphan in the care of five different foster
parents before he reached the age of
eight. As soon as he became attached to
someone, he was snatched away and
given to someone else. This must have
been hard on him and was detrimental to
his emotional health. As a child, deprived
of love and a sense of belonging, he grew
with deep feelings of fear and lack of self-
confidence. He became a narcissist. A
narcissist is a person who has not
received enough love in his childhood,
who is incapable of loving, but instead
craves attention, respect and recognition.
He sees his own worth in the way others
view him. Without that recognition he is
nobody. He becomes manipulative and a
pathetic liar.
Narcissists are grandiose dreamers. They
want to conquer the world and dominate
everyone. Only in their megalomaniac
reveries is their narcissism satisfied.
Some famous narcissists are Hitler,
Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Idi
Amin, Pol Pot and Mao. Narcissists are
intelligent, yet emotional wrecks. They
are deeply disturbed people. They set
themselves extremely high goals. Their
goals always have to do with domination,
power and respect. They are nobody if
they are neglected. Narcissists often seek
alibis to impose their control over their
unwary victims. For Hitler it was the
party and race, for Mussolini it was
fascism or the unity of the nation against
others and for Muhammad it was religion.
These causes are just tools in their quest
for power. Instead of promoting
themselves, the narcissists promote a
cause, an ideology, or a religion while
presenting themselves as the only
authority and the representative of these
causes. Hitler did not call the Germans to
love him as a person but to love and
respect him because he was the Fuhrer.
Muhammad could not ask anyone to obey
him. But he could easily demand his
followers to obey Allah and his
messenger. Of course Allah was
Muhammad’s own alter ego, so all the
obedience was for him in the final
account. In this way he could wield
control over everyone's life by telling
them he is the representative of God and
what he says is what God has ordained.
Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of “Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited” explains:
“Everyone is a narcissist, to varying
degrees. Narcissism is a healthy
phenomenon. It helps survival. The
difference between healthy and
pathological narcissism is, indeed, in
measure. Pathological narcissism and its
extreme form, NPD (Narcissistic
Pathological Disorder), is characterized by
extreme lack of empathy. The narcissist
regards and treats other people as objects
to be exploited. He uses them to obtain
narcissistic supply. He believes that he is
entitled to special treatment because he
harbours these grandiose fantasies about
himself. The narcissist is NOT self-aware.
His cognition and emotions are
distorted.”
The above perfectly describes
Muhammad. Muhammad was a ruthless
man with no feelings. When he decided
the Jews were of no use to him, he
stopped kowtowing to them and
eliminated them all. He massacred all the
men of Bani Qurayza and banished or
murdered every other Jew and Christian
from Arabia. Surely if God wanted to
destroy these people he would not have
needed the help of his messenger.
So I found there was no reason to be
angry with an emotionally sick man who
died a long time ago. Muhammad was a
victim himself of the stupid culture of his
people, of the ignorance of his mother
who, instead of keeping him during the
first years of his life when he needed her
love most, entrusted him to a Bedouin
woman to raise him so she could find a
new husband.
Muhammad was a man with profound
emotional scars. Dr. Vaknin writes that a
narcissist "lies to himself and to others,
projecting ‘untouchability,’ emotional
immunity, and invincibility. For a
narcissist "everything is bigger than life. If
he is polite, then he is aggressively so. His
promises outlandish, his criticisms violent
and ominous, his generosity inane." Isn't
this the image the Prophet projected of
himself?
I could not criticize or blame the ignorant
Arabs of the 7th century for not being
able to discern that Muhammad was sick
and not a prophet, that his outlandish
promises, his impressive dreams of
conquering and subduing the great
nations when he was just a pauper, were
caused by his pathological emotional
complications and were not due to a
divine power. How could I blame those
ignorant Arabs for falling prey to a man
like Muhammad when only in the last
century, millions of Germans fell prey to
the charisma of another narcissist who
just as Muhammad, made big promises,
was as ruthless, as manipulative, and as
ambitious as he was?
After serious thought, I realized there is
not a single person I could be angry with.
I realized we are all victims and
victimizers at the same time. The culprit
is ignorance. Because of our ignorance we
believe in charlatans and their lies,
allowing them to disseminate hate among
us in the name of false deities, ideologies
or religions. This hate separates us from
each other, and prevents us from seeing
our oneness and understanding that we
are all members of the human race,
related to each other and
interdependent.
It was then that my anger gave way to a
profound feeling of empathy, compassion
and love. I made a promise to myself to
fight this ignorance that divides the
human race. We paid, and are paying,
dearly for our disunity. This disunity is
caused by ignorance and the ignorance is
the result of false beliefs and pernicious
ideologies that are concocted by
emotionally unhealthy individuals for self-
serving purposes.
Ideologies separate us. Religions cause
disunity, hate,fighting, killing, and
antagonism. As members of the human
race, we need no ideology, cause, or
religion to be united.
I realized that the purpose of life is not to
believe but to doubt. I realized that no
one can teach us the truth because truth
cannot be taught. It can only be
experienced. In reality, no religion,
philosophy or doctrine can teach you the
truth. Truth is in the love we have for our
fellow human beings, in the laugher of a
child, in friendship, in companionship, in
the love of a parent and a child, and in
our relationships with others. Truth is not
in ideologies. The only thing that is real, is
love.

