Former Muslim's Testimonial

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version[color=blue][b]Editor's note:[/b] This testimony was posted on the original FFI site, and copied here on June 21, 2006.[/color] [b]Former Muslim[/b] I'm from Malaysia. I left Islam early this year after years waiting for the right time to do it. I have always been a person who likes to think and find out reasons for everything. I thought that since I was a muslim, I wanted to be a good one. So I prayed 5 times a day. I tried to love God when actually I felt that I only pray so that I wouldn't go to hell. In 1998 or something, I read about Aishah Bukhari, a Malay girl who converted out of islam. Even as a muslim at that time, I felt uneasy about the way the islamic court and her family were handling it. They were only crazy about getting her back into islam. The islamic party in the north was already talking about punishment by death for apostasy. How could people make decision on someone's life or death using a book which the origin has never been discovered except from word of mouth? I also remember my islamic teacher telling everybody that the Bible has been corrupted and the qur'an is pure and original. I asked her how could she be so sure, and so she quoted a sentence from the qur'an which says that it will never be corrupted. Anyway, I found out much about islam in my high school, enough to score 90+. Inside, I was growing more and more against islam. The qur'an itself is unbelievable. It is so full of hatred and shows how *jealous* God is. The promise of 60+ virgins to people who died in the way of God tells me so much of how islam promises earthly rewards in the after life. 60 virgins sounds so unheavenly. That is just one of my examples. Some of my other reasons:

• the 9/11 tragedy confirmed my suspicion of the violence encouraged in the qur'an
• the fact that islam encourages us to convert as many people into islam. A muslim man can marry non-muslim who believe in the Book but a muslim woman can't. Now *that* is a discrimination. We are no longer living in the ice age where women cannot harmoniously lead a family institution next to her husband.
• at some point during the prophet muhammad's time, women are not allowed to go to mosque. in some places in this world, still exist mosques that prohibits women from entering and they would even chase them away.
• the fact that women are not allowed to dress nicely, but only allowed to dress a long black or white robe with a long scarf. Men and women are separated in classes and gatherings using the excuse "to avoid arousal". I feel that islam is only thinking about sex and not pure love.
• men can have up to four wives. The prophet even had nine!! As a woman, I feel disgusted with this. Even my partner (non-muslim) finds it unbelievable. Try to challenge this by letting women have up to 4 husbands, men will definitely go against it.
• women are treated like dirt (most of the time). I went for a holiday in the middle east with my partner and the officers only communicated with my husband and ignored me just because I am a woman.
• and many other things, all which the respectable Dr. Ali Sina has stated in this wonderful website.
I have always put love and justice above my belief. But islam demands everybody to succumb to islam alone and sacrifice everything for islam. One day I saw a coverage on a psychic, Sylvia Browne on Larry King by chance. I was compelled to visit her site and ended up buying her book titled 'The Nature of Good and Evil'. That book has helped me a lot in getting rid of my fears, to start to love unconditionally and also took that big step out of islam. The muslims in Malaysia won't easily accept my belief that God is Love and not islam. They will always remain in that web until they learn to accept other people's belief, to stop inflicting power on every soul and to see things from every aspect and not just one. Former Muslim