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Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out

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I am from a British Pakistani upbringing and I currently live in the United States. These stories of brave, beautiful and noble apostates are very much the story of my mother, my sister and me. We were living in London's East End when my father began a very disturbing turn to Islamic fundamentalism. His humour and lovable nature disappeared. He became a completely different person, devoted to Wahhabism. He hated the West in every way shape or form. When we were in France, he said he wanted to beat a girl who was sunbathing topless on a nearby beach. He began striking my mother regularly. One day he was going off on one of his anti-Western diatribes when he had to answer his cell phone. When he hung up, I said that if he hates the West so much, he should stop using a cell phone as it was developed with Western technology and science. Then he hit me.

My family left him quickly and quietly one afternoon, and we have never returned since.


I will be blunt. Islam does not value life. It does not value love. It does not value progression or enlightenment. The only thing Islam values is the worship of a god. And not just any god, but a brutal war god who commands his children to kill one another. You often hear lukewarm and moderate Muslims saying that fundamentalists, Wahhabists and Islamists do not represent true Islam. They are lying. It is they who are not following true Islam.

As afraid of Islam as the West is, the truth is Islam is much more afraid of the West and the changing 21st century world. It is out of fear that the radical cleric orders a fatwa against apostates and critics of the faith. It was out of fear that millions of imbeciles protested and spewed hatred at the Danish people, a non-Muslim people who were simply exercising their right to free speech in their own country. It was fear that made a pathetic young thug butcher Theo Van Gogh for exercising his free speech rights in his own non-Muslim country. Any critique or truth seeking sojourn into what makes Islam tick is ferociously set upon by the Muslim world's mobs, because they are deathly afraid and insecure about the religion that they value more than the lives of their children.

I urge everyone to read this book

Muslims are so determined to call their religion the fastest growing in the world that they refuse to acknowledge the fact that many of us who covert to it rapidly leave it. I am one of these. I converted because my Muslim husband insisted that he was committing a great sin to be married to me when I wasn't a Muslim. He'd been trying his best to teach it to me while at the same time pointedly separating me from non-Muslim friends and family. Then he gave me the whole spiel about Islam being so scientific, so fair and kind to women,that hijab was a choice, not an obligation, and Islam was SOOOO peaceful. I loved, respected, and trusted him so much, I actually believed him and converted to Islam.

Afterwards, we went to visit the Islamic country of his origin (Iran) and I got to see real Islam in action. I was dismayed, even horrified, to say the least. As a woman, I had neither civil rights nor respect. Quite suddenly, I become a trophy bride and captive sans all the basic freedoms that I, as an American, had always taken for granted. When I went to the Koran and other Islamic scriptures to find support for my missing rights, I found, quite to the contrary, that my trusted husband had LIED to me about the whole thing.

Islam is NOT scientific, NOT fair or kind to women,DOES require hijab under threat of violence to those who would refuse it, and - as current Islamist terrorist activities have proven - it is NOT one bit peaceful.

Yes, we apostates DO exist. In Islamic countries, those who are discovered are killed by Muslims for their honesting in disavowing Islam. Elsewhere, Muslims just try to shut us up and say we don't exist. Well, they're wrong. Those of us who are consciencious, intelligent, and confident, honest, and have found out the truth, can not help but leave Islam.

Ibn Warraq is telling a plain truth that is simply unpalatable to Muslims. Well too bad: the truth is simply the truth and it's about time more people knew it.

No question, Ibn Warraq's Leaving Islam includes many important essays by former Muslims, by birth or conversion, who subsequently renounced their faith.

Ibn Warraq deserves ample credit for this excellent work, which others have called "a companion of sorts to his own personal statement, Why I am Not a Muslim."

Despite the Qu'ranic declaration (2:256), "There is no compulsion in religion," traditional Islam both historically and currently consider apostasy (the abandonment of the "one true faith") a capital offense. You desert, you die.

That item of religious belief, along with many others, are often used by Muslim governments "to silence free thinkers and spread a blanket of totalitarian control over [their] communities," as one reviewer has written.

Ibn Warraq's collection provides several notable early examples of apostates, including Ar-Rawandi (c. 820-830) and Ar-Razi (865-925), the poets Omar Khayyam (c. 1048-1131) and Hafiz (c. 1320-89), and Sufis like Mansur ibn Hallaj (d. 922) and As-Suhrawardi (d. 1191), but the issue "has not seriously been documented or investigated." Undoubtedly that results primarily from the risks to a former Muslim of openly discussing his or her abandonment of Islam.