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by sod09(m): 8:55am On Mar 05, 2015
Too long
What's ur point?
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Dolypson04(m): 8:57am On Mar 05, 2015
As much as I would want to condemn Islam as a religion after reading this article, I can see the similarities in Quran and Old testament. Definitely Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. The only path to Almighty God. He never preached violence. He even said "pray for your enemy. It's never too late. Drop ur ego, repent and accept Jesus today!

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 9:02am On Mar 05, 2015
SYNTHESIS
The process of going from faith to
enlightenment is an arduous and painful
process. Let us borrow a term from
Sufism and call that the seven “valleys” of
enlightenment.
Faith is the state of being confirmed in
ignorance. You will continue to stay in
that state of blissful ignorance until you
are shocked and forced out of it. This
shock is the first valley.
The natural first reaction to shock is
denial. Denial acts like a shield. It buffers
the pain and protects you from the agony
of going out of your comfort zone. The
comfort zone is where we feel at ease,
where we find everything familiar, where
we don't face new challenges or the
unknown. This is the second valley.
Growth doesn’t take place in comfort
zones. In order to go forward and evolve
we need to get out of our comfort zones.
We won't do that unless we are shocked.
It is also natural to buffer the pain of
shock by denial. At this moment we need
another shock, and we may decide to
shield ourselves again with another
denial. The more a person is exposed to
facts and the more he is shocked, the
more he tries to protect himself with
more denials. But denials do not
eliminate the facts. They just shield us
momentarily. When we are exposed to
facts, at a certain point we will be unable
to continue denying. Suddenly we won’t
be able to keep our defenses up and the
wall of denials will come down. We can’t
keep hiding our heads in the sand
prepetually. Once doubt sets in, it will
have a domino effect and we find
ourselves hit from all directions by facts
that up until now we avoided and denied.
Suddenly all those absurdities that we
accepted and even defended, are no
longer logical and we reject them.
We are then driven into the painful stage
of confusion and that is the third valley.
The old beliefs seem unreasonable,
foolish and unacceptable, yet we have
nothing to cling to. This valley, I believe,
is the most dreadful stage in the passage
from faith to enlightenment. In this valley
we lose our faith without having found
the enlightenment. We are basically
standing in nowhere. We experience a
free fall. We ask for help but all we get is
a rehashing of some nonsense clichés. It
seems that those who try to help us are
lost themselves, yet they are so
convinced. They believe in what they
don't know. The arguments they present
are not logical at all. They expect us to
believe without questioning. They bring
the example of the faith of others. But
the intensity of the faith of other people
does not prove the truth of what they
believe in.
This confusion eventually gives way to the
fourth valley, guilt. You feel guilty for
thinking. You feel guilty for doubting, for
questioning, for not understanding. You
feel naked, and ashamed of your
thoughts. You think it is your fault if the
absurdities mentioned in your holy books
make no sense to you. You think that God
has abandoned you or that he is testing
your faith. In this valley you are torn
apart by your emotions and your intellect.
Emotions are not rational, but they are
extremely powerful. You want to go back
to the paradise of ignorance, you
desperately want to believe but you
simply can't. You have committed the sin
