Book Review: Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology
Posted on November 18, 2024 by Baron Bodissey
The following book review by Fjordman has not been previously published.
Book Review: Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology
by Fjordman
The book Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology was written by Weronika Lenartowicz.[1] She obtained her Ph.D. in the discipline of sociology at Warsaw University in Poland. Lenartowicz includes many academic references and notations in this well-documented work on an important subject that is rarely studied systematically. This strengthens the book’s credibility, but some readers may find that the number of academic references is higher than strictly necessary.
Lenartowicz has conducted interviews with 80 former Muslims in Germany and Sweden, men and women between the ages of 17 and 71. That forms the basis of this pioneering work. A disproportionate number of those interviewed were Shiites from Iran, but there were also Sunnis, mainly Kurds from Iran and Syria and Sunnis from Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, and Nigeria, with six people from families living in Turkey.
I should mention here that former Muslims played a part in shaping my very negative views of Islam. I’ve been reading about Islam since the late 1990s, and the more I read about it, the more I disliked it. Studying, working and traveling in the Middle East from 2001 to 2003 didn’t give me a more positive view of this ideology.
Living in Cairo, Egypt during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was educational. But the most shocking thing was not realizing that many Arabs and Muslims hate the USA and the Western world. I already knew that. The most shocking thing was how Western politicians and mass media were in total denial about this fact. An entire civilization was lying to itself.
Yet sometimes everyday experiences can be just as shocking. During a visit to Jordan, I got to talking to an Arab Muslim man who spoke English well. By this time, I was well acquainted with the work of the ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq, author of the 1995 book Why I Am Not a Muslim and editor of the 2003 book Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out. I later had the pleasure of meeting Ibn Warraq in real life. From him and other former Muslims such as the Iranian writer Ali Sina, I knew that leaving Islam was considered a very serious crime that could even result in the death penalty. I therefore asked my Jordanian guide if he thought that people with a Muslim background who leave Islam deserved to die. He answered yes without hesitation. “When you know the truth, you can’t turn your back on it,” was his reasoning.
This may sound extreme, but it is traditional Islamic law, sharia. Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926-2022) was a highly influential Islamic legal scholar from Egypt and the ideologue behind the Muslim Brotherhood. He openly stated on TV that without the death penalty for leaving Islam, Islam would have ceased to exist a long time ago.[2]
In my view, Islam is not a conventional religion and should not be classified as such. Islamic theology divides the world into Dar al-Islam, the house of Islam, and Dar al-Harb, the house of war. These are in permanent conflict until Islamic dominance is established throughout the world, using as much pressure and violence (jihad) as is necessary to achieve this goal. One could characterize Islam as a permanent world war. If so, a Muslim can be understood as a soldier in Muhammad’s army. A person with a Muslim background who leaves Islam can therefore be regarded as a deserter who abandons his side during a war and joins the enemy. This is why apostasy from Islam is dealt with so harshly.
The former Muslims who were interviewed by Weronika Lenartowicz included persons who had converted to Christianity or were practicing Buddhists, but also individuals who are now atheists. Lenartowicz notes that regardless of their current beliefs, the ex-Muslims interviewed, men as well as women, now view Islam in very similar and negative ways. They associate Islam with coercion, discrimination, aggression, fear, hatred, brutality, and violence.
Some tell about being sent to Quranic schools where the imam taught them hatred of Christians, Jews and others. Hatred against their friends from school. Such Islamic education also exists in Europe. One interviewee attended a Turkish Quranic school in Cologne, Germany, where he was sent by his parents. He describes those events as follows, a quote from page 90:
“It was in Turkish, the imam was from Turkey. I was 5-6 years old. My parents sent me there. It was normal, it was kind of self-defense, karate and the Qur’an school. The imams talked about killing unbelievers, to take revenge, to kill them… and hang them… my friend Enzo is a nice friend. Why should I kill him?? What is this guy talking about? I liked my friend, and I was 5 then and I knew this guy was wrong. This is my experience with the Qur’an. I am sure that they still do that. In Quranic school and they still teach that there.”[3]
Some of them had personally witnessed cruel practices such as honor killings, or child marriages for girls. When indicating their reasons for leaving Islam, the interviewees spoke of physical, psychological, and sexual violence. A German-born man described his childhood, when he and his brothers and sister were abused mentally, physically, and sexually.
Leaving Islam had both positive and negative consequences. Mentally speaking, it was like coming out of prison. The former Muslims experienced more personal happiness and freedom in their lives, once they were no longer constrained by Islamic law and rituals.
However, it did not lead to greater personal safety, due to fear of aggression and violence from devout Muslims. Consequently, most of the interviewees do not speak about their apostasy in public. There are a few exceptions, such as Councils of Ex-Muslims in Germany and Sweden.
However, people who leave Islam and criticize its doctrines publicly, such as the Egyptian-Germany author Hamed Abdel-Samad, experience many threats even in Western countries.
An Iranian convert to Christianity, who had experienced discrimination for many years, miraculously survived attempted murder.