The former Muslims included in Ibn Warraq's compelling book hail from many locales, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Iran, Tunisia, Turkey, Malaysia and Morocco.

Ibn Warraq has great courage and passion in defending reason. His struggle is that of "a culture ... at odds with reason." This book is indispensable for Muslims who hope that Islam will adopt enlightenment and reform.

True enough, Islam needs reform from within. And former Muslims can and should influence this discussion. They could have great influence, if only the majority of practicing Muslims would listen to them and demand reform, accordingly.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

Ibn Warraq, who has several Fatwas issued against him by Islamist clerics has bravely sallied forth to explicate the tenuous status of former Muslims who for a variety of reasons have abandoned the faith. These apostates are under the threat of death given the clerical rulings in Islam. Some of the testifiers have been brave enough to use their real names!

Most prominent among these testimonials is the clear evidence of the lack of basic human rights as allegedly guaranteed under the UN Declaration of Human Rights circa 1948. Muslim countries have signed the UN declaration but consider the act as religiously correct dissimultude-taqqiya in Arabic.

Among the more stunning revelations among the testimonials is the genocide wreaked on the Bengalis by the Islamic Paki overlords in the early 70's of the last century. An estimated 3.5 million Bengalis were slaughtered in this religious Jihad. Some of you may be old enough to remember the plaintive Beatles tune: Bengladesh. This genocide cries out the certification before the World Court and prosecution of some of the organizers of this heinous event.

Testimonials of former Muslim women, brave enough to reveal their actual identity, clearly indicate the second class status in violation of the UN declaration of human rights.

Former converts to Islam who are included in these testimonials have given witness to the lack of basic human rights and the atavistic male domination prevalent in Muslim cricles and countries.

Overall, Ibn Warraq-his nom de guerre, has given us a powerful insight into the fundamental failings of the islamic faith to build reform from within and protect basic human rights. It is no wonder several Fatwas demanding his death have been issued. He's very religiously incorrect, but courageous.

His works deserve a wide readership in a western world ignorant of the fundamentals of the islamic faith.

The Warraq name has been used by Muslim dissidents for many centuries, including Harun al-Warraq, who died early in the tenth century. Now "Ibn Warraq" and others give us an interesting view of the objections to Islam by those who have basically abandoned it.

Ibn Warraq starts by making the point that it can be dangerous to leave Islam. Doing so makes one an apostate. Apostasy generally carries a death penalty, especially for men. And even for those who survive, it often results in the forfeiture of one's possessions and legal rights.

Nevertheless, some people do leave Islam. My own ancestors did so over a hundred years ago. And as this book mentions, some leave it in favor of polytheism, especially in Indonesia. Or for Christianity. But the main thrust of the book is to describe something about those former Muslims who have simply abandoned religion in general and why.

The main reasons for abandoning Islam have turned out to be its irrationality, its immorality (especially the treatment of Women), and the personal life of the Prophet.

Others have reacted negatively to the fanaticism and aggression of many Muslims, as well as to the increasing lack of economic competetiveness of Muslim portion of the world.

There were a few unusual points made in the book. One was simply that apostasy is not really applicable to Buddhism, let alone most polytheistic religions. Another was that if we humans were in need of divine guidance 15 or 20 centuries ago, surely we are in at least as much need of it now: why are there supposedly no more prophets to supply that guidance?

Another point is that Western media are prone to publishing pro-Islamic material. This is explained simply: Islam is in the news, so the media have to say something about it. And the media are reluctant to say anything negative for fear of being called Islamophobic.

One of the writers in the book points out that some of the articles about Islam generated by those who have abandoned it are virtually a mirror image of traditional apologetics for Islam. Is it proper to write so vehemently? The conclusion is that while vehemence often obscures otherwise sound arguments, vehement essays often make valuable points too.

The book concludes with some useful references to the Koran and on the life of the Prophet, followed by a list of websites critical of Islam and some books critical of Islam.

This book is interesting and worth reading. I think it fills an important niche between politically correct whitewashing of Islam and denunciations of Islam from those who never were a part of it.

