Hi all!
Here's a bit about who I am and my journey to, through, and out the other side of Islam.
I was first introduced to Islam when I was 18 years old by way of my former husband, a none-too-practicing (at the time) Sunni Muslim from Egypt. We fell in love quickly and soon planned to be married, as he felt Muslim guilt (sigh) over having a girlfriend. I figured I should find out something about Islam if I was going to spend the rest of my life with a Muslim, so he arranged for me to meet the wife of a friend of his who was an American convert. She gave me a Quran and answered my questions and in the coming months we spent many hours talking on the phone. I was curious, but skeptical and asked all manner of perplexing questions, such as, "How do you know aliens didn't write the Quran?" I had no intention in the beginning of converting, I had decided to learn a bit merely to better understand my fiance's background and beliefs.
I was impressed by the fact that this woman clearly had chosen a lifestyle and not simply a neat set a beliefs to hang on a shelf and pull down when times got tough. I was surprised, but not put off by the fact that she dressed very modestly and wore a headscarf. I thought it was cool that she was so out of the mainstream and I identified with that as I had always felt different from the world around me. I listened intently as she described the relations between the sexes, Islamically-speaking, and thought it made sense to have more boundaries in society. On an unconscious level I suppose I wanted some rules to live by, though I was probably the most free-spirited person I knew at the time.
After some weeks of thinking and reading, I began to feel drawn to Islam on a more personal level. Through my teen years I had struggled with the big questions to the point of almost feeling that I would go crazy. Why, why, WHY were we here, I would ask myself again and again. How could there be a God? How could there NOT be a God? Over and over my mind would race and move in circles and debate itself. By the time I met my husband though I had more or less reconciled myself to agnosticism and had thrown all of my energy and passion into the study of dance. It gave me something to focus on and helped mute the questioning voice in my head.
The month of Ramadan was soon upon us, and I took the surprising step of deciding to take a month off from my dance training and experience the fast. Initially I tried to do both, but a full day of dance classes doesn't really work without food and drink in your body. By this time, Islam was clearly impacting my thinking and affecting me emotionally. However, I had rejected Christianity previously because it didn't provide the proof I was looking for and was not compatable with science. Any other religion would have to pass where Christianity had failed. So despite my attraction to Islam for its structure and unique way of life, I didn't accept it right away because I wanted some concrete proof that I could fall back on in my moments of doubt.
I ended up going to the local mosque in Brooklyn, NY (which incidentally was the mosque that Meir Kahane's murderer attended) for a weekly halaqa for American converts. At some point I was introduced to the idea that Islam was perfectly compatible with science. Intrigued, I went to a lecture on science and the Quran around this time, but I left still unconvinced.
A few months later I was off to Egypt for a 6-week honeymoon and had my first taste of the Muslim world. I was particularly curious about Muslim women and how they were treated in the family, and especially by their husbands. We stayed with my brother-in-law and his wife who fortunately both spoke English. I talked to my brother-in-law's wife about Islam and eventually they brought someone they considered knowledgeable and religious to come answer my questions, most of which at the time centered on the status of women in Islam.
I had issues with polygamy, male dominance, unequal inheritance, etc and I asked about all of those and more. I was struck with how this man had an answer for everything, though the answers were not always what I wanted to hear. After he left I felt depressed and confused and remember crying in frustration. I had developed an emotional attachment to Islam, felt it was probably from God, WANTED it to be from God, but at the same time, felt some of its laws were just too hard to swallow.
I returned to the US not any more convinced than when I had left in an empirical way, but with less fear and more understanding of the Muslim way of life, and this set the stage for me to continue my journey with less trepidation than I had previously felt. I continued attending the classes at the mosque and eventually acquired a copy of "The Bible, the Quran, and Science" by Maurice Bucaille. Though I had approached this subject early on, I was emotionally primed, I now realize, to WANT to accept Islam by this time. The author's thesis that within the Quran there were so many scientific pieces of information that were unknown at the time of its writing that it must have a supernatural author was just what I wanted to hear and see him prove. By the end of my reading the book, I was ready to become a Muslim.
PART TWO:
As to my leaving Islam, here is a letter I wrote to a friend at the time on the subject:
When I first converted, I was very strong in my faith. Something that is stressed here in the West among Muslim missionaries is that the Quran and science are in perfect agreement, unlike the Bible and science. This impressed me very much, and these "scientific proofs" that were presented ultimately led me to convert. In addition, the Quran is said to be preserved just as it was 1400 years ago, and so there was no reason to doubt if it was really the same message that Muhammad had first preached. Muhammad's character as "the best of creation" gave me a clear guide. Also, it was emphasized that because the message is word-for-word what Allah said, that there is no room for doubt and must be followed exactly. That was good for me, because it gave me something so black and white when before I had felt so lost and confused.
