My Testimony
Khaled, Saudi Arabia
2006/01/13
When I was a child, I used to go to the mosque
every day. I used to go there for praying, reciting the Qur’an,
reading ahadith, and studying tafseer.
Our teacher and other Islamic scholars told us that
as Muslims, we are the best people in the world. We were also told that
Saudi Arabian Muslims are the only true Muslims in the world, and as
such, the world must follow us (the Saudi Muslims). Without any
question, we steadfastly believed our Islamic scholars and wondered why
despite such exhortations the world, by and large, does not emulate us.
We were so proud of being the true Muslims.
But now, I take this to be a lie.
Readers, I would vouch that what I studied in my
mosque is exactly what Bin Laden do. You could unmistakably say he is an
ideal Muslim. Believe me, almost all our people (in
Saudi Arabia
) support him and love him very dearly.
We can’t blame Bin Laden for this; instead, we
should blame Islam, the religion of bin Laden, It is because he is
simply following his religion to the letter. He is, without doubt, a
true Muslim.
My story of leaving Islam started when I was in
grad five, I read in sura al-kahf, ayat 86 (18:86), that when
Zu-Alqarnain had reached the point of setting of the sun, he found many
people there suffering from the intense heat This was because they were
so close to the sun. Same thing happened to him during the rising of the
sun.
I started thinking: the earth is not flat; it is
almost like a ball, so how could he reach the edge of the earth? I asked
my teacher this question. He was confused with my question. He didn’t
give any answer. He told me just to believe what the Qur’an says.
This was the beginning of my suspicion about the
truth in the Qur’an.
Then I had a huge surprise when I found that if I
wanted to be a good Muslim I must keep away from non-Muslims. A greater
surprise for me was when I discovered that loving any non-Muslims would
make me a kafir (non-believer).
Along with many other activities, I like going to
movies, listening to music and making friends with athletes,
singers—most of whom are non-Muslims. This means, I actually had
become a kafir. I was taught that, to be in Paradise, I must
unconditionally love Prophet Muhammad, whom I had never seen, more than
anyone else, or I will surely go to Hell. I became so perplexed.
I listened to my Imams and was disturbed when they
used abusive language to describe the non-Muslims as the grandsons of
monkeys and pigs. I thought if anyone commits a sin, this should
not be our problem; Allah, in due course, will punish him/her. Why do
our Imams have to condemn these people in such a derogatory manner?
To my surprise, many of my Muslim friends and our
Imams told me that it was my duty to revile and ridicule the
non-Muslims, since they are the enemies of Muslims. When I refused to
abide by the Islamic tenet of deriding the kafirs, they labelled me as a
weak Muslim. They even informed me that a Muslim stranger is better than
an old trusted kafir friend.
But I was adamant with my questions—I would not
let them go unanswered. The most pertinent question on my mind was: how
could a ‘God’ who claims Himself to be filled with mercy, at the
same time, asks his people to hate one another? Why God has to threaten
that He would burn and torture people who do not believe in Him? Is He
really that needy? Is it so important that we consistently worship Him?
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