Greetings from US
OP - May 27, 2015, 06:05 AM
Greetings all,
Been reading various posts with interest, particularly the ones in “introduce your self” section, and decided to join the community. I must say some of you had quite a journey from Islam to becoming an ex- Muslim. Fortunately I didn’t have much of Journey to my current belief (Humanist/agnostic). Indeed it will be wrong to classify myself as ex-Muslim, because I never thought of my nominal religion (Islam). Though my family and relatives are nominally Muslim (Sunni), with few exceptions none of them hardly ever gave Islam or any religion a second though; and I don’t recall anyone preaching, forcing, or urging others to follow Islam. Interestingly their lax attitude was not born out of enlightenment of some sort. They/we/my family simply didn’t give a shit about Islam or any religion. My family and extended clan were not anti-religion; we celebrated the aeed festivities and spoke of prophet and other important figures in Islam with reverence, though without saying much about them, It was not uncommon to have some of my relatives dismiss religion, god and gods. Nor did they face much of backlash. I will go as far to say that in my family; you were expected to be nonbeliever unless you were to explicitly declare to believe in all that mumbo-jumbo. That was in Baluchistan/Iran.
Then my father moved to Tehran and we left the uncivilized Baluchistan for Tehran. Civilized folks of Tehran knew their religion well (too well), We were met with surprise and not little disgust by the local civilized Tehranians who are predominantly Shia. Our lack of religious knowledge and concern shock them, but they were kind so they made up an excuse for us “probably because you are Sunni”. We protested, “NO, we just don’t give a…” and next hopped onto plane and when I woke up our plane was taxiing in Detroit Michigan United States.
On what pretext did we get to USA, I don’t recall! I was a teenager. But there we were in Detroit Michigan. No mullah in site, no nosey neighbor asking as to why we were not in Friday’s prayer. I looked at my siblings, 4 brothers and a sister, and we said “this is great” Lets tell Ma and Pa we ain’t going back. Ma and pa were a step ahead, “Damn straight we are staying here. And we did!
Though I continued living with no god in my head, and had little contacts with Muslims, I culturally saw myself as a Muslim, Sympathized with them, and took an exception if someone “attacked” the religion. It was going well between me and Islam. I didn't bother with it, didn't even believe in it, but took its side, UNTIL I started to meet the Muslims. In graduate school I started to meet people from all over the world. I will save it for later.
Nasser
Topic: Greetings from US