An Egyptian man and his daughter were forced to flee their country. The police and his family were determined to punish him for his conversion to Christianity. There was an attempt to throw acid on his daughter, and an imam issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to kill him.
Interviewees reported attempts at intimidation and violence also in Europe, with its rapidly growing Muslim immigrant population. An Afghan convert was threatened with a knife in Norway. Some converts changed their identity and decided to go into hiding.
Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology, page 99:
“Overwhelmingly, interviewees emphasize that they themselves did not choose Islam, but that Islam was forced on them. Being a Muslim is an ascribed position, not only socially, but also legally — anyone born into a Muslim family is automatically considered a Muslim. For this reason, the interviewees believe that it is impossible to depart from their faith. They believe that it is punishable by death. The fear of punishment acts as a compulsion to conform to the prevailing rules. The social coercion, however, appears in various contexts of the accounts. One of these is the belief system that mandates ‘belonging to the community.’ To support and substantiate this view, my interviewees claim that anyone born a Muslim remains one forever, that they were coerced to Islam, that they had no choice. On the one hand, they had no knowledge of the variety of religious systems; on the other hand, the society, parents, and the state imposed the religion on them, causing, as they themselves admit, a life catastrophe.”[4]
A quote from page 200:
“According to the interviewees, Islam is built on fear. This emotion appears most often when they are asked about their associations with Islam: Islam is not a religion, it is nothing but fear. What they remember from the past are the numerous traumas associated with being forced to fulfill religious orders, fasting, and listening to mullahs. The interviewees openly say that they feared the religious authorities. They were largely terrified that Islam does not only deal with theological issues. It goes far beyond the sphere of religion. It tells Muslims how to act in practically every area of their lives. Significantly, the interviewees believe that Muslims fear God and do whatever Islam tells them to do. One young Iranian woman concludes: It was so frightening because there is no way to get away from it. During their childhood, the interviewees were afraid of various things. One of the men recalled that when he was a child he had been threatened with Israel. The feeling of fear accompanied some interviewees after they left Islam. They said: Islam is something I fear. A woman born into a liberal family of Turkish Alevis says she is afraid when she suddenly finds herself surrounded by Turkish men in Germany. The female participant explains the reason for that: They know that I’m Turkish and I have no cover myself. They can see the way I dress. I immediately fear that they will want to control me because I belong to their community. I always try to avoid them. I don’t want them to know I’m Turkish. An Iranian woman, also living in Germany, spoke of a similar experience: I’m afraid. I don’t feel comfortable in this Islamic society. I’m constantly afraid that I will do something wrong and they will find out that I’m not one of them. The above examples show that women, fearing for their lives, either pretend they have no Muslim roots or try not to show that they have left Islam and the umma. They are forced to hide their beliefs even in Germany.”[5]
Weronika Lenartowicz sums up her work on page 222:
“From what I have learned from my interviewees, the dependence on a man, family, and society is so strong that many Muslims cannot imagine the possibility of leaving Islam, even if they experience constant oppression. A woman who leaves Islam immediately loses her parental rights, is left alone. Fear is the main factor here. Those who have left religion, for fear of ostracism, exclusion, and even the death penalty, may never publicly admit it. Therefore, it is difficult to bring closer the scale of the phenomenon of apostasy in the world of Islam. The situation of the interviewees, who believe that there is death, killing, execution, discrimination, and exclusion for leaving Islam, indicates this. Baudrillard could call it the silent majority since there are no credible statistics on this subject. One of the main conclusions of this work is the very thesis that although the interviewees gained the longed-for freedom, they did not gain a sense of safety. Many of the research participants live in fear, feel their life is under threat even in Europe. As I have indicated in the example of the Turkish interviewee’s biography, there is a relative sense of safety despite the occurrence of ‘less limiting’ intervening conditions and the non-public act of apostasy. We also see that one of the problems after apostasy is making it public. The collected cases indicate that the people who spoke about their apostasy or conversion publicly were more exposed to ostracism, discrimination, and imminent danger to their lives than the people who chose to keep this fact a secret. It occurred both in their home country and in Europe. The research indicates that leaving Islam is caused by various events and also involves a series of reactions, often of a similar nature. It is interesting that the reasons given for leaving Islam, including killings, violence, discrimination, being forced to fulfill the rules of Islam, are similar in the accounts of all the interviewees, regardless of the differences in age, gender, country of origin and residence, and the direction of conversion or apostasy. It is also significant that the practices of violence and discrimination that the interviewees emphasize are present both in the case of the reasons for and the consequences of withdrawing from Islam.”[6]
Notes:
| 1. | | Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology 1st Edition by Weronika Lenartowicz. Published 2024 by Routledge. | | 2. | | www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/al-jazeera-star-death-to-apostates Al Jazeera Star: Death to Apostates. February 20, 2013, Frank Crimi. www.youtube.com/watch?v=huMu8ihDlVA Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Killing Of Apostates Is Essential For Islam To Survive. | | 3. | | Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology, page 90. | | 4. | | Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology, page 99. | | 5. | | Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology, page 200. | | 6. | | Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology, page 222. | | |
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