Why I Criticize Islam and Muslims

Twenty of my twenty-four years were spent in close contact with Muslims, exclusively in Muslim countries. Before I came to the United States, I had never even visited a Western country. My parents, even, had never visited a Western country.

Now that I am no longer a Muslim and don’t live in a Muslim country, my connection with Islam does not suddenly disappear, nor do my grievances against what it has done to my life evaporate. I have built a new and better life in the U.S., but I’ve paid a heavy price: I’ve lost my family, I’ve given up all right to public security or the government’s support in my native country, I’m committed to lying about my religious status in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (where my family lives, whom I have not seen in 4 1/2 years) or foreswear visiting these countries that I called home for most of my life, I’m condemned to never have full acceptance in my own culture, by my own people.

These are not random events which are nobody’s fault, that nothing is responsible for. All this is Islam and Muslims’ fault.

Islam is whatever Muslims make it. Right now, that means Islam is (for the most part) politically and socially repressive, hideously unfair to women, incapable of accepting criticism, violent, unenlightened and illiberal in the widest sense of the word.

Nevertheless, I don’t wish to ‘demonize’ Muslims, nor to paint a monochromatic picture of them. There are Muslims who have commented on this blog who represent a kinder gentler Islam. I know they exist – I also know they are, at this point in time, few and far between. I can also differentiate between truly enlightened Muslims and those who are primitive in their religious interpretations but who have good hearts.

My parents belong in that latter category. And for them, I hold Islam and Islamic culture responsible. There are millions of people like them, and I’m (I believe understandably) pissed off that this religion has made good and kind people like my parents choose hellfire over love of a child. It is not fun for me to hear my mother sobbing over the phone in our very infrequent conversations, fearing the God she worships will send her daughter to hell. She doesn’t see Allah as benevolent, essentially merciful and fair. She sees him rather like a dictator who will torture you for eternity unless you do exactly as he says. Her view of Allah isn’t so out of the ordinary either — most women of her sort (not highly educated and very traditional) carry the same Allah in their minds, if not their hearts. And I can’t really blame her because I see the same picture of Allah when I read the Koran.

I’m bitter that if my own mother is to accept me (and we were unimaginably close), I have to lie to her. I hate ever having to fear that my father might kill me if he ever sees me again. It twists my insides to know that pictures of me are unacceptable to parents who haven’t seen me in years because I don’t dress to suit their beliefs.

I’m bitter that I was prevented for most of my life from enjoying the freedoms that are my right and that I always wanted, at every stage of my life. Such deprivation, for so long, doesn’t just *poof* disappear when the immediate cause is removed.

Not only have I lost my family, I have lost access to my birthplace and my roots. If I miss how the sun shines on the Red Sea in Jeddah, I can’t just go back and visit.

No one should have to lose twenty years of ties because they exercised their right to freedom of and from religion. Muslims need to learn to live with criticism, even with abuse. They need to open up their societies. They need to make apostates feel safe. The sooner that happens, the easier it will be for my family to live with my choices.

No one has the right to question my right to criticize any damn thing I want – be it the policies of the United States government (even though I’m not a citizen), or the tenets and followers of my former religion (even if I’m not a Muslim). My membership in these clubs is beside the point: What matters is that they affect my life.

Why I don’t criticize Islam is also relevant: I’m not ‘insecure’ about my current beliefs and opinions, nor “attacking out of fear.” Those who hold this opinion are welcome to criticize me any way they want – I certainly won’t be password-protecting my posts.