How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?

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How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
OP - June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM

So when you were a Muslim you must have come across some of the immoral things (by Twentieth Century Standards) that are condoned in Islam. For example:

• Aisha’s age at marriage
• Wife beating
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims
• Warfare to spread Islam

So the question is, what was your first reaction to learning about this stuff? Did it have much of an effect on your faith? How did you rationalize it? Did you come up with ways to dismiss this kind of stuff? If so how?
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #1 - June 28, 2012, 09:33 PM

I'll come back to this later today when I'm more awake, but great questions TonyT.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #2 - June 28, 2012, 09:35 PM

I just ignored it. Deep down I knew there was a lot in Islam to be embarrassed about (by today's standards); I hoped it wouldn't get brought up in discussions.
I think, for survival reasons, most people subconsciously go along with their culture/religion. It's the rebels/nonconformists that question things about culture and belief.

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #3 - June 28, 2012, 10:41 PM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
So when you were a Muslim you must have come across some of the immoral things (by Twentieth Century Standards) that are condoned in Islam. For example:

• Aisha’s age at marriage
• Wife beating
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims
• Warfare to spread Islam

So the question is, what was your first reaction to learning about this stuff? Did it have much of an effect on your faith? How did you rationalize it? Did you come up with ways to dismiss this kind of stuff? If so how?

I was ignorant of all this while I was a Muslim and had a really positive view and interpretation of Islam. To me Islam was mainly following the 5 pillars and being a nice person.

I didn't bother reading the Quran because it was too big and I thought I'd dedicate time to it after graduating because seeing all the tafsir books really intimidated me.

I only heard about Aisha's age of marriage, and wife beating, and all that other stuff online. My first reaction was that it made me browse Islamic websites and see their arguments against it. But that alone didn't make me leave Islam, it made me start questioning it. I started reading atheism related articles and YouTube vids, and other resources like that which really helped. Within months I became an Ex-Muslim. It would of been sooner if it weren't for the fear of hell. The Internet sped up my apostasy and greatly helped me.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #4 - June 29, 2012, 10:46 AM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
So when you were a Muslim you must have come across some of the immoral things (by Twentieth Century Standards) that are condoned in Islam. For example:

• Aisha’s age at marriage
• Wife beating
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims
• Warfare to spread Islam

So the question is, what was your first reaction to learning about this stuff? Did it have much of an effect on your faith? How did you rationalize it? Did you come up with ways to dismiss this kind of stuff? If so how?

I started having doubts about these issues when I was about 11, after having read the Qur'an and Hadiths (Sahih Muslim and Bukhari) in full. I decided to disregard the Hadiths because they weren't "from God" and effectively became a Qur'anist (although I wasn't aware they had a name at the time).
At that age, I didn't really understand a lot of the Qur'an due to the rather complicated language, and the English translation I was using used more Shakespearean language too, so I hadn't noticed things about slavery and degrading non- believers and such. With the help of the internet, I managed to read the tafsirs and other things explaining "context" or whatever, but still didn't buy it.

So in effect, I solved this problem first by abandoning Hadiths, but couldn't accept some of the horrible things in the Qur'an and apostasised.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #5 - June 29, 2012, 11:03 AM

Personally I ignored them and I believed it is all a matter of interpretation, I was deluding to myself with different kind of logical fallacies.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #6 - June 30, 2012, 01:56 PM

'god know best', it's just how thing were done in those time and places, it's not a sahih, misunderstanding, Juice conspiracy, ignorance on my part and ...
hey ! he's minimo, he's purrrfeccto, you got to love him, if you don't who will ?
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #7 - July 01, 2012, 10:33 AM

I just wasn't aware of a lot of the immorally in Islam. As soon as I did become aware, it didn't take me long to leave the religion.

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #8 - July 02, 2012, 07:00 PM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
• Aisha’s age at marriage
• Wife beating
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths

Came to know about them after I started having doubts, because before that I had not read quran with detail and no hadith.

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims
• Warfare to spread Islam

Its allah's land and what he want from us should happened . Non muslims are corrupting the land of allah by not following his commands so they should be forced to do that or at least they should fear us as we are the "khalifa" of allah on this land.

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #9 - July 11, 2012, 10:27 AM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
So when you were a Muslim you must have come across some of the immoral things (by Twentieth Century Standards) that are condoned in Islam. For example:

• Aisha’s age at marriage

Went through quite a bit of a process with this one:

- Learned that she was married at like 16/17/18 in Islamic Studies class. Didn't seem like a big deal.
- Later on someone asked me about Aisha's age. I asked what the big deal was, he said that she was married at 9 or whatever. I looked it up.
- Was not sure what to make of it tbh, obviously having learned something different in Islamic Stud. class. So I stuck with the 16/19 one.
- Eventually found several scholarly views that sounded reasonable and corresponded with that view.
- Then I decided that if some famous scholars said she was 9 or whatever, how could they be wrong? (Amazing how I thought scholars were infallible.) So decided she was 9 and that it's okay to marry 9 yo in certain societies (srsly). :/
- Then switched back to 16/19 cuz I think it sounds more plausible.

So yeah.....this didn't really deter me from Islam per se, except that it made it more confusing and made me see how religion can make me accept something that is repulsive (child marriages).

Ugh.

Quote
• Wife beating

Hitting her with a toothpick? Never bothered me.

Quote
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths

Islamic slavery is different from American slavery.

Quote
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths

Couldn't rationalise this one away, it completely blew away my "Islamic slavery is different from American slavery" line. It's disgusting and gives me the heebie jeebies.

Quote
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims

Errr....didn't think about it? Didn't occur to me.

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• Warfare to spread Islam

Spreading a peaceful ideology, breaking loose the chains of the Byzantine/Persian empires, freeing serfs, etc. Minority groups (were supposed to) live in peace in Islamic societies. Stuff like that.

Hope this helps Tony.

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #10 - July 11, 2012, 12:59 PM

Quote from: chepea on July 11, 2012, 10:27 AM
Spreading a peaceful ideology, breaking loose the chains of the Byzantine/Persian empires, freeing serfs, etc. Minority groups (were supposed to) live in peace in Islamic societies. Stuff like that.

Yes, damn those evil Romans and Persians! How dare they defend their countries from the peace loving Arab invasions.

Quote from: chepea on July 11, 2012, 10:27 AM
Hope this helps Tony.

That helps a lot Chepea. Interesting to learn what they teach in "Islamic Studies" class.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #11 - July 11, 2012, 07:00 PM

Quote from: Tonyt on July 11, 2012, 12:59 PM
That helps a lot Chepea. Interesting to learn what they teach in "Islamic Studies" class.

Well, depends on where you go. To be perfectly clear, I didn't learn much post-Guided Caliphs history in Islamic Studies, on account of the fact that I dropped it for another history subject in my O Levels. So my max Islamic Studies' class experience is till grade 8.

The 16/19 thing is actually endorsed by Ghamidi I believe, who has influenced Pakistani Islamic thought, so I don't think they just pulled it out of their bums.

But yeah. I can't speak for other Islamiat classes, but generally I've heard that the teachers suck

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #12 - July 11, 2012, 07:43 PM

I don't think I really understood most of these issues while I was a 'good' Muslim. It was only when I looked into the Koran and Hadith and history itself that I gained an understanding. A lot of it is just plain voluntary ignorance.

• Aisha’s age at marriage
At first I didn't care. Figured it was just the way life was back then. Figured Aisha could have reached puberty by 9. Later on in life, I thought to myself, how could a 6 year old agree to marriage? That is when I really had a problem with it. As I talked with many of my friends of Sikh, Hindu background it appeared that many of their religious leaders today seem to get involved in sex abuses... and then the church scandal... and that really got me thinking about religious people.

• Wife beating
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths
I'll group these two together as the explanation was always it was a transition state. Wife beating and slavery are both not allowed, but people had to be gradually taken out of it step by step....
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths
Always had a problem here... but again... assumed it was a transition state
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims
Didn't really care...
• Warfare to spread Islam
It happened, but that was not 'true' Islam.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #13 - July 11, 2012, 10:31 PM

Good question, TonyT. I, myself am an ex-convert (fuck that revert bullshit.) and the whole time I was a practicing Muslim and married to a British Bengali Muslim who is a practicing Muslim, i.e. prays Sunnah and nafil 5x a day, etc. I had a hard time trying to justify my personal beliefs with this beliefs of Islam.

One of the beliefs I couldn't believe in is the Hellfire and that all LGBT people were doomed to burn in the hellfire. My ex and I decided that we would just have to agree to disagree on this topic.

I also believe in Spiritualism and the reincarnation of the spirit/soul until they are evolved spiritually and can move onto a more advanced plain of being. Islam,otoh does not recognise the evolution of the soul/spirit, rather you are supposed to blindly follow the dictates of the Quran, ahadith, and "learned scholars w/o asking why.

Islam, IMO, treats perfectly capable adults like children, esp women.
It also appears that a Muslim gets more reward from simply memorising the Quran rather than actually learning and understanding it's true meaning. So, what are the so called scholars afraid of and trying to hide?

As for Aisha's age when she was married to the Prophet, in my Muslimah days I put it down to ambiguity amongst the ulama.

As for slavery, I truly believed that the practice was stamped out by Islam. Boy, was I wrong! In KSA they call black Africans 'abid' and we all know how non-Arab labourers are treated. They cannot even have labor unions as per the views of the 'royal' family and ulama.

When it comes to wife beating, I followed the 'toothpick or miswak' rule, ie a husband can only use a toothpick or a miswak. In reality, my ex would never have raised a finger against me as he was intimidated by my forcefull attitude.

