The House of Apostasy

Welcome to the first edition of the X-Muslim Blogs Roundup! This will be held regularly, and will be an enjoyable survey of the chatterings of the ex-Muslim blogosphere.

Introduction

I am sure that, by now, you will have come across discussions of the Secular Islam Summit on various blogs and media outlets, and the release by its delegates of an all-important St. Petersburg Declaration. This time is as good as any other to showcase the very few but growing number of voices that make up the ex-Muslim blogosphere.

Ex-Muslims have a bad rep. In Muslim circles, those ad hominems fly thick and fast when even mere mention is made of their existence. For example, there are numerous "progressive" Muslim blogs that, while having achieved much respect across the blogosphere, happily take up this more regressive attitude when discussing former Muslims, and their view of the SI Summit was no exception. Conspiratorial Muslims generally demonise their "fallen" brothers and sisters both in public and in private, as if they were secret agents constantly scheming and plotting away, with each and every one briefed and sent by the devil himself.

But ex-Muslims are people. And most of them are very good, caring people. Many of them have families and friends who remain Muslims, but, of course, still care just as much about them, if not more. And one big reason for ex-Muslims' even deeper empathy with their Muslim families and friends is their worry about what manner of dark alleys the faith will lead them to. Many things can be said about ex-Muslims but at the end of the day, while they may have enduring disputes with central aspects of Islam itself, they are as pro-Muslim as one can get.

The Roundup

One of the Muslim critiques of ex-Muslims is that their primary identity is de facto negative i.e. they go around parading themselves as being not of Islam. Isaac Schrodinger says this point entirely misses the, well, point. For ex-Muslims, it may or may not be true that it is primary (whatever that means), but it is not the whole. Here's an excerpt:

I don't take pleasure in continually going over a wretched ideology. Just take a look at the categories I use for my blog. I want to write in detail about the Pakistani cricket team and the upcoming World Cup; the bad effects of a minimum wage, either local or global; the symbolic meaning behind the word marathon; how my early years in Lahore were so serene; who should be the villain for Kal-El in the sequel to Superman Returns; link to spectacular HDR images; talk about the motherboards that go well with the Intel Core 2 Duo (look at ASUS and Gateway, by the way) and so on.

I can choose to do all of that and ignore the daily misery that Islam brings. But I know that ignoring it won't make it go away. The war is here and now whether I like it or not. Westerners must be provided clarity on this great issue. That is the purpose of my voice. That is why I blog. That is why I rail against Islam. For it deserves a good railin'.

...

Being a murtad or an apostate is part of the identity for an ex-Muslim. A mussulman who becomes a Christian can call himself a convert to Christianity as well as an apostate. Both terms are valid. Somehow, I don't think the rhetoric would bother him as much as the fact that Muslims want to kill him.

As Isaac Schrodinger patiently explains in his post, those who have intellectually deconverted from Islam tend to do so on grounds that their former faith restricts their outlook on exploring more humanistic, life-affirming identities. Being an ex-Muslim is a starting identity, not an end point in itself; it is the undertaking of a journey that the mere contemplation of which invites outright fear for practising Muslims. Ordinarily, defection from many religions does not pay a heavy price, in which case a decision to go ahead and leave the religion does not tell you anything significant about the person defecting because the religion itself is non-strict. With Islam, however, the command to stay within the faith is done under pain of death. Ex-Muslims are not fantasising about reality, because they do not suffer deluded notions of Islam being inherently peaceful. And so the ex-Muslim label conveys something significant about the courage of someone who has begun a journey under that starting identity.

In the same vein, The Apostate makes this point very clearly:

Now that I am no longer a Muslim and don’t live in a Muslim country, my connection with Islam does not suddenly disappear, nor do my grievances against what it has done to my life evaporate. I have built a new and better life in the U.S., but I’ve paid a heavy price: I’ve lost my family, I’ve given up all right to public security or the government’s support in my native country, I’m committed to lying about my religious status in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (where my family lives, whom I have not seen in 4 1/2 years) or foreswear visiting these countries that I called home for most of my life, I’m condemned to never have full acceptance in my own culture, by my own people.

These are not random events which are nobody’s fault, that nothing is responsible for. All this is Islam and Muslims’ fault.

Another post from Isaac Schrodinger details one of his many encounters with traditional teaching methods from when he was a student in Saudi Arabian classrooms:

"No sir, please, I promise sir, I won't do it again. P-l-e-a-s-e sir."

His pleas made no difference. Our English teacher had a vise-like grip on the left wrist of that student. A few days before we had a brief English test. That student got 5 out of 10. Like everybody else, he had to get the signature of one of his parents. Which he did, after he had changed that "5" to an "8". Now, the student was fruitlessly attempting to avoid the customary thrashing.

