Hi, I'm Muhammad, President of Ex-Muslims of North America here with our leadership. We envision a world where every person is free to follow their conscience. Ask us anything

I created an account on Reddit to ask this question. What can ex-muslims like me who are living in muslim countries do to make things better for other ex-muslims without putting our lives in danger? I do not want to become another Raif Badawi.

Write!! Speak out but do so anonymously. You can purchase a VPN that will anonymize your connection and allow you to avoid detection. If you're in a particularly dangerous location perhaps use TOR or encrypt your posts and email them to us or other secularists that can post them for you.

Organize Muslims to stand up for principles that will protected everyone. The solution to Shia-Sunni-Ahmedi-etc conflicts are secularism, one can fight for secularism while outwardly going through the motions of being a devout muslim.

Even beyond that there are many many actual Muslims that are fighting for human rights, secularism, scientific education etc in every muslim country. You can ally with them and help them or emulate their work. One of my hands down favorite activist in the world is Pervez Hoodbhoy. He's a physicist from Pakistan and is adopting a role similar to Carl Sagan , educating the average Pakistani in Urdu about basic scientific principles.

Ultimately we have to stand up and demand change. Unfortunately asking a billion odd people to change won't come without cost and the first people to make a demand of that magnitude usually are the ones to suffer most. It's an individual choice on what you can do and what you are willing to risk.

Thank you for taking the time to answer. I am a sysadmin so security is the least of my worries but I feel very frustrated that my country will probably never see ex-muslims living openly in my lifetime. Not being able to say what I really think is destroying me from within but I have a good job here and I don't have the courage to leave my sisters behind to move to another country.

The last lynching in the US was in 1981, Obama was elected in 2008... While I'm not starry eyed about how fast change will happen, one can never really know...

What prompