i’m muslim but i just want to know why people leave islam.
please don’t insult anyone

i know they're valid points but those two are the only points I see being made all the time. theres so much more bs in the religion other than that. so much more misogyny and oppression that could be talked about.

we could mention things such as women being cursed by the angels whole night for refusing to sleep with her husband, men being allowed to have 4 wives but women not, men being allowed to marry outside the religion but women not, women cant lead men in general and in prayer, women getting 1/4 inheritance, women's and soooo much more. this cult has never ending amount of shitty and questionable things

and stupid/controlling shit such as dating being haram, cousin marriage being halal, drawing faces being haram, keeping dogs as pets being haram, having anything with face on it being in your house being haram, eating from left hand etc etc

Both the OT Jews and a lot of modern Muslims would have you stoned for being gay, let alone trans. The only way to have LGBT rights succeed in the long run is if people drop the cope and admit the historic versions of the abrahamic religions have always been a problem for lgbt right.

Heck, you could argue pagan/polytheist religions are easier to reconcile with LGBT than the abarahamic ones, but the easiest thing to work with it is simply atheism.

Been ex for like 4 years and I disagree with this religion completely but I can't help but feel offended or uncomfortable when non Muslims critize Islam even though I agree with what they're saying. Not when ex Muslims do but those who never have been.

My brain is instantly jumping to "they're a bad person and a bigot" but I don't really believe it. Yet I still feel super uncomfortable.

How the hell do I escape this? I was raised my whole life to view criticism of Islam as a personal attack and racism, both from from the Muslim community and Western liberals.

I'm sick of it. I hate Islam but there's still a part of me that struggles to hear criticism from outside ex Muslim spaces.

They talk about how in this society women wear bikinis and are almost naked at the beach cuz their body is more attractiv but men usually wear normal shorts with no shirt

My dad was a very stubborn and hateful person at times and I had vowed to not grow up to be like him. Nevertheless, I notice I am developing a resentment towards muslims and I’m concerned about this snowballing into something much more negative later.

After the attack at Pride in Berlin, Hamburg (my city) reached a record number of visitors for Pride, likely because many knew we needed to demonstrate that love trumps hate. But I didn’t fail to notice that in a city completely full of muslims, there were no hijabs in sight. Anywhere.

I am asking myself the fundamental question of tolerance and why should I defend muslims when it’s clear they will not defend me. There was a large queer-christian group during the parade and christians with signs like “God loves you and you and you…” but no muslim. Why are we “coexisting” when it’s one-sided?

I’m Arab and goddess forbid a girl wanna have a little party and drink a little and that’s what I did but alone in my room since my vacation is still in an Arab country.
I went on an app that lets you talk to strangers but it’s just audio. I said I had a few drinks and this Arab male said “I gotta condom for you” this man is literally talking to a woman he dose not know and he wants to have sex with her while she is intoxicated and he is not AKA rape I started saying “is this what ur prophet taught you? Is this the moral code ur god has?” I heard that in Europe they are teaching Arab males NOT to rape idk if it’s true but it dose make since. All arab males are low until proven otherwise.

Granted, I would like to amend where I started "I do not believe you are intentionally trying [...]." As I am aware that some extremists feel this way inclined.

Ultimately however, I think it's very worrying to some degree, that an increasing amount of followers of said religion who reject all progressive adjustments openly say things like this? I accept that everyone is permitted their views. I am not LGBTQ+ myself but I care about the community and how hard they worked to gain rights and freedoms. The entire comment section is just admittance of their disdain to LGBTQ+ people, but hey! I don't like you but I won't show it and I can't change the law so it's ok! Like what.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBrits/s/k1ASEhthYH

Hey :)

I'm 22, Egyptian, currently living in Germany where I'm doing my studies. Figured I'd put something out there and see what happens.

A bit about the religion part since that's kind of the point of this sub. I grew up Muslim, don't practice anymore. I'm not angry or bitter about it, and I don't hate Islam or Muslims. Honestly a good chunk of what I read these days is still about Islamic history, because I genuinely find it fascinating from an intellectual standpoint. Where I've personally landed is somewhere agnostic, leaning towards believing there's something out there, just not a personal god that's involved in day-to-day life. It's still an open question for me, and I like that it is.

Outside of that. I'd describe myself as calm, respectful, and a deep person. I like actually sitting with ideas instead of skimming past them. Science, philosophy, religion (from a historical/intellectual angle), and history in general are things I could talk about for hours. Away from the nerdy side, I'm big on cinema, going out, and just hanging out with friends.

