My story of leaving Islam
OP - December 31, 2013, 10:26 PM
Hello everyone, I have been lurking around this site for a while and finally decided to take the plunge and join in the discussion here. I'm a 30 year old closeted Ex Muslim. I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia to a very religious family. My father studied Shariah there and I was also brought up with a very heavy Islamic education, which continued even after moving to the United States. During my teenage years I was very active in Qur'an and Hadith memorization and gaining Islamic knowledge out of my own initiative and even planned on following my father's footsteps and studying in Saudi Arabia.
However at age 18, I had a change of heart. I was also very much interested in politics and in a post 9/11 world I was motivated to study Political Science with the goal of going to law school, with the goal of working for Muslim civil rights. I entered college still a devout and practicing Muslim. It was my time in College that gradually changed me, being exposed to different ideas in philosophy and political thought I had a hard time reconciling my religious beliefs with my changing political and philosophical ideas.
Towards the end of my time in undergrad I was already questioning my faith but no where close to being an atheist. In fact in law school I become even more devout and active in the MSA on campus.
Being an avid reader and always curious I picked up Richard Dawkins' book the God Delusion, which later led me to read Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens as well. At this point I was probably 80 percent there. Surprisingly though it was when I met another student from Saudi Arabia that things changed. When I first met this fellow I thought he was religious, he had the big beard of a religious Muslim. He also very well read when it came to Islam. We became friends and enjoyed talking philosophy. he enjoyed discussing some fairly controversial issues in Islam and liked to ruffle the feathers of our other Muslim friends. However I never suspected that he had any doubts in the religion.
Over the summer of my first and second year in law school something changed though. I dont know what happened but my friend came back from Saudi a different man. He was more open with me about wanting to try new things like drinking. I was already drinking by then but he didn't know it and it was a bold move on his part. He just started order drinks around me and some of our more trusted Muslim friends. So eventually I came out as well and we started going out drinking together. Picture two guys sitting at a bar speaking Arabic, one with a big beard, I'm sure it was a sight to be seen. One day out at a bar over drinks we started talking about the problems with Islam today, as the drinks kept coming we became more and more bold until eventually I just blurted out that I don't think Allah exists. To my surprise he agreed with me which led us to a long discussion of why we lost our faith.
After that day he began sharing the books he had read in Arabic by authors like Abdulrahman Al-Qassimi and Arabic atheist and freethinker sites like ladeenyon.com and el7ad.com. It was those sites that really changed everything for me. Here were people who knew more about Islam then 90 percent of the people I knew and they had left Islam. By the time I graduated from law school my faith in Islam and belief in the existence of God was completely gone. That was 4 years ago. Today I'm still a closeted atheist but I am finding it hard to continue living this way.
Topic: My story of leaving Islam