As for denigrating non-Muslims. I couldn't ever adopt such an attitude as a convert since no one other than myself was a Muslim in my family. Secondly, half my family are Jewish and we all know how Muslims view Jews. I am proud of my Jewish background but when I was a Muslimah I had to hide my Jewish identity.

I truly believe it is time for islam to reform itself from within, just like the xtian and Jewish faiths had but that is wishful thinking on my part.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #14 - July 29, 2012, 12:49 PM

Up until now, I cannot rationalize Muhammad possessed more than 11 wives and married Aisha when she was 6. That's the problem I had been thinking. There's time when I feel like "come back" to Islam especially pondering over certain positive aspects of it, but having sex with a 9 year old and also slave girls are two thickest walls that holding me on the ex- Muslims side of the wall.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #15 - July 29, 2012, 01:54 PM

I honestly don't think I ever did rationalise it. Hence why I grew out of it. As soon as I actually found out about Mohammed and his sleazy, violent, entitled and indulgent life, the spell was broken. Utterly and irreparably. How anyone with a working conscience, a love of humanity and want for equality and respect can read about the life of Mohammed and remain impressed - or worse, in full awe of the man - is a mystery to me. Especially as a woman. That, and reading the Quran itself. Too many shocking verses and unjustifiable commands that it's impossible to remain enchanted once seen. Magnified a thousand times in the context of an abusive environment, experiencing first-hand the fruits of that toxic manual. I don't think it ever occurred to me to rationalise it, only to dream harder, make plans for my own destiny and escape that physical and emotional prison.

I flirted with Islam again when I was a bit older. With the mindset that, while disgusting and polluted and anathema to real humanity, perhaps there is some deeper truth missed by the misogynist, the supremacist, the predator, the charlatan, who use that book for its intended purpose. At a point when I seriously needed spiritual and moral guidance. But there was none to be found in Islam. Spiritual guidance in Islam is only to be found in those unique individual Muslims who have a very generous and selective interpretation of its traditions. One who puts being a good person first before being a good Muslim. Not Islam itself.

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #16 - July 29, 2012, 02:09 PM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
So when you were a Muslim you must have come across some of the immoral things (by Twentieth Century Standards) that are condoned in Islam. For example:

• Aisha’s age at marriage
• Wife beating
• Slavery in the Koran and Hadiths
• Sex with slave girls condoned in the Koran and Hadiths
• Derogatory descriptions of non-Muslims
• Warfare to spread Islam

This is what I thought during when my "iman" was the highest.

1 Knew it was an "ongoing" debate between scholars. Took the she was 17 and women were different in that era stuff and ran with it.
2 All humans do it...nothing to do with Islam.
3 Ignorant to it...didn't know of it until after I apostated.
4 See #3
5 I did know of it but really didn't think of it. I guess I just got desensitized to it as I heard it so much.
6 Jihad means "Struggle" and blah blah I didn't think further than that.

Quote from: Tonyt on June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM
So the question is, what was your first reaction to learning about this stuff? Did it have much of an effect on your faith? How did you rationalize it? Did you come up with ways to dismiss this kind of stuff? If so how?

If I heard any during my muslim years I rationalized it as coming from deniers and islamphobia. Not really had any effect on my faith as I never researched any of the claims further than I simply denied them. Nope, no need to dismiss something you believe is purely made up and blah blah.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #17 - August 06, 2012, 03:29 AM

Didn't hear about the wife beating or the sex with slave girls part of Islam until I became an atheist, but the rest I just didn't see a problem with.

My ethical awakening was a result of becoming an atheist, for the most part, not the cause of it. I sometimes feel out of place with other atheists because I abandoned God just on narrow grounds on certainty rather than an inability to rationalize these things. For the most part I just took them for granted.
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #18 - August 06, 2012, 04:22 AM

When I was young, I thought there was something wrong with me for not agreeing with all of Islam's principles. I blamed myself and convinced myself that Allah hated me and that I was a terrible person who was hellbound. When I read the verses in Qur'an talking about the hypocrites who professed belief, but would then act like unbelievers, and how they would be tortured in hell, I would end up crying myself to sleep. I remember praying to Allah as I lied bed to forgive me for being such a horrible person. I was scared and confused and felt horribly alone.

I think this is one of the most disgusting things about religion. It convinces children that they are disgusting, horrible creatures, and teaches them that they need to live in fear of some supernatural being who is going to roast them for all of eternity for disagreeing with it's standards of "morality".

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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #19 - August 06, 2012, 04:33 AM

Quote from: Ishina on July 29, 2012, 01:54 PM
At a point when I seriously needed spiritual and moral guidance.

How may I help you, child?
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Re: How did you rationalize immorality in Islam when you were a Muslim?
Reply #20 - August 06, 2012, 07:16 AM

LOL @ ^^^

My mom dressed up as that guy for Halloween when I was around 6 years old. Living in Oregon in the early 80's the Rajnishis were all over the news at that time.

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