Let me begin by saying that like the many authors whose testimonies comprise this anthology, I am a former Muslim, an apostate, and a liberal secular humanist. The Western-born son of a moderate Sunni Muslim family comprising of Turkish and Persian ancestry, I related completely to the sentiments expressed in the various declarations of kafiri (unbelief). It is quite rare that one comes across the idea of ex-Muslims, since apostasy is for most Muslims outside the realm of possibility, both because it goes against everything one has been taught and because it carries the penalty of death. I was once a slave to this type of thought process, though I was never a fundamentalist and never espoused any of the hate-rhetoric that one normally associates with extremist Muslims. I left Islam after reading its holy revelation, the Qur'an, which revealed itself to be nothing more than reworked Bible stories (which are themselves rehashes of pagan myths) peppered with ever-present threats of Allah's fury. I first started to question Islam when I fell in love with a man (who was a Jew, no less!) and went in search of an outlet which would allow me to live with human dignity in full light of my homosexuality. Like so many religious people who know better, I tried to reconcile with my ancestral faith's apparent irrationality, but Logic and Compassion won out.

'Leaving Islam' is probably the most reader-friendly of all of Ibn Warraq's anti-Islamic endeavors. It offers not only a historical account of the heretical teachings and persecution of Islam's most famous apostates, but also a comprehensive and global view of why an increasing number of Muslims are leaving the faith, either in favor of other religions (namely Christianity) or, more probably, atheism. The stories come from all corners of the world: Iran, Turkey, Bangladesh, Morocco, Tunisia, Malaysia, India, and even America. A disproportionately large percentage of the accounts come from (of all places) Pakistan. One wonders why this is--are Pakistanis more prone to doubt than other Muslims? Regardless of the disparate national origins of the authors, there is a concurrent thread through all the stories that binds them together: traditionalist (even fundamentalist) faith transmuting into deep disillusionment upon closer scrutiny of Islamic texts and doctrines. You might wonder why if that's all that it takes to get Muslims to abandon Islam why more haven't done so. The reasons are many and complex, and each author explains why apostasy was the only choice.

Though I don't expect many to be inclined to read it, I would recommend this book to any practicing Muslim. Many of the traditional Islamic arguments about its validity are deconstructed in this deeply personal and profoundly logical compilation. Though I was disappointed not to find a personal account of Ibn Warraq's own apostasy, the others were fascinating, revealing, and, frequently, heartbreaking. All the accounts are worth reading, but the one's which stood out most for me were those of Ali Sina, Abul Kasem, Parvin Darabi, Azam Kamguian, Taner Edis, Nadia, Denis Giron, Faiza, and Ben Hoja. Sina's account is particularly striking in that it outlines the various stages one goes through when one chooses apostasy (Faith, Denial, Confusion, Guilt, Anger, Sadness and, finally, Enlightenment: I think I am embedded in the Sadness stage, mourning constantly for all the lost lives and wasted potential). Five of the testimonies in the book are those of converts who adopted Islam only to leave it. Giron's story is exceptionally witty and humorous. Hoja's chapter, entitled 'Dark Comedy', had me chuckling and laughing out loud (the footnotes are uproariously funny) only to completely sock me in the gut and leave me in tears at the end. His story alone is worth the cover price.

Like all of Warraq's books, this one too shall incite fury and outrage because it shows the growing skepticism and self-loathing among Muslims who happen not to be Ibn Warraq, Salman Rushdie, or Irshad Manji. In his introduction Warraq refers to the various accounts as 'Cassandra Cries', which might give the impression that these apostates view themselves as helpless victims; they are anything but. Every contributor makes powerful, searing indictments of Islam, Muhammad, the Qur'an and God, which cannot be ignored or dismissed. It is no small thing to assert that Muhammad was a rapist, a warmonger, a mass-murderer and a pedophile. List these charges and images of Hitler, Idi Amin and Genghis Khan immediately come to mind, not the noble and humble Arabian sage who populates the hearts of billions. How can it be that the founder of one of the 'great' religions has enacted such brutality? But any balanced and honest reading of Islamic tradition can only lead to this conclusion. Either we accept that History lies about Muhammad or that we lie to ourselves about him. Will we, as humans, seek the Selective Salvation religion offers, or will we seek Truth? As Sina proclaims at the end of his story, 'Truth is a pathless land.'

