Top 10 Reasons I Left Islam

Posted on July 13, 2013 by Nabeel Afsar under Enlightenment, Islam

Islam never really made sense to me. But I practiced to please my parents. As a child, the burden of my parents’ immigration made me an outsider wherever I went: my American friends saw me as foreign, and the Bengali-Muslim community saw me as too American.

Between these cultures, I sought facts that resonated not just with my mind, but with my heart. Armed with my conscience, I turned my attention to the religion I was taught as a child. What I learned from deeply studying the Qur’an, Hadith, and Muslim historians was startling.

The following list isn’t meant to attack or convince – but simply to provide information to skeptical Muslims out there who may benefit from what I learned. So here are the ten facts about Islam which compelled me to find an alternative path to God:

Images of the human form are forbidden in Islam because they might be idols.

Without human images, Islamic art focuses on mosaic & calligraphy.

Nowadays, the restriction traditionally includes pictures & video. When I wanted to study film as a kid, my father took me to an imam who urged me to study journalism instead because filmmaking was “haraam” (forbidden). The imam believed this in 2002. In Boston. (I went to film school anyway.)

Islam places restrictions on music & dancing because they lure people to sin.

musicalinstMuhammad prophesied that musicians would be turned into “monkeys & pigs,” and even modern scholars support keeping music nearly forbidden. The performing arts have always been an innate expression of human creativity that Islam severely restricts & censors.

Many Islamic practices are adopted from earlier pagan traditions.

Long exposure of pilgrims circling the Kaaba

In spite of claiming heritage with the Abrahamic religions while condemning paganism, most Islamic rituals are adopted from Arab paganism. Ramadan, for example, was a thirty-day fast in honor of the Sabian/Harranian lunar deity symbolized by the crescent moon (later adopted by Islam). Pagans before Islam were already praying 5 times daily, circling the Kaaba seven times, and reciting the famous spiritual mantra: “There is no god, but God.” Muhammad’s real contribution was simply adding his own name to this sacred mantra.

Islam forbids homosexuality.

Homosexuality, masturbation, polyamory, bisexuality, and other departures from hetero-normative sexuality are well-documented throughout the animal kingdom. Science has shown that homosexuality is a genetic trait and not a personal choice. Why would the one true God condemn an entire class of people for being as God made them?

Islam seeks theocracy. Islam can’t separate church from state because it mixes religion with political power.

By definition, Islamic law is incompatible with secular democracy. Look around the world and throughout history to see how miserable theocracies are compared to secular democracies. Islam proscribes a political system of barbaric corporal punishments antithetical to the western prohibition against “cruel & unusual punishment,” (thieves’ hands must be cut off, adulterers must be stoned to death, etc.) Governments infused with religion don’t work, regardless of the religion. Theocratic states, whether in Medieval Europe or in modern day Iran, are never safe for long.

Muhammad personally ordered the execution of 43 human beings. Documented by Islamic historians and the Qur’an itself, there are 43 known instances of Muhammad ordering his enemies to death. He even ordered torture in some cases.

If you believe life is sacred, then there is never an excuse for violence or killing, not even in self-defense. Spiritual teachers like the historical Jesus, Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi all practiced radical non-violence, even in the face of self-destruction. That’s the true power of faith. Murdering someone who disagrees with your religion is spiritual cowardice.

Islam preaches gender segregation.

History proves that separate but equal isn’t real equality. In practice, separating the sexes has actually meant hiding women behind the veil or at the back of the mosque. Shunning women from public life isn’t only bad for women. The absence of women in civic institutions permits the oppression of everyone under the supreme control of authoritarian, patriarchal forces unbalanced by gender inequality.

Islam condones polygamy. Not only are Muslim men allowed to have up to four wives, but Muhammad himself had eleven wives at once.

Muslim scholars claim polygamy was necessary to insure tribal stability & establish an Arabian peace. But why does the messenger of the one true God have to follow the rules of 7th century Arabia? Why write chauvinist practices into a timeless text for future believers? When Muhammad took his fifth wife and his followers complained, he was suddenly given another verse allegedly from God that made it lawful for him to marry as many women as he wanted.