of thinking. You have eaten the forbidden
fruit from the tree of knowledge. You
have angered the god of your
imaginations.
Finally you decide there is no need to feel
guilty for the understanding. That guilt
does not belong to you. You feel
liberated but at the same time dismayed
for all those lies that kept you in
ignorance and the time wasted. This is
the valley of disillusionment. At the same
time you are overtaken by sadness. You
feel liberated; yet like coming out of
prison after spending a lifetime there, you
are overtaken by deep sense of
depression. You feel lonely and despite
your freedom, you miss something. You
ponder the time lost. You think of the
many people who believe(d) in this
nonsense and foolishly sacrifice(d)
everything for it, including their lives. The
pages of history are written with the
blood of people who were killed in the
name of Yahweh, Allah or other gods. All
for nothing! All for a lie!
Thereupon you enter the sixth valley, of
anger. You become angry at yourself, and
at everything else. You realize how much
of your precious life you lost believing in
so many lies.
But then you realize you are the lucky
one for having made it this far and that
there are billions of others who are still
trying to shield themselves with denials
and not venture out of their comfort
zone. They are still wading in the
quagmire of the first valley. At this stage,
when you are completely free from faith,
guilt and anger, you are ready to
understand the ultimate truth and unravel
the mysteries of life. You are filled with
empathy and compassion. You are ready
to be enlightened. The enlightenment
comes when you realize that the truth is
in love and in our relationship with our
fellow human beings and not in a religion
or a cult. You realize that Truth is a
pathless land. No prophet or guru can
take you there. You are there already.
In this odyssey you are not alone. You
have a nagging companion who will not
leave you. He will try to hinder your
advancement and stop you from going
forwards. He is your fear: the fear of
punishment, of hell, of after death. It is
completely irrational, yet it controls you
and acts on your subconscious mind every
step of the way. The passage from faith to
enlightenment is arduous and you will not
be able to take the first step if you
cannot get rid of your fears. You will only
get rid of them completely when you
arrive at your destiny and you are
enlightened. Then you break the chain of
fear and acquire wings of enlightenment.
This is the true liberation.
25 June 2001

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 9:09am On Mar 05, 2015
NOTE: If you notice atheism inclination in the author's write up, this is because immediately he left Islam he became an atheist but now he is a theist but not in the religious sense. visit his website for more information on is transition from atheist to theist on www.alisina.org
If you can't read all, read the synthesized version I posted but you will so enjoy the full version.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 9:10am On Mar 05, 2015
NOTE: If you notice atheism inclination in the author's write up, this is because immediately he left Islam he became an atheist but now he is a theist but not in the religious sense. visit his website for more information on is transition from atheist to theist on www.alisina.org
If you can't read all, read the synthesized version I posted but you will so much enjoy the full version.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Ifeann(f): 12:33pm On Mar 05, 2015
justlove91:
Though am also an ex Muslim (doesn't mean am a Christian or atheist now), came across this testimony a couple of years ago and just like to share it with you today, you wouldn't regret the read.
From Belief to Enlightenment:
The treacherous and arduous path