One of the things I am constantly baffled by is the standard Muslim response to critiques and attacks of their faith: instead of utilizing rationalist techniques of debate, argument and logical defense, they respond with violence and death threats to silence the dissenters. These are the actions of people who either have no prepared way to defend their dogmas or know that the only way to uphold these doctrinal 'truths' is to make sure that no one is allowed to question them. Fascism, anyone? But it would be wrong to lay the blame on Muslims themselves; rather it is that 'pie-in-the-sky' deity who is culpable. Those who have read the Qur'an will concede that Allah makes all his proclamations about 'the one true faith' the same way: not by appealing to Reason or Logic, but with force and threat. 'Believe this, behave accordingly, or burn eternally in Hellfire.' This is basically the theme of the Qur'an. It is of extreme irony that all such threats are always preceded by the standard 'In the name of God, the Universally Merciful, the Singularly Compassionate.' Indeed. How, therefore, can we expect Muslims to project and live in any other way than through violence and irrationality when God himself dictates life's truths to them in the same way? If anything, they are merely mimicking God's way, which is what anyone would want to do. Muslims are the first victims of Allah.

I must also say that this relatively unknown and small field of Islamic Criticism owes great gallows of gratitude to freethinkers like Ibn Warraq, Salman Rushdie, Ali Sina, and Irshad Manji. It is our duty as freethinkers, reformers, and, yes, even as ex-Muslims, to assume a prominent role in the way Islam adopts to the shrinking modern world. We are, after all, unique in that we know firsthand the extremes to which Islam can be carried and carry its adherents. Yet we apostates have resisted, and in this 'reclaiming of the self' we have shown that Reason has the ability to retain as strongly as Revelation.

Islam is a Bedouin Fable, a tribal Arabian Mythology created to validate the Arab Imperialism of the 8th and 9th century. At some point, however, we all outgrow these moralistic, 'do-this-or-else' fairy tales, and--hopefully--learn to live with dignity instead of out of fear. Fourteen hundred years of self-annihilation and delusion is enough. Cassandra's Cries have, at last, become her Courage.

This book is probably unique in world history. As there is the death penalty for leaving Islam according to Islamic law, and this can be a real threat even today, it is remarkable to see so many apostates come forward with their reasons for leaving the Koran's teachings behind. If an Islamic Reformation should be possible, these brave individuals have the key to this development. Even more testimonies from ex-Muslims are posted at Ibn Warraq's website, http://www.secularislam.org/ . Any person interested in Islam SHOULD have this book. Period.

Ibn Warraq's book, LEAVING ISLAM, contains personal testimonies from people all over the world about their experiences with Islam and what made them reject particularly the growing fundamentalist version of it. In contrast to most books about religion LEAVING ISLAM is full of personalities, recent world events, and concrete facts. The variety of people, with their contrasting levels of sophistication and talent, makes the reader feel as if he has had many wonderful conversations and knows much more than he knew before.

The appendices contain concise scholarly summaries and references about the Koran and hadith. This added feature makes it two books for the price of one. There are even internet addresses which make continuing study or conversation about Islam available up to the minute.

The import of the book is clearly a warning about the realities of fundamentalist Islam and indirectly an argument for humanism as being more desirable as a guide to a good life than any dogmatic religion.

Very, very brave people to have come out against Islam like this.

Before reading this, I had met apostates of Islam and heard their stories. I was very shocked by what I heard. I could not conceive that this was happening now, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

This book only confirmed what I have been told. Not even ex-Muslims living in the West are safe.

What really got to me, was the repeated betrayal these people felt. Betrayed by a religion they thought they knew. Betrayed by the people they loved - families and friends who turned their backs on them after leaving Islam.

Another thing many of their stories convey is the utter depair of having the rug, the ground ripped out from under you. Just falling and falling. Being left with no direction, no faith, etc.

I could just weep for these people.

The scary thing is being told over and over, by these apostates that those who say Islam means "Peace", say that the fundamentists do not represent true Islam, are wrong, it is true Islam.

A wake-up call to the West and highly recommended. Lots of information that is backed up well with footnotes, etc.

I was so impressed with the information in this book that I donated a new copy to the Elkton, Maryland, library, where others could read about what it tells about intolerance. Apparently, the book did not fit in with the mostly amiable accounts of Islam therein, so that it wound up in the next Friends of the Library sale.