Islam condones slavery & concubinage.

If a city is conquered by Muslims, the women are considered part of the booty to be sacked. Any female captured under these terms was allowed to be kept as a concubine, or a sex slave. Muhammad himself had concubines including the infamous Mary the Copt. While he did free some of his slaves, he did not free all of them. Why would the one true God allow his holy messenger to practice slavery, the cruelest practice known to man?

Muhammad married a 9-year-old girl when he was in his 50s.

Muhammad engaged 6-year-old Aisha and then consummated their marriage when she was 9 lunar years old. To put that in plain English: Muhammad had sex with a (likely prepubescent) 9-year-old girl. These facts are well-documented in Islam. Muslim scholars don’t deny it, but perform mental gymnastics to justify traditional pedophilia in male-dominated Arabia, and Muhammad’s continuation of it. Scholars like to argue that it was perfectly normal back then and that she’d likely reached puberty in the hot desert climate anyway. But modern science tells us that the human brain doesn’t stop developing until about our mid-20s and there’s no evidence that desert climates encourage early menstruation. In fact, the Hadith themselves reveal that Aisha had not yet reached puberty. And even if she had, so what? Having sex with a 9-year-old is always rape no matter how long ago it happened.

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The facts above – sourced from Islam’s own primary texts – are my own personal reasons for leaving Islam. After discovering this history, I can no longer sustain the mental acrobatics necessary to believe in and practice Islam.

You can make up your own mind. Read history, ask questions, and demand answers from those acting pious. My goal is not to impose my interpretation of facts on you, but to simply share information and offer myself as a resource to skeptical Muslims grappling with their beliefs.

Even though Muslims threaten apostates with death, I feel an obligation to stand up for what my conscience tells me is true. And besides – if anyone tries to hurt me, it basically proves my point, doesn’t it?

Why I left Islam, Revisited
Posted on May 17, 2014 by Nabeel Afsar under Cosmology, Enlightenment, Islam

I wrote a post detailing the main facts that made me decide that Islam no longer aligned with my conscience. After a strict upbringing in a devout Muslim family, this decision was traumatic and left many psychological scars that still plague me to this day. I feel liberated and free without the ideology of Islam penetrating my every thought, but the rift my newfound spiritual awareness created between my family and me was and is challenging. But I’ve never been one to go along with a group or idea because it’s easy. In fact, I’ve learned that the right thing to do is usually the hardest and most dreadful.

Revisiting the post I wrote about a year ago now, I still stand by all of the reasons I gave. But I can also see that in order for my list to really resonate with someone, they must share the same values I hold. My list implicitly defends the values of freedom of expression (restricted by Islam in terms of what type of art is permissible, and especially what kind of speech is acceptable in regards to criticizing Islam, its texts and history), gender equality (men and women do not share equal rights in Islam and their roles in society are defined by their anatomy rather than merit) and radical non-violence (Muhammad is one of the only spiritual leaders to lead an army and permit violence and capital punishment). While Islam may have many positive attributes, for me, they are all compromised by the absence of these values which I find fundamental.

But I also understand that not everyone shares these values. Particularly my readers in the Middle East may not share the same respect for freedom of expression, gender equality and radical-nonviolence. Conservative societies naturally enforce more traditional values that respect authority over the individual rights I’ve listed above. I don’t personally agree, but I respect your right to value authoritarian tradition over individual rights. So I wanted to approach the subject from a different angle. For many readers who live and breathe Islam, whose culture and education is completely saturated with Islamic thinking, my reasons based on decidedly westernized values may not ring true. So instead, I wanted to offer the critiques I have of Islam from an internal perspective. Namely, I want to focus on a few logical fallacies or contradictions within Islam that discredit the belief system for me.

