Ex—Muslims are people who were raised as Muslims or converted to Islam and later renounced the religion of Islam.[1] Leaving Islam is a uniquely individual experience and a growing social phenomenon. Challenges[2] come from the conditions and history of Islam, Islamic culture and jurisprudence, and sometimes local Muslim culture. This has led to increasingly organized literary and social activism by ex-Muslims, and the development of mutual support networks and organizations to meet the challenges of abandoning the beliefs and practices of Islam
and to raise awareness of human rights abuses suffered by ex-Muslims.[3]
Reasons and process of leaving Islam
Academic studies
According to Pauha and Aghaee (2018), apart from context and additional levels of struggle, the deconversion process and some of the reasons for leaving religion might not be much different for Muslims leaving their religion compared to Christians leaving theirs.[4] According to Simon Cottee (2015), the intellectual process of leaving religion begins with the onset of doubt about Islam and its practice.[5] In Islamic tradition, doubts about the religion are generally severely reprimanded with threats of hell in the afterlife toward impressionable young children[6] and associating doubting individuals with possession by devils and further superstitious practices of exorcism.[5] Therefore, doubt tends to be significantly discouraged, ranging from bad-mouthing about those who raise any doubts to brutally punishing them. This builds up peer and community pressure not to doubt and deviate from the status quo, leading to unsettling fears that someone whose doubts would be revealed might be put to shame and further banishment.[6] The next steps for doubters are self-censorship and attempts to suppress recurring thoughts, leading to frustration.[5]
Simon Cottee study
Simon Cottee (2015) wrote that it is very difficult for Muslims to express doubts and questions about Islam. Those who get the opportunity, must conduct self-search on the Internet, and if they wish to ask questions to any religious expert, then they have to do so with a lot of caution to avoid accusations of disbelief; rather than asking why God said something in the scriptures, they need to rephrase their inquiry in religiously 'right' language, asking what God meant by something. In other cases, doubters use real or imaginary proxies to avoid hostility towards themselves. Since many doubts are not answered, the unintended consequence is a further level of dissatisfaction.[6] Cottee says ex-Muslims focus their doubts mostly on the truth claims of Islam, and the utility and morality of Islamic commands or prohibitions.[6]
Phil Zuckerman summarizes Cottee's points about types of doubts engaged by ex-Muslims on the path of leaving Islam, namely: epistemological, moral, and instrumental doubts, as well as forms of doubts such as significant personal experiences, exposure to alternatives, scriptural discoveries, spiritual alienation, political events, etc.[2] Epistemological doubts question the existence of God in several ways, such as through the problem of evil, by looking at injustice and misery around the world, which allegedly would not have existed if there really would have been a good God. They also question the Islamic creation myth with respect to the theory of evolution, and the contradictions between the concepts of free will and predestination. Moral doubts concern issues such as the unequal treatment of women in Islam, and why non-Muslim children or good non-Muslims go to hell according to Islamic theology. Instrumental doubts question the utility and morality of Islamic commands or prohibitions, such as the prohibition of artistic representation of living beings (see Aniconism in Islam), which doubters claim hamper freedom of artistic expressions such as drawing, photography, sports like chess, music, etc. (see also Muslim women in sport), in turn, hampers individual growth and social-cultural participation.[6]
Cottee's study indicates that ex-Muslims start feeling that they are betraying their true self and also deceiving their loved ones in the process, leading to feelings of shame for their own continued closeted pretending and subsequent feelings of isolation and loneliness. On the one hand, ex-Muslims often opt to reduce commitment to social relationships that require pretending to be Muslim; on the other hand, they often do not have the freedom to choose the kind of social relationships they prefer, thus exacerbating their social isolation and loneliness further.[5] Cottee outlines different phases on the way of leaving Islam: disavowal of self, relief, excitement, guilt, anger, residual anxiety, confusion, disclosure, and more.[2]
Khalil Bilici study
The 2007 Khalil Bilici study stated that motivations for leaving Islam can be broadly classified into two categories, namely intellectual/ideological motivations and social/experiential motivations.[7] According to Teemu Pauha and Atefeh Aghaee (2018), the first group would find religion to be naive and irrational, whereas second group emphasizes the constraints and breaches of human rights of individuals negatively affecting social progress as their most significant concern. Pauha and Aghaee further point out that, depending on the doubting group one belongs to, one may find religion to be an example of stupidity or viciousness.[4]
Findings of the Khalil Bilici study state that among ex-Muslims with intellectual/ideological motivations, the following ones seem important:
- The subordinate status of women in Islam;
- The contradictions in Sharia (Islamic law) vis-à-vis human rights (see Sharia § Contemporary debates and controversies);
- The problematic nature of the Quran (see Criticism of the Quran);
- The character of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and other Islamic leaders (see Criticism of Muhammad);
- Islam as illogical and unscientific (e.g. vis-à-vis the theory of evolution, see Islamic attitudes towards science);
- The eternal damnation of good non-Muslims (see Problem of Hell);
- The unnecessary, strict rules and expectations of Islam;