by Ali Sina
I was born into a moderately religious
family. On my mother’s side I have a few
relatives who are Ayatollahs. Although my
grandfather (whom I never met) was
somewhat a skeptic, we were believers.
My parents were not fond of the mullahs.
In fact, we did not have much to do with
our more fundamentalist relatives. We
liked to think of ourselves as believing in
“true Islam,” not the one taught and
practiced by the mullahs.
I recall discussing religion with the
husband of one of my aunts when I was
about 15 years old. He was a fanatical
Muslim who was very concerned about
the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). It
prescribes the way Muslims should pray,
fast, run their public and private lives, do
business, clean themselves, use the
toilet, and even copulate. I argued this
has nothing to do with true Islam, that it
is a fabrication of the Mullahs, that
excessive attention to fiqh diminishes the
impact and importance of the pure
message of Islam, to unite man with his
creator. This view is mostly inspired by
Sufism. Many Iranians, thanks to Rumi's
poems, are to a great degree Sufis in
their outlook.
In my early youth I noticed
discriminations and cruelties against the
members of religious minorities in Iran.
This was more noticeable in provincial
towns where the level of education was
low and the mullahs had a better grip
over gullible people. Due to my father’s
work we spent a few years in small towns
out of the capital. I recall one of my
teachers who planned to take the class
swimming. We were excited and looked
forward to it. In the class there were a
couple of kids who were Baha'i and
Jewish. The teacher did not let them
accompany us. He said they are not
allowed to swim in the same pool that
Muslims swim in. I cannot forget the kids’
disappointment as they left school with
tears in their eyes, subdued and
heartbroken. At that age, maybe nine or
ten, I could not make sense of and was
saddened by this injustice. I thought it
was the kid’s fault for not being Muslims.
I believe I was lucky for having open-
minded parents who encouraged me to
think critically. They tried to instill in me
the love of God and his messenger, yet
upheld humanistic values like equality of
rights between man and woman, and love
for all humankind. In a sense, this is how
most modern Iranian families were. In
fact, the majority of Muslims who have
some education believe Islam is a
humanistic religion that respects human
rights, that elevates the status of women
and protects their rights. Most Muslims
believe that Islam means peace. Needless
to say, few of them have read the Quran.
I spent my early youth in this sweet
dream, advocating “true Islam” as I
thought it should be, and criticizing the
mullahs and their deviations from the
real teachings of Islam. I idealized an
Islam that conformed to my own
humanistic values. Of course my
imaginary Islam was a beautiful religion.
It was a religion of equality and peace. It
was a religion that encouraged its
followers to go after knowledge and be
inquisitive. It was a religion that was in
harmony with science and reason. In fact,
I thought that science got its inspiration
from this religion. The Islam I believed
was a religion that sparkled with modern
science, which eventually bore its fruit in
the West and made modern discoveries
and inventions possible. Islam, I believed,
was the real cause of modern civilization.
The reason Muslims were living in such a
miserable state of ignorance, I thought,
was all the fault of the self-centered
mullahs and religious leaders who for
their own personal gain had
misinterpreted the real teachings of
Islam.
Muslims honestly believe that the great
Western civilization has its roots in Islam.
They recall great Middle Eastern scientific
minds whose contributions to science
have been crucial in the birth of modern
science.
Omar Khayyam was a great
mathematician who calculated the length
of the year with a precision of .74% of a
second. Zakaria Razi can very well be
regarded as one of the first founders of
empirical science who based his
knowledge on research and
experimentation. Avicenna's (Bu Ali Sina)
monumental encyclopedia of medicine
was taught in European universities for
centuries. There are so many more great
luminaries who have “Islamic names” who
were the pioneers of modern science
when Europe was languishing in the
medieval Dark Ages. Like all Muslims, I
believed all these great men were
Muslims, that they were inspired by the
wealth of hidden knowledge in the Quran;
and that if today's Muslims could regain
the original purity of Islam, the long lost
glorious days of Islam would return and
Muslims would lead the advancement of
World civilization once again.