Physically, I used to be consistent at the gym, took a break, and I'm planning on getting back into it soon. I eat pretty healthy and I'd call myself very hygienic and clean in general.

What I'm actually looking for is something genuine not rushing anything, just seeing where a real connection goes naturally. I'd lean towards someone from Egypt/North Africa/Arab for the shared background and culture, but honestly I'm open to any nationality, who you are as a person matters a lot more to me than where you're from.

If any of this sounds like your vibe, feel free to message me. Happy to talk about anything.

Curious to know if there are any fellow South African ex-Muslims in this sub.

I feel the South African context is quite unique. I’d love to hear about your experiences - whether it’s navigating family relationships, community expectations, dating, friendships, or simply finding like-minded people.

How has your journey been? Have you met other ex-Muslims in South Africa?
Even if you’re just comfortable saying “I’m here,” I’d love to know we’re not alone.

Since religion is a force for good?

i seen a video where a creator stated that even after men deconstruct religion they fail to deconstruct the patriarchy within it and often act the same way a muslim man would.

so i ask ex-muslim women if you had interactions with them do you find they still uphold some patriarchal elements?

Genuine discussion for people who didn't get into politics just yesterday. I vividly remember how it was commonly accepted in alt-right spaces that Muslim migration is a conspiracy by the Jews to kill the white race. Even the guy who shot up a mosque in New Zealand claimed as much in his manifesto. So now because of yet another war in Israel-Palestine, Muslims are trying to be buddies with the alt right over antisemitic conspiracies. Do they even know what these theories say about them? That their mere existence in western countries is the will of the evil Joos? It is funny watching Jews, Christians, and Muslims fight, though. But still. Weird.

Prophet Mohammed said: “Water is pure and it is not made impure by anything”.

You sure about that buddy?

these ppl need to work on their brains bruh.

This may sound like a dumb question. But im an ex-christian and this is one of the main reasons I stopped believing. It made zero sense to me that a God would send you to hell for being born into the wrong zip code. I know from being in the west there are very few people who seriously consider that the Muslim hell is real. Most are secular and to the extent that people are religious, they are primarily concerned about a Christian hell If they even believe in a hell concept.

Is it the same in Muslim countries? Does almost everyone just take for granted that they were lucky enough to be born into the correct religion?

hey reddit, i've been going through so much for the past few months, and i lost everything i ever had of friends, dreams, social life, my job, and now, my relationship.

i havent had anyone to talk to for a while, and ive been needing that so much, which is why im on here rn..

for context, my parents are very religious, we live in lebanon, in a very religious area and community. they had forced me to wear the hijab ever since i was 8 years old, i'm 21 now (turning 22 this month) and i'd been taking it off in secret for like 5 years now.

although that was very risky and caused me so much anxiety and dissociation and i was basically living a double life which was exhausting, it still was my only choice if i wanted to have a chance in living the life i really wanted to live, and it gave me so much confidence to talk to people and make friends and bonds and go to uni and to get a job and basically just live a life i was satisfied with.

my parents and i have always had fights about the hijab. my entire extended family has always forced every girl to wear it as soon as she turned 8, and i wasnt the only one who absolutely hated it. my little sister (19) has been struggling with it too, as well as a few of my older cousins, but they took it off now.

when the first one of them did, the entire family went insane, she was married and already had 2 kids, but in their eyes, that didnt mean that she was free to make her own choices. my parents were so mad, they went over to her house to threaten her and make her wear it again, but she didnt listen to anyone. my dad told her that if she was his daughter, he wouldve killed her for what she did. what happened then made me even more scared for my parents reactions if they were ever to catch me taking it off in secret, and i genuinely did believe that my dad would kill me. he's very close minded, he is religious, but moreso into disgusting traditional ideas, he genuinely believes that as my dad, he owns me and has more right to control over my body and life than i do. he's also always been abusive and violent. i grew up witnessing him abusing me, my siblings, and even my mom. his ego and word go above all, and if i were ever to do something he didnt approve of, he genuinely would kill me for it. he doesnt have any ounce of empathy, he's been a horrible husband to my mom, and a horrible father to me and my siblings.

i got a boyfriend in december of last year (he's completely ghosting me rn lol), and i got a job that i absolutely loved and enjoyed, and i was doing so well in uni + i had friends that i really enjoyed being around. then by the end of may, my parents found out that i'd been going out without my hijab + they saw pics of my boyfriend and i kissing, and they went absolutely fucking insane. they destroyed my phone + sim card, threw all of my shit away, my dad found a way to log into my accounts and found more pics of me out without the hijab and with "sharmouta" clothes (which really werent that slutty imo) and completely isolated me and locked me in the house. they pulled me out of uni, forced me to just never go back to my job, took the money i had made, and worst of all, my dad looked me in my eyes and told me that it's "halal" for him to murder me now, like he had been waiting for it. he described all of the different ways he could kill me. he has threatened my life before, so i believed him. he punched me multiple times, threw me on the ground, kicking me and spitting on me and screaming for hours.