- Islam not being universal, but rather Arab-centric (see Ajam, Mawla, and Shu'ubiyya);
- The dubious historicity of the Quran and Hadith (see Historical reliability of the Quran and Criticism of hadith).[7]
Cottee's interviewees inform their intellectual doubts about perceived religious inconsistencies in Islam like, the barbarism of certain verses in the Qur'an, the improbability of the existence of God, the wickedness of the possibility of God creating Hell, discontent with the treatment of women, and more.[2]
Among apostates with social/experiential motivations behind leaving Islam, Khalil Bilici noted the following reasons:
- Unpleasant encounters with bad and cruel Muslims;
- Muslims as oppressive;
- Backwardness among Muslims;
- Ill-treatment of women among Muslims;
- Ill-treatment of non-Muslims by Muslims;
- Muslims being in a state of illusion regarding their own religion.[7]
Bilici stated that ex-Muslims are not necessarily always taking into account the whole range of historical and contemporary Muslim scholarly opinions, and their understanding may be mixed one.[7] The Khalil Bilici study attributes gender discrimination and repulsive feelings owing to negative individual experiences and perceptions as the most prominent motivations of individuals leaving Islam.[7] Khalil Bilici states that their study confirms earlier scholarly findings that some ex-Muslims commonly cite the experience of the 1971 Bangladesh genocide as an example of the oppressive nature of Muslims.[7] Bilici further informs that like in many other conversions, a considerable number of Muslims from frontiers where they are exposed to different perspectives may be leaving Islam. Narratives about "leaving Islam" come from individuals of various ethnic backgrounds and age groups, and from across the world (with South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and the West being prominent regions where ex-Muslims emerge), and that the gender mix seems to change relative to geography.[7]
For example, Khalil Bilici takes note of some individual narrations, such as one ex-Muslim who found it odd that the Quran got 'engrossed with trivial aspects' related to the private life of Muhammad. In another example, an ex-Muslim found the 'killing of innocent people' by natural phenomena such as disease to be unfathomable to believe in God. A narration of another ex-Muslim asserted that life as a Muslim imposed socially restrictive choices and made one skip opportunities and responsibilities in order to fulfill mundane religious mandates; the same account found the status of women in Islam and condoning child marriage by the prophet to be problematic. Before deciding to leave Islam, one ex-Muslim evaluated arguments for and against the theory of evolution and found the theory of evolution to be more credible, found Quran to be unscientific, the idea of eternal damnation horrible, and the hypothesis of God unnecessary for explaining the existence of life.[7]
During a panel discussion by Ex-Muslims of North America at the University of Colorado, ex-Muslim women from countries such as Lebanon and Saudi Arabia attributed flight from their countries of birth to day-to-day controlled life full of gender repression, isolation, and abuse by families and communities with internalized religious narratives.[8] In many cases, the continuation of education becomes difficult for women, since families and communities give preference to early marriage (in many cases forced ones).[9]
Teemu Pauha and Atefeh Aghaee study
In their analytical study of Iranian ex-Muslim accounts, Teemu Pauha and Atefeh Aghaee (2018) broadly concur with Phil Zuckerman about the reasons for leaving religion but prefer to classify categories of intellectual atheism and social atheism is further broadly distinctive – but occasionally overlapping – four sub-categories, namely: seekers, rationalists, rebels, and disillusioned ones.[4] Pauha and Aghaee state that, while rationalists stress intellectual grounds, those who belong to the seeker category stress moral deficiencies as their respective reasons for de-conversion, but both these sub-categories focus on theoretical aspects.[4] The sub-categories of rebels and disillusioned ones focus on their experiences and knowledge about social behaviors of believers in Islam as far from being ideal, practically harmful to individuals and society, and not progressive enough – rebels attempt to rebel against this perceived state of affairs and leave, and disillusioned ones leave because they don't expect any
- ^ Peters, Rudolph; Vries, Gert J. J. De (1976). "Apostasy in Islam". Die Welt des Islams. 17 (1/4): 3. doi:10.2307/1570336. JSTOR 1570336.
By the murtadd or apostate is understood as the Moslem by birth or by conversion, who renounces his religion, irrespective of whether or not he subsequently embraces another faith.
- ^ a b c d Zuckerman, Phil (1 December 2015). "The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam". Sociology of Religion. 76 (4): 484–485. doi:10.1093/socrel/srv052. ISSN 1069-4404.
- ^ Beaman, Lori G.; Tomlins, Steven (4 December 2014). Atheist Identities - Spaces and Social Contexts. Springer. p. 154. ISBN 978-3-319-09602-5.
- ^ a b c d Pauha, Teemu; Aghaee, Atefeh (2018). "'God never existed, and I was looking for him like crazy!' Muslim stories of deconversion". In Nieuwkerk, Karin van (ed.). Moving In and Out of Islam. University of Texas Press. pp. 333–359. ISBN 978-1-4773-1748-8.
- ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b c d e Cottee, Simon (2015). The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-84904-469-1.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Khalil, Mohammad Hassan; Bilici, Mucahit (January 2007). "Conversion Out of Islam: A Study of Conversion Narratives of Former Muslims" (PDF). The Muslim World. 97: 111–124. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2007.00161.x. hdl:2027.42/72141 – via deepblue.lib.umich.edu.
- ^ Upton, Allegra (2017–2018). The Othering of Muslim Women by Western and Eastern Societies (Thesis). University of Colorado Boulder.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).