Iran was a Muslim country but it was also
a corrupt country. The chance of getting
into a university was slim. Only one in ten
applicants could get into the university.
Often they were forced to choose
subjects that they did not want to study
because they could not get enough points
for the subjects of their choice. Students
with the right connections often got the
seats.
The standard of education in Iran was not
ideal. Universities were under-funded, as
the Shah preferred building a powerful
military might to become the gendarme
of the Middle East rather than build the
infrastructure of the country and invest in
people’s education. These were reasons
why my father thought I would be better
off to leave Iran to continue my education
elsewhere.
We considered America and Europe, but
my father, acting upon the counsel of a
few of his religious friends, thought
another Islamic country would be better
for a 16 year old boy. We were told that
the West’s morality is too lax, people are
perverted, the beaches are full of nudes,
and they drink and have licentious
lifestyles, all of which are dangers to a
young man. So I was sent to Pakistan
instead, where people were religious and
thus it was safe and moral. A friend of
the family told us that Pakistan is just like
England, except that it is cheaper.
This, of course, proved to be untrue. I
found Pakistanis to be as immoral and
corrupt as Iranians. Yes they were very
religious. They did not eat pork and I saw
no one consuming alcohol in public, but I
noticed they had dirty minds, lied, were
hypocrites, were cruel to women, and
above all, were filled with hatred of the
Indians. I did not find them better than
Iranians in any way. They were religious
but not moral or ethical.
In college, instead of taking Urdu I took
Pakistani Culture to complete my A level
FSc (Fellow of Science). I learned the
reason for Pakistan's partition from India
and for the first time heard about
Muhammad Ali Jinah, the man Pakistanis
called Qaid-e A’zam, the great leader. He
was presented as an intelligent man, the
Father of the Nation, while Gandhi was
spoken of in a derogatory way. Even then,
I could not but side with Gandhi and
condemn Jinah as an arrogant, ambitious
man who was the culprit for breaking up
a country and causing millions of deaths.
You could say I always had a mind of my
own and was a maverick in my thinking.
No matter what I was taught, I always
came to my own conclusion and did not
believe what I was told.
I did not see differences of religion as
valid reasons for breaking up a country.
The very word Pakistan was an insult to
the Indians. They called themselves pak
(clean) to distinguish themselves from
the Indians who were najis (unclean).
Ironically I never saw a people dirtier
than the Pakistanis both physically and
mentally. It was disappointing to see
another Islamic nation in such intellectual
and moral bankruptcy. In discussions with
my friends I failed to convince anyone of
“true Islam.” I condemned their bigotry
and fanaticism while they disapproved of
me for my un-Islamic views.
I related all this to my father and decided
to go to Italy for my university studies. In
Italy people drink wine and eat pork, but
they were more hospitable, friendlier, and
less hypocritical than Muslims. I noticed
people were willing to help without
expecting something in return. I met a
very hospitable elderly couple, who
invited me to have lunch with them on
Sundays, so I would not have to stay
home alone. They did not want anything
from me. They just wanted someone to
love. I was almost a grandson to them.
Only strangers in a new country, who do
not know anyone and cannot speak the
language, can truly appreciate the value
of the help and hospitality of the locals.
Their house was sparkling clean, with
shiny marble floors. This contradicted my
idea of Westerners. Although my family
was very open towards other people,
Islam taught me that non-Muslims are
najis (Q. 9:28 ) and one should not
befriend them. I still have a copy of the
Farsi translation of the Quran I used to
often read from. One of the underlined
verses is:
“O you who believe! Take not the Jews
and the Christians as awliya’ (friends,
protectors, helpers, etc.), they are but
awliya’ to one another… Q.5: 51
I had difficulty understanding the wisdom
of such a verse. I wondered why I should
not befriend this wonderful elderly couple
who had no ulterior motives in showing
me their hospitality than just making me
feel at home. I thought they were “true
Muslims” and I tried to raise the subject
of religion hoping they would see the
truth of Islam and embrace it. But they
were not interested and politely changed
the subject. I was not stupid enough at
anytime in my life to believe that all non-
