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Testimonies:
Why I Left Islam
Conversions, apostates, and free-thinkers
Muslims are triumphalists especially when they parrot the journalistic cliché that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, or when they present the testimony of someone who has "embraced Islam;" Islam, "that least huggable of faiths," as Rushdie calls it[1]. Frithjof Schuon, a Western convert to a mystical variety of Islam explains the Muslim mindset:
The intellectual–and thereby the rational–foundation of Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslims’ power of imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the irresistible logic of things[2].
Despite appearances, the fact remains thousands have left Islam behind along with other childish beliefs from Father Christmas to the Tooth Fairy. A few courageous souls have not only resisted the "irresistible" but braving family and friends, social ostracism, mob violence, and state assassinations and executions, have also come out of the closet, and have made their unbelief a matter of public record: Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasrin, Anwar Shaikh, Ali Sina, Mahmoud, Syed Mirza Ali, Mohsen, to name some of them.
There was a remarkable article translated from the Algerian Arabic Daily, al-Yawm and published in the Courrier International[3] recently. It shows that the deterioration of the image of Islam during the Algerian crisis has played its part in the rise of conversions to Christianity and the adoption of its principles. What is happening and what has happened in Algeria, such as the massacres and killings [in the holy month of Ramadan, December, 2000, alone, 340 people were killed, making a total of 2700 killed by the Islamists in the year 2000. Source CI.No.531] in the name of Islam, has led many, when asked what the difference, in their view, was between Islam and Christianity, to declare: "Christianity is life, Islam is death." For Samia, a secondary school pupil, the proof of the difference between Islam and Christianity was the mixing and relationship between the sexes, the former forbidding it, and the latter allowing it. One church alone recorded 50 baptisms a year; and this in a country where a woman wearing lipstick could result in an entire family, elderly women and children included having their throats cut. Apostasy is punishable by death under Islamic Law.
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