Leaving Islam

Poster Q_Q writes in "Left Islam To Never Look Back Again" in the very interesting FaithFreedom.org website:

"Here’s the story of how I came to leave and despise Islam and everything it stands for.

My parents are from India, my mother was born a hindu and my father a muslim. They met in college in Delhi, the usual thing happened and they got married. During the initial years, they continued to live in India where both worked in fairly well paying jobs. Neither of them was particularly religious & therefore neither tried to get the other to convert.

About three years after their wedding, they moved to Canada where my father’s sister already lived. My aunt and her family were particularly observant muslims and almost immediately began to pressure my father into becoming more religious, while at the same time exerting pressure upon my mother to convert. Worse, once my aunt found out that my parents were using birth control so that my mother could continue with her career, the pressure became even more intense.

Eventually, my father caved and in turn began to shove his religion down my mother’s throat. In order to save her marriage, she ended up converting and stopped using birth control. She became pregnant with twins (my sister & me) soon after. Once we were born, my father forbid my mother from returning to work and wanted her to become his personal baby factory so he could fulfil his warped religious obligations and have a ton of little muslim babies. For whatever reason however, my mother did not get pregnant again and in time my father began to talk about a second wife.

At the same time, under the influence of his extremely traditional brother-in-law, he had become physically abusive towards my mother and was always both physically and verbally abusive towards my sister. Towards me however, his darling son, he was completely permissive. I admit that as a child I took advantage of my father misogyny to gain the upper hand over my sister.

However, despite being the apple of my father’s eye, I was far more attached to my mother. By the time I reached the age of 5 or 6 I began to see that she was being made to suffer through no fault of her own. I also began to see my father for the monster that he had become as he became ever more religious with time.

When I was 7, my father beat my mother particularly badly one evening. When I confronted him about it, his response was chilling. Apparently, our beloved prophet had instructed his followers that it was appropriate and even necessary to beat our wives to keep them in line. I got a lengthy religious lecture from my father about this that evening. I suppose that at the age of 7 I was more intellectually mature than my 40 year old father as I saw the religious nonsense for the vile crap that it was and at the end of the conversation, I got went upstairs and called the police.

That day was the last time I spoke to my father for many many years. Criminal charges were filed against him, my mother, my sister and I all testified against him in court. He was sentenced to 15 years without parole. We also testified against his sister and brother-in-law for inciting conjugal violence. Ironically enough, my cousins testified against their parents as well. Both my aunt & uncle were sent to prison for two years each & their children came to live with us for the duration.

Of course once we were free of my father, my mother returned to her original hindu religion. My sister & I converted as well. My cousins, who at the time were in their teens (16 and 17) also left islam and became hindus.

Over the years, I am now 30, married and with a child of my own, I have often wondered about why my father underwent the transition from a perfectly normal, loving man to a complete monster. The only true changes that occurred in his life were that he moved from India to Canada and that he became progressively more religious and orthodox. The move in and of itself couldn’t change family dynamics therefore it had to have been the religious aspect that led to the changes in my father. Therefore, as an adult, I decided to find out more about islam.

I read the Quran & the hadiths as well as several books and commentaries written by both muslim and non-muslim scholars. The more I read, the more I came to understand how this religion can turn a perfectly normal man into a complete monster. And the more I find out about this religion the more I despise it.

Fortunately, once in prison, my father’s conscience began to bother him and he came to realize just how much pain he had caused. He too examined his metamorphosis and understood that islam was at the root of everything that had gone wrong in his life. He eventually abandoned islam as well and once he was released from prison he too converted to Hinduism.

Today my entire family is happy & healthy. And we have all learnt a very important lesson – never again will any of us allow a practicing muslim to enter our lives.