The teacher held the wrist of the student with his left hand and with his right hit the student multiple times; on the head, the face, the neck, a few punches on the ribs. I sat in front of the class, a few feet away from the entire revolting episode.

I cannot resist relaying a personal episode when I was about 7 years old, which took place here in good ol' England. I used to regularly attend a class after school to learn to recite the Koran, and we all sat cross-legged on the floor. One day, one of my friends mispronounced one of the Arabic words as he went through a verse. The large, bearded, and rather strict teacher, who had been listening intently, told him to stop. He quietly stood up and then slowly but surely placed each foot on both of the student's knees until my friend was carrying the teacher's entire body weight. The rest of us stared in abject fascination, appalled. As the teacher balanced on my friend's knees, he then bounced up and down slightly. My friend was in tears.

I always took extra care not to mispronounce any Arabic word after that.

The Apostate, one of the newer ex-Muslims on the block, can perhaps be described as a sceptical feminist. This is her thought-provoking post on the question of how willing Muslim women actually are in not being slaves to their men:

 I don’t think we owe Muslim women anything. And I don’t think they want our help. They make it abundantly clear every time they open their mouths on the issue. Those of them who agree with us leave their religion or their homelands and come live with us and live like us - i.e., they don’t wear a universally recognized symbol of women’s oppression on their heads. They don’t impose a chastity belt on their sexuality. They don’t defer to men - in anything. The rest of them don’t want liberation, and we should let them be.

Muslim women are not the victims of Muslim men. They mostly choose to belong to Muslim men. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so incensed that we seek to inform them they don’t have to belong to anyone. They see it as imperialism. Fine. Muslims have always been touchy on the subject of learning from their betters, so let’s let them stew in their misery. They’ll get fed up soon enough and actually decide to do something about it - do something that doesn’t involve touting Islam as the solution to all their ills. As if anything could take them farther from freedom than an explicitly patriarchal religion.

I have an interest in helping people who show some inclination to help themselves. If there is absolutely no recognition of their responsibilities and no interest in self-development or even in self-preservation at a higher level than where the next meal is coming from - I’m sorry, I’m not much inclined to waste my energy on you.

Today, while in the elevator with a man, I noticed the fact of being in an elevator with a man. And not feeling nervous in the slightest. Or even noticing it, even vaguely registering it in the back of my mind. This is significant because I used to be terrified of getting into elevators in case men got on, and I wouldn’t enter elevators if there was a man already in there. And if ever, perchance, I happened to be alone with a man, trapped for another 30 seconds, I would near-panic.

The fear was sexual assault. And it wasn’t ungrounded. I wasn’t the only woman I knew who felt or acted this way about men and secluded spaces.

This in turn reminds me of when Shazia Mirza, the British stand-up comedian, once seriously remarked that when she went to Mecca on pilgrimage, she found on separate occassions that as she walked right next to the Kaaba, her bum was pinched no less than three times. For real. Not until did she happen to publicise it for the first time in one of her routines, did Muslim women come to report to her that they had also been through the same. (The joke part was that she was going to gather them all together, and they were going to go on pilgrimage again next week).

Muslihoon, an ex-Muslim and a convert to Christianity, has a good post on how Muslim immigrants have generally helped to maintain the tension between individualism and collectivism in Western societies: 

What may be further nauseating is that still we, the West, are accused of devaluing people, of cheapening people’s worth and lives. They cannot see that the very fact a person may prostitute oneself in wanton sex if he or she so desires precisely underscores the value we place on a person and his or her life: so valuable is that person and his or her life that we dare not interfere in how he or she seeks enjoyment and meaning, even if it means doing completely idiotic things.

A child can do anything he or she wants: become an engineer, become an artist, become a dahipb designer, become an astronaut, even become President of The United States. His or her decisions are not determined by his or her parents or society. Unto each person is given a blank book to fill in, not a sheet within which to fill in the blanks.

"I think you're hysterical", I say.

"Hysterical? Hysterical? What about our Muslim sisters and children in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan? Tell me, are they stupid to be hysterical about their situation? Especially when an apostate aids the kuffar in abusing their dignity and livelihoods? Do you expect us to just sit back and ignore our Muslim sisters being ripped of their honour at the dirty hands of the kuffar? Do you expect us to stay silent and instead dance to Bush and Blair's tune? Tell me!"

"You're misguided, aren't you?"

"This is a Muslim area. Get out", says one of his comrades.

"Actually, sunshine, this is my country."

 If you happen to be an ex-Muslim blogger and would like to submit any links to your posts, then you are most welcome to email me through the website.

Thanks for reading and do check back in a fortnight!