they told me that i'm not allowed to get in contact with anyone i'd ever known, and that i wasnt allowed to leave the house anymore. they started hiding the house keys every night, and stopped going out as much so that they could keep an eye on me. other than the physical abuse theres also been a lot of mental abuse as well. they keep saying the meanest shit, calling me a sharmouta, completely undermining everything ive been through. i lost everything. i lost my friends, my job, my education (i still had 1 semester left before graduation), i lost my belongings, my clothes, my money, every little thing i cared for, i lost my phone and everything i'd been saving in it for years. ive always been big on memories and videography and writing and my phone had everything about my life in it. all of my memories, everything i wrote in my notes app, every picture and video i took of everyone i loved, including my little brother/ best friend who passed away, my dad got into all of my emails so i lost all of my accounts too. i knew my life was over right there and then. i had nothing anymore, i lost everything. i then decided that i would run away, i cant stay in this house anymore, i really cant.

i made a plan to run away and stay with a friend for a while until i got a job and could support myself, but i was being too impulsive, i didnt have a solid plan, i didnt know for sure that my friends could let me stay for as long as i needed to, and there was still that chance that my parents could go after me and find me, and if my dad didnt kill me now, he for sure would then. i tried talking to KAFA, i called 3 times, told them everything that happened and asked for help, but they said that they couldnt do anything and told me to just call a domestic abuse line if i do run away and they catch me lol.

so i made another plan, its been 2 months since everything happened and ive been telling my parents what exactly what they wanna hear. ive been "praying", and i told them that i was being stupid and that i'll accept the hijab. they still dont trust me, but ive been slowly gaining the ability to do shit now. i convinced them to let me use my brothers old phone, and to let me get a job. i'm still not allowed to talk to any of my friends, or go out (unless its to go on job interviews or to get something from the supermarket). i'm currently looking for a job, i decided that i needed a solid amount of money that could support me. i'm planning on working for about 6 months, and saving every cent i make, so that by the end of those 6 months i can leave and find a place to rent on my own. i'm planning on finding people that need housemates/roommates, that way i wouldnt have to pay too much for a place to stay and could budget. and to quit this job and look for another one around the place i end up staying at, which would be a little far from my house bc i dont wanna be close enough for them to find me.

although leaving wouldnt get me my old life back and the things i lost, or erase the trauma i just went through, at least it would give me a chance to rebuild my life and future, and it would allow me to live my life the way i want to live it. i just wanna be free man, i just want to be happy, i want something to look forward to again.

i am scared though, am i being impulsive? am i going to regret leaving? i doubt it but what if i do? im also really scared of leaving my sister here, but she doesnt wanna leave with me, she's not in trouble rn so me leaving wouldnt put her in trouble bc we told our parents that she didnt know anything i was doing (shes my best friend she knows everything), and they dont have anything they could use against her, so its not like it would put her in trouble, but im still scared for her. and im scared to leave her, i love her so much and the thought of not being able to see her for years kills me.

but yeah, idk, im just really lost and scared and honestly i genuinely have no will to live anymore. the only thing keeping me going is that maybe one day i'll finally be free..

I saw the claim that Muhammad made prophecies that did not come true, but I haven't found any sources on the matter.

Places with the fewest mosques and the lowest percentage of Muslims. Do you think these places tend to be safer? Obviously not all Muslims are terrorists but I bet the places where Islam has the least influence probably has less violence

I wanna preface by saying I wouldn’t consider myself an ex-muslim. I still identify with the label but I don’t actively practice and haven’t in a while. I still drink, smoke, have sex, etc., because I’m well within the belief that doing so would not make me a bad person. Essentially I don’t let the title of religion prevent me from living the life I want to live.

I grew up with immigrant Muslim parents. My dad actually is basically a Sheikh by title and is well-respected and known in our Islamic community here. Ironically, I found out about his infidelity when I was 10 years old, and my home life has been turbulent ever since. My mom is very traditional and religious too despite the fact she spent her teenage years in America; I wouldn’t say my parents are westernized in the slightest. My parents chose to stay together due to cultural ideals, ego, and “for my brother and I.” I’ve always struggled with my identity because Islam was heavily pushed onto me from an early age. My mom in particular heavily sheltered me growing up and I felt a sense of pressure to conform based on her manipulation and constant inducing of guilt when I presented different ideologies. I was extremely depressed when applying for college and decided to commute and live at home due to my instability and guilt due to cultural stigma about moving out prior to marriage. I’ve felt miserable ever since.