As I said in my original post, my aim is not to attack Muslims or even convince them. Rather, I simply offer a critique of Islam – and not a critique of the Muslims whose right it is to believe whatever they want. A big motivation on my part is not simply reaching out to other skeptical Muslims, but to inform my own family about where exactly I stand and why. Many devotees of a religion defect out of a lack of faith, but I want to make clear that my defection was borne out of a true devotion to God as I experienced God, and not as a loss of faith at all.

So, let’s focus on a few issues that make Islam an untenable proposition for me. We’ll focus specifically on the Qur’an and see if it lives up to its own values, rather than trying to compare against modern, western values. Here we go:

The Qur’an as a living miracle.

Miraj_by_Sultan_Muhammad The Qur’an repeatedly describes Muhammad as the Unlettered Prophet, indicating that he was illiterate and therefore incapable of composing the Qur’an himself. This claim is held up as proof that the Qur’an is a miraculous revelation from God. Unfortunately, this claim also does not stand up to scrutiny.

First of all, it’s documented that prior to becoming a prophet, Muhammad was a successful merchant, first for his uncle, and later with his first wife, and that he traveled far and wide doing business. But merchants keep records, otherwise they have no way to keep track of how much money or product is coming in and how much is going out. So it’s highly likely that not only was Muhammad literate, but that he could read and write in order to keep records of his merchandise. It is simply unlikely that an illiterate man would be capable of running such a complex business.

Now, for argument’s sake, let’s assume that Muhammad really was illiterate and that his success as a merchant was a miracle too. Is it still impossible that such a man, who traveled near and far and likely encountered many religions, many myths and many stories, could not have come up with the Qur’an? The Qur’an was not written during Muhammad’s lifetime, but long after. So Muhammad being illiterate is quite irrelevant. Muhammad did not write the Qur’an, he recited it. He simply had to speak it. Let’s remember that the famed poet Homer was blind and likely illiterate too, and that he too was able to compose beautiful poetry that was recited and passed down orally, not written down until much later.

So the claim that Muhammad is illiterate is unlikely and even if he was, this does not exclude the likelier possibility that he composed the Qur’an himself before passing it down orally. Lastly, many of my Muslim critics argue the Qur’an is a living miracle because to this day, even young children can memorize it in its entirety. Sorry, but memorization does not a miracle make. Just ask any Shakespearean actor who must memorize entire volumes of difficult text. Furthermore, the melody of the Qur’an acts as a mnemonic device, making it easier to memorize. Yes, humans are smart and while memorization may not be in vogue these days thanks to Google, long-form memorization has been a hallmark of human culture since the beginning. Stories have been passed down orally for thousands of years before the written word and so to suggest that the ability to memorize the Qur’an is evidence of its miraculous nature is to simply disregard the intelligence of the human brain.

The inerrancy of the Qur’an.

Kindness-in-the-Quran The Qur’an is the only book to make the extreme claim that it is the perfect word of God, eternal and unchangeable, written letter for letter exactly as God intended, and written by God, not man. Therefore, the Qur’an must be held to a higher standard of scrutiny due to this claim. Also, unfortunately for devout Muslims, a single error is enough to discredit the entire book. Such is the burden of claiming perfection.

Sadly, there are numerous errors found throughout the Qur’an with respect to historical chronology, scientific accuracy, internal contradictions, and even major grammatical errors. Even more importantly, most Muslims don’t realize that the Qur’an they hold in their hands was compiled and canonized by Uthman after Muhammad’s death, and that several competing versions of the Qur’an existed as late as 1000 AD. Uthman ordered all non-canon versions to be destroyed, effectively cutting off any chance for historians to prove that Uthman’s Qur’an and Muhammad’s Qur’an are truly the same. So there is no historical evidence that Muhammad’s recitations are word for word documented in the modern Qur’an.

The Qur’an as an idol.