believers would go to hell. I read this in
the Quran before but never wanted to
think about it. I simply brushed it off or
ignored it. Of course, I knew that God
would be pleased if someone recognized
his messenger but never thought he
would actually be cruel enough to burn
someone in hell for eternity, even if that
person only does good deeds, just
because he was not a Muslim. I read the
following warning:
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 ,
Yet I paid little heed and tried to
convince myself the meaning is
something other than what it appears to
be. At that moment this was not a
subject that I was ready to handle. So I
did not think about it.
I hung around with my Muslim friends
and noticed that most of them lived a
very immoral life of double standards.
Most of them found girlfriends and slept
with them. That was very un-Islamic, or
so I thought at that time. What bothered
me most was the fact that they did not
value these girls as real human beings
who deserved respect. These girls were
not Muslim girls and therefore were used
just for sex. This attitude was not
general. Those who made less show of
religiosity were more respectful and
sincere towards their western girlfriends
and some even loved them and wanted to
marry them. Paradoxically. those who
were more religious were less faithful
towards their girlfriends. I always thought
that true Islam is what is right. If
something is immoral, unethical,
dishonest or cruel, it cannot be Islam. I
could not see how the behavior of these
immoral and callous Muslims could be the
result of what was taught in Islam.
Years later I realized that the truth is
exactly the opposite. I found many verses
that were disturbing and made me revise
my whole opinion of Islam.
As I saw it, the tragedy was that the very
same people who lived unethically and
immorally were the ones who called
themselves Muslims, said their prayers,
fasted and were the first to defend Islam
angrily if anyone raised a question about
it. They where the ones who would lose
their temper and start a fight if someone
dared to say a word against Islam.
Once I befriended a young Iranian man at
the university restaurant, later
introducing him to two other Muslim
friends of mine. We were all about the
same age. He was an erudite, virtuous,
wise, young man. My other two friends
and I were captivated by his charm and
high moral values We used to wait for
him and sit next to him during lunch
hour, as we always learned something
from him. We used to eat a lot of
spaghetti and risotto and craved a good
Persian ghorme sabzi and chelow . Our
friend said his mother sent him some
dried vegetables and invited us to his
house the next Sunday for lunch. We
found his two-room apartment very
clean, unlike the houses of other guys. He
made us a delicious ghorme sabzi which
we ate with great gusto and then sat back
chatting and sipping our tea. It was then
we noticed his Baha’i books. When we
asked about them, he said he was a
Baha’i.
That did not bother me at all, but on the
way home my two friends said they did
not wish to continue their friendship with
him. I was surprised and asked why. They
said that being a Baha’i makes him najis
and had they known he was a Baha’i, they
would not have befriended him. I was
puzzled and enquired why they thought
he was najis if we all were complementing
him on his cleanliness. We all agreed he
was a morally superior man than all of the
Muslim young men we knew, so why this
sudden change of attitude? Their
response was very disturbing. They said
the name itself had something in it that
made them dislike this religion. They
asked me if I knew why everyone disliked
the Baha’is. I told them I didn’t know,
and that I liked everyone. But since they
disliked the Baha’is, perhaps they should
explain their reasons. They did not know
why! This man was the first Baha’i they
knew this well, and he was an exemplary
man. I wanted to know the reason for
their dislike. There was no particular
reason, they said. It’s just they know that
Baha’is are bad.
I am happy I did not continue my
friendship with these two bigots. From
them I learned how prejudice is formed
and operates.
Later I realized the prejudices and hatred
that Muslims harbor against almost all
non-Muslims is not the result of any
misinterpretation of the teachings of the
Quran, but is because this book teaches
hate and encourages prejudice. Those
Muslims who go to the mosques and
listen to the sermons of the mullahs are
affected. There are many verses in the
Quran that call believers to hate non-
believers, fight them, call them najis,
subdue and humiliate them, chop off
their heads and limbs, crucify them, and
kill them wherever they find them.