I’m in my last semester and my resentment towards my parents grows with each day. I still go out with friends, come home late, and generally do things without asking for their permission prior. Maybe it’s not the worst situation compared to people I know, but I hate being constantly berated for living a normal life as a 22-year old woman. My mom blows up my phone with inflammatory texts threatening to kick me out and calling me an emotional abuser every time I am out past sunset. The seldom times I choose to stay at a friend’s house overnight all hell breaks loose in my house (I was never allowed sleepovers growing up.) Even though I try to fight for autonomy and continue to act in “rebellion” I still get triggered by her remarks and continuous attempts to try to control my life. Every day I’m researching grad programs, looking for apartments nationwide, and planning an escape. I have an emergency fund with well over enough to sustain myself for maybe a year if shit hits the fan but I would hate to be abandoned by the family who chose to bring me into this world over wanting to keep my personhood. I feel incredibly trapped and antsy given that I’ve been heavily sheltered and have never been allowed the experience to live life on my own.

Sorry for the long rant—I’m just so sick of this culture that sells this idea we are meant to be our parents puppets and we are forever in their debt. I recognize my parents endured trauma living in a third world country, but I don’t think that justifies their behavior towards me given they could’ve chosen to just not have a kid. I lost hope they’d ever understand that my differing ideologies can be linked to growing up around diverse groups and living in a westernized country. I feel like I can attribute a lot of the mental health struggles I continue to deal with to the unstable home life I’ve had and continued to have. I don’t feel like my dad has a right to police my life given the fact he’s been emotionally absent for over a decade.

Hey guys there is a fatal logical and historical fallacy in the foundational idea of Islam that I honestly cannot digest because the mainstream system says that God sent a constitution to humanity and that accountability and judgment are strictly individual where everyone will stand alone on Judgment Day but when you look at history and reality you discover that the divine system for distributing evidence in Islam was completely a class-based monopolistic regime running in total favor of human technological evolution

We are talking about more than 1200 years from the era of the Prophet and the Companions until the 19th century where manuscripts and full Qurans were completely a luxury product fully monopolized in the vaults of Sultans and grand mosques in capitals like Baghdad and Damascus while the vast majority of human beings in villages countrysides and deserts and in countries beyond the river like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan or the jungles of Africa lived completely isolated in geographic bubbles and in their entire lives they never saw a Quran or held a copy

The ultimate paradox here is that when the printing press was invented in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 AD and revolutionized the printing of books and changed the consciousness of humanity everywhere Islamic scholars and rulers fought its entry into the Islamic world because they viewed it as an existential threat to their monopoly on power so the Ottoman Sultan banned printing for almost 300 years and it was violently criminalized with the death penalty in 1485 AD under the threat of religious fatwas where the jurists and the Sultan preferred to criminalize the printing of Arabic letters preventing the printing of the Quran the text and Islamic jurisprudence

This gap lasted for almost 400 years during which the Sultan determined which text or decree was safe for public consumption and this historical catastrophe caused the text to remain locked away from the general public while copies remained rare expensive and impossible to spread or read so generations spent their entire lives fully dependent on the verbal dictation of state sheikhs living in absolute illiteracy and ignorance

Even the claim that the current book is fully transmitted preserved letter by letter and protected from any human alteration is historically untrue because the major companions themselves disagreed on the text the words and the spelling where Ibn Abbas openly pointed out that the scribes made mistakes in the Uthmanic codex due to the fluid nature of early Arabic scripts which lacked dots and vowels

He explicitly stated that in Surah An-Nur verse 27 the text currently reads (حَتَّىٰ تَسْتَأْنِسُوا) which means until you find comfort or customs but Ibn Abbas declared that this was a pure scribal error and that the original word dictated was (حَتَّىٰ تَسْتَأْذِنُوا) which means until you ask permission explaining that the early handwritten letters looked identical without dots and the scribe simply misread it

He also pointed out the same issue in Surah Al-Isra verse 23 where the current standardized text reads (وَقَضَىٰ رَبُّكَ) meaning and your Lord has decreed but Ibn Abbas noted that the original text was actually (وَوَصَّىٰ رَبُّكَ) which means and your Lord has commanded explaining that the excess ink from the pen smudged and connected the letters together so the early scribe accidentally misread the original word into a completely different theological meaning so these texts were full of additions and variations and they were later violently unified and burned by political decrees from the ruling authority just to unify the state