But in that starkly-demarcated view is also what led to my loss of faith. Any book which is God's guide to man should leave those who follow it feeling good and their life should be better than others. In some ways, I felt this was certainly true. Here in the West especially, Muslims often feel their lifestyle is glaringly superior to that of the general society because they don't engage in premarital sex or drink alcohol or do drugs. Certainly, all of these prohibitions have some merit, but eventually I realized that ANY thinking person could figure these out. It wasn't necessarily "Allah's perfect guidance".
Meanwhile, I eventually started to notice some of the negative characteristics that Islam encourages in people, both from my own experience as well as that of the world at large, and in the latter I am speaking specifically about terrorism. Most Western-raised Muslims are quite appalled by the idea that Islam is associated with terrorism, though it is my experience with Arab Muslims in particular that they often see it is a reasonable method of waging jihad.
On this issue, I particularly started to notice a shift in my thinking after participating in an online forum. I noticed that my views did not match those of other Muslims and I was forced to think about why that was. In the end, especially after doing some reading on the battles in the time of the Prophet and the idea of waqf making Palestine permanently Muslim land, I really started to see that Islam does not encourage peace, but insists on war unless its stringent demands are met. Part of me had always known this, but I guess I was so sure that that was what Allah wanted, that I didn't feel uncertainty about it.
But getting back to the new test I was setting up for my faith-- If this is really the word of God then it will make the world a better, not a worse place-- I could see that it was not passing. I could see, for example, that there would never be peace in the Middle East as long as Islam had anything to say about it.
And the idea that Islam is a perfect lifestyle handed down by God was assaulted in my mind by other glaring facts as well. Here are a few that I either personally encountered or considered on a theoretical basis:
1) Men may marry up to four wives, and the wife can do nothing to stop him, save asking him to divorce her. He can refuse, and then, unlike him who can divorce her by saying "I divorce you", she must go to an Islamic judge and plead her case and hope he agrees she has a right to a divorce. If not, she is stuck. Furthermore, she must give him back whatever he has given her and is not entitled to any share of his property, no matter how long they were married. I personally know of several situations where a man has trampled on his wife's feelings and married another woman. And of course these men do this in full conviction that God has given them this right. No matter that he will now see his wife and kids half the amount he used to, or that she will now have access to only half of the money she had before.
2) Women of the enemy are allowed to be used as sex slaves in times of war. I had known this, but it was justified to me by saying that it was only if the women wanted and only because there were no refugee camps in those days, so this was the best thing to do under the circumstances for these helpless women. Eventually, it did dawn on me that God could certainly enlighten people to better ways, and besides, I could find no proof that the women had to agree. Furthermore, what woman would agree to sleep with a man from a group that had just murdered her relatives? Only under coercion, in hopes of better treatment, would any woman agree to this.
It is often said by Muslims that it is man's natural inclination to become sexual with women who are helpless and under his authority, so Allah was just making a halal way for this which was the best for all concerned. The woman would be protected and the man could take care of his needs without being forced into haram. It never occurs to these people, that Islam also asks people to forgo their natural desires in other ways and they generally do when it comes to other prohibited things such as alcohol. Ultimately, I saw through the excuses and came to the conclusion that this practice was acceptable at the time due to the primitive nature of society, but "God's final message to man" would surely do better than that.
3) There are many points under the subject of Islam's view of women that I eventually found to be more based on the thinking of ancient people than anything based on reality such as women cannot be good leaders, they are deficient in intelligence, they are most of the people in hell (despite men doing most of the crimes!), they must sleep with their husbands whenever the husbands wish or the angels will curse them, if God was to ask anyone to bow down to another, it would be a wife for her husband, women can't pray on their periods because God won't accept the prayers of these unclean people, etc. And my favorite, men will get the hourieen (beautiful virgins of Paradise) while the women can go screw themselves- no virgins for them! (hehhehe) In short, the Islamic view of women, much to the opposite of what I was initially told, is really quite disparaging. I finally got the courage to really look at these concepts critically and to determine that even a
mere mortal of our times wouldn't say such hateful and demeaning things about women, so therefore, how could God's final messenger?
4) There is no interest-dealing allowed in Islam. I first started to think carefully about this one when I was living in Egypt. That is because almost the entire country is in a perpetual state of building. The skyline is marred by half-finished buildings that are waiting for their owners to collect some more savings and build some more.
It occurred to me that a loan would make life run much more smoothly in these cases. Not to mention that most of the businesses are very small because they are started with just a small amount of money that the owner is able to invest from his savings. I started to ponder over whether a completely interest-free economy would ever be better than the developed capitalist economies. And certainly it would HAVE to be better, if it were really based on God's perfect plan for humanity.