9jaforlife tartar9 rilwanye001 tola9ja empiree abuamam yourmain mathematical mrolai, ypeace, ayinba7 permit me to mention you to read these articles posted in this thread. Empiree 9jaforlife mrolai rilwanye001 u may want to note what this ex muslim says about why u Muslims are quick to get angry and insult.
Peace.

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by tartar9(m): 2:05pm On Mar 05, 2015
Ifeann:


9jaforlife tartar9 rilwanye001 tola9ja empiree abuamam yourmain mathematical mrolai, ypeace, ayinba7 permit me to mention you to read these articles posted in this thread. Empiree 9jaforlife mrolai rilwanye001 u may want to note what this ex muslim says about why u Muslims are quick to get angry an insult.
Peace.
in summary what has he posted?

2 Likes

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 2:46pm On Mar 05, 2015
sod09:
Too long
What's ur point?
Read the synthesized version I posted but you will love the full version.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 2:52pm On Mar 05, 2015
Dolypson04:
As much as I would want to condemn Islam as a religion after reading this article, I can see the similarities in Quran and Old testament. Definitely Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. The only path to Almighty God. He never preached violence. He even said "pray for your enemy. It's never too late. Drop ur ego, repent and accept Jesus today!
And who told you I didn't accept Jesus? Of course not in the religious sense you only think is possible. My name says it all 'justlove' exactly what Jesus preached.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 2:55pm On Mar 05, 2015
tartar9:
in summary what has he posted?
I can guess you're in the denial stage. Read denial in what I posted earlier.

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by justlove91(m): 2:55pm On Mar 05, 2015
Dolypson04:
As much as I would want to condemn Islam as a religion after reading this article, I can see the similarities in Quran and Old testament. Definitely Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. The only path to Almighty God. He never preached violence. He even said "pray for your enemy. It's never too late. Drop ur ego, repent and accept Jesus today!
And who told you I didn't accept Jesus? Of course not in the religious sense you only think is possible. My name says it all 'justlove' exactly what Jesus preached.
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Mathematical(f): 4:01pm On Mar 05, 2015
Ifeann:


9jaforlife tartar9 rilwanye001 tola9ja empiree abuamam yourmain mathematical mrolai, ypeace, ayinba7 permit me to mention you to read these articles posted in this thread. Empiree 9jaforlife mrolai rilwanye001 u may want to note what this ex muslim says about why u Muslims are quick to get angry and insult.
Peace.
so?

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Nobody: 4:29pm On Mar 05, 2015
Ifeann:


9jaforlife tartar9 rilwanye001 tola9ja empiree abuamam yourmain mathematical mrolai, ypeace, ayinba7 permit me to mention you to read these articles posted in this thread. Empiree 9jaforlife mrolai rilwanye001 u may want to note what this ex muslim says about why u Muslims are quick to get angry and insult.
Peace.

Hahah okay love. kiss
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by PastorKun(m): 4:48pm On Mar 05, 2015
YourMain:


Hahah okay love. kiss

Are you sure you are a muslim?
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Nobody: 4:54pm On Mar 05, 2015
PastorKun:


Are you sure you are a muslim?

I am yeah. Why?
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by PastorKun(m): 4:56pm On Mar 05, 2015
YourMain:


I am yeah. Why?

You don't sound or behave like one cheesy
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Nobody: 4:56pm On Mar 05, 2015
PastorKun:


You don't sound or behave like one cheesy

Lol how do they behave?

1 Like

Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by PastorKun(m): 4:57pm On Mar 05, 2015
YourMain:


Lol how do they behave?

lipsrsealed lipsrsealed lipsrsealed
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Nobody: 6:12pm On Mar 05, 2015
PastorKun:


lipsrsealed lipsrsealed lipsrsealed

Lol Dont be shy
Re: A Touching And Amazing Testimony Of An Ex Muslim (MUST READ) by Ifeann(f): 7:02pm On Mar 05, 2015
YourMain:


Lol how do they behave?

Pastorkun yourmain has her muslim moments but a lot of the time she is a decent human to chat with.

For a sample of how Muslims behave when Islam is discussed look at the pics below..

1 Like

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