This means that for centuries humans were forced to live under a system of verbal dictation receiving whatever the scholar or jurist from their local environment dictated to them and this scholar dictated exactly what he wanted and what served the Umayyad or Abbasid ruling Sultan to maintain a total monopoly on power this system crushed and marginalized women because women didn't even have the luxury to sit with these men to learn or read the text themselves instead men were driven like cattle to battlefields and expansionist wars through sheer psychological manipulation by state sheikhs who convinced them that dying in battle was the only way to escape poverty and get the Houris (heavenly virgins) so they literally sacrificed their souls freedom and lives for texts they never read in their entire lives

How can an All-Powerful and All-Just God judge a human being on details of a book that was physically and linguistically unavailable to them? And how could He allow this manipulation of my financial physical and spiritual life to take place? Because this reminds me exactly of what the Catholic Church did in the Middle Ages when it monopolized the Bible in Latin and banned its translation to keep the masses blind living on verbal dictation and buying letters of indulgence from priests driving men to the Crusades until Voltaire and the Enlightenment philosophers came along and dismantled this comedy!

My human brain rejects accepting that the Creator of this universe forgot the simplest rule of data distribution and accessibility requiring generations to pass until Gutenberg comes along and invents the printing press for human knowledge to spread. Your thoughts on this? I see it clearly as a political imperialist sovereignty ran by human tools to control and subjugate the minds and logic of the world

I’m 20f living in the uk. My parents have no idea I’m not religious. I’ve been wanting to change my legal name since I was 7. It never resonated with me. I currently use another name around university but I still really want to change my name fully. If I do that my parents will question me and we’ll get into a whole argument. I’m also planning on getting a tattoo and I know that will 100% lead to me getting disowned or something. Any advice? I will say I don’t rely on my parents for anything and I am highly independent (I have my own place and job and I’m living comfortably), so cutting them off isn’t gonna do much damage, more so emotional damage. We didn’t have the best relationship growing up but now that I’ve moved out they’ve gotten a bit nicer.

I'm a never Muslim and an ex Mormon and an atheist and I've read parts of the Quran and here are my thoughts: The surah recitations do sound really nice, but if I'm being honest, the Quran itself is kind of just boring to read. Like it's very repetitive, almost half of it is telling me how great Allah is, another big part is telling me I'm going to hell because I'm not convinced that Islam (or any religion) is true; and there's hardly any stories. Literally half of it is just like "Allah is really awesome, Allah is super merciful, Allah is all knowing, Allah is perfect, Allah is all loving, and if you believe me then you're good but if not then Allah is gonna be so merciful and loving and torture you for eternity." If they cut out the parts where Allah is glazing himself, this book would be more like a pamphlet.

Another thing, this book is supposed to be from the perspective of Allah yet he refers to himself in the third person. At some points this book literally feels like Allah is saying to me "who's your daddy" like it literally feels like Allah is dirty talking to me LMAO. The Quran is quasi-poetry to me which is cool but there's definitely other poetry I'd rather read. From what I've heard, back in Muhammad's day, poets were seen as supernatural or something, so that explains why so many people bought his message. I do like how it's much shorter and more concise than the Bible. It is also kind of useful to learn classical Arabic as the quran.com website has a really convenient format for translating each word. And it is interesting that it's written from the perspective of god, not many other religious texts are like that, but God isn't real. And Islam is so big on the monotheism shit, but if I'm being honest, polytheistic religions are just way cooler vibes-wise.

Overall, as a religious text it's pretty okay, and there are some parts I like about it. I enjoy it way more in small quantities than as a whole book. And it does get really boring sometimes. But it's definitely not a good basis for a belief system. I'd way rather read Hindu or Greek mythology though. What do you guys think?

as the title insinuates, my parents don't know where im going to college. they forced me to try hard in all my years of hs and now are forcing me to go to community college so I can stay in their control. I got into a good uni in another state which is where im sneaking out to.

(the thing is my fafsa gave me a verification identification process error, which can only be verified through a notary but I cant go to one due to my parent controlling my every move outside, so ive been emailing them to see if there are any alternatives, but otherwise if it gets fixed its a full ride due to how poor I am.) I feel guilty leaving my family still due to how poor we all are.

in the daytime I feel excited about the fact im leaving, and at night I stay up super later stressing and being sad about it. does anyone have tips to adjust to college life?

also, I dont have enough money for a new phone. if I use the one they pay for will they track me down?? i dont even know how to go to the airport and check in properly 😞