In addition, programs such as the Grameen Bank which deals with microfinancing to poor people would be illegal as they include some interest. And of course here in the US it is very difficult to afford college or a home if you do not pay interest. Remember the prohibition is on both taking and paying interest. So basically, you are pretty well preventing people from improving their conditions in many aspects. And although there are Islamic banks who structure contracts so that they are not paying money for money, these contracts usually end up being more difficult and costly for the consumer.
5) Islam allows for the wholesale punishment of groups and the stealing of their belongings. Would the "most gracious, most merciful" really want a person to lose his life's savings in tools, land, or cattle because his tribe had a disagreement with some Muslims?
6) On punishments: Would God really tell his followers to cut off the hands and feet at opposite ends of those who fight the Muslims? Does God really want the children of adulterers to grow up without their parents because they need to be executed? Does God really think that a person who has doubts about His existence or one who sees grave problems within the Islamic system should be killed? Does God really want homosexuals to be put to death for expressing what they feel, often against what they wish they felt? Does God really think public whipping is the most enlightened way to deal with those who have sex before marriage? Does God really want a person who steals to have difficulty for the rest of his life by losing his hand? Eventually, it became clear to me that these are merely primitive attempts at social control. There is nothing enlightened or merciful about them.
7)The book that I read which prompted me to convert, entitled The Bible, the Quran, and Science neglected to mention or explain effectively the verses and hadiths which contradict science such as the idea that the sun rests above a muddy place or that the stars were created to throw at the devils or from the hadith that no soul will come into existence that wasn't destined to, so there is no need to use birth control.
In fact, as I later discovered when researching more about the Quran and science in order to try to SAVE my faith, the supposition that the Quran confirms scientific fact isn't true at all. Some of it contradicts, some of it can be nudged to look like it matches scientific facts, and some is information based on logical guessing.
Contrary to popular belief, the Quran is NOT the same book it was 1400 years ago, and this contradicts the Quran itself because it states that Allah will protect it. There is a caveat to this in one verse which says that Allah will not allow Muhammad to lose any of it, except as Allah wills. A nice cover in case anyone should notice that the Prophet forgot some of the verses.
I once read a hadith which clearly shows that there were some verses of the Quran which are no longer there. I believe they are related to mutah, the practice of temporary marriage. A goat is reported to have eaten the only written copy. Furthermore, when the Quran was written, it was written without any diacritical markings which would indicate the vowels or even the dots which could change a consonant sound. So both the root words and the grammatical gender and number of words could be lost.
9) As we discussed before, the character of the Prophet came into question for me as well. Why did he allow brutal treatment of the Jews? Why did he "marry" women whose husbands had just been killed by the Muslims? Why did he have more wives than the other Muslims? Many of his statements recorded in the hadith also show disturbing thought patterns. If you haven't already, you could see the
www.faithfreedom.org site for specific hadiths on this.
Ok, so these are some of the major issues I have. I could do more, but I think you have enough to chew on for a while.
My current religious affiliation is none and I don't think that will be changing in the direction of any of the organized religions out there. Certainly all of the Abrahamic traditions have similar problems. I do still believe that there is a reason we are living this life and that there is a "God" of some sort. I just don't believe in the messenger-sending-man-in-the-sky-with-a-big-stick version.
My guiding principle now is that we are all here making connections and living life in order to learn and grow together as spiritual beings. Religions are merely human expressions of the longing to understand this process, but are not the end-all of the process. In other words, I think life is not for the purpose of reaching the point of believing in some dogma, whether it be that Islam is God's final message, or that Jesus died for our sins, or that there are a million gods, etc.
If there is one spiritual belief I have, it is that. I also think it is highly probable that we have lived other lives before and will live again, either in this world or some other ones. To say that you've got one shot, either of 2 years or 40 or 85- just one shot, is illogical to me.
So it is partially because of this belief in the necessity of making connections with people if we are to grow spiritually, that I am happy to have conversations with people like you all around the world. It was through such conversations and readings of postings in YA and elsewhere that I was finally able to face my uncertainties head-on. And I hope for my part that I also have some benefit to others.
You also asked about whether Osama Bin Laden represents the true Islam or not. Of course, at the time of 9/11 I would have told you absolutely not. But something I have discovered about myself and other Western-raised converts is that Islam for us was in large part what we were told it was, or what we wanted it to be.
So we would read the texts with a different eye than born Muslims and incorporate human rights as we know them into Islam, mostly on the understanding that OF COURSE Islam doesn't allow this or that because it went against our principles of decency. And since Allah would never give us anything indecent or bad, of course such revolting acts would be against Islam. However, when looking at the Prophet's own life, as recorded by Muslims, one gets an entirely different picture. So now I would say that more or less, OBL has a clearer understanding of "true Islam" than I did or than many Muslims do.
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Still a lot to say, and I'm working on it. This is a start...
Topic: My journey to, through, and out the other side of Islam