There are several contradictions within the Qur’an, but I want to focus on the most major contradiction I find that no one else seems to address. If anything can definitively be said about the Qur’an, it’s that Islam forbids idolatry. The first pillar of Islam is that, “There are no gods but God, and Muhammad is his final messenger,” establishing an aversion to polytheism. Muhammad is known for famously smashing all the idols in the Kaa’bah. Islam popularly pledges an alliance among “people of the book,” namely the Jews and Christians and other monotheist groups. If nothing else, Islam can be described as a movement against paganism, polytheism and idolatry. I don’t think any Muslim will question this characterization that Islam is definitionally opposed to pagan idol-worshipping. Opposing idolatry is at the heart of Islam.

So here’s my question.

If Islamic cosmology states, through the Qur’an, that only God is perfect and without flaws, how can the Qur’an itself also be perfect? To state the Qur’an, a book, is perfect, is essentially to raise that book to the status of an idol. I’ll say it again. Only God is perfect, flawless. As the first pillar states, there are no gods but God. It is forbidden to raise anything or anyone up to the level of perfection that only God achieves. And yet, the Qur’an claims that the book itself is perfect, flawless, and inimitable. The assertion that the Qur’an is flawless is profoundly idolatrous. To state that a book is perfect is to elevate it to the status of Godliness that, according to said book, is only reserved for God. When I realized this profound paradox, I was forced to confront the truth that the Qur’an is not a perfect work.

If you believe the Qur’an, then you must believe that only God is perfect. But if you believe that only God is perfect, then you cannot believe the Qur’an, which also claims perfection. Beyond all the grammatical errors, the scientific inaccuracies and the historical anachronisms, this paradox makes belief in the Qur’an as the inerrant word of God untenable.

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Ultimately, the Qur’an fails to live up to its own standards. The Qur’an’s own claim that Muhammad was illiterate is unlikely. And even if he was illiterate, that doesn’t preclude his ability to compose its verses. The Qur’an’s claim to infallibility is instantly punctured by discovering one of the many inaccuracies & contradictions found within it. And ultimately, the Qur’an’s claim to perfection is itself a blasphemous elevation of its own status alongside God, the only true perfection. If you believe the Qur’an, then you must believe that only God is perfect and no other being or object can be compared with God. But if you believe that only God is perfect, then you cannot accept the Qur’an’s claim to flawlessness.

In the end, we are left with the work of a very clever merchant who combined stories and mythologies he heard on his many travels. His intentions may have been noble: the desire to unify the warring tribes of Arabia under a monotheistic banner where people were no longer looking to statues for salvation. But his results were mixed. Yes, he may have united Arabia and catalyzed an era of Arabian dominance throughout the world, but he also gained massive political power in the process, married up to eleven wives and kept sex slaves, making his noble intentions questionable. Or at least that’s what we can gather from Uthman’s Qur’an, because we truly have no link to what the real Muhammad may or may not have actually said. We’re really just taking Uthman’s word for it.

The adamance that the Qur’an is perfect in its Arabic form is really a clever defense mechanism against dissent or criticism, a defense I’m sure Uthman found handy, along with Muslim leaders up to the present. Maybe Muhammad did too, but again, we simply don’t know for sure what he actually claimed. Therefore we cannot know if the claim that the Qur’an is perfect was indeed a stance preached by Muhammad or simply added later by the caliphate seeking to centralize power and police dissent. Muslims need not be utterly defeated or even incensed at these claims. Jews and Christians have all suffered a similar blow to their scriptures, once thought to be inerrant and now accepted as something more human, yet still pointing to divinity. As I’ve written before, the Qur’an needn’t be perfect or logical to be a useful spiritual tool. It may still offer meaning even if it’s stories are simply fiction. Ultimately, the Qur’an can only really offer spiritual enlightenment when viewed as a work of spiritual art, rather than an idol to be preserved and never questioned.

When young Muslims are first learning about their religion, they often discover such contradictions and inaccuracies and are told that the fault is with them, that they have simply failed to grasp the genius of the Qur’an. The truth is that the genius of the Qur’an can only be appreciated if one rejects the notion that it is a perfect work, and instead accepts the book for what it is: an astounding literary achievement by a human genius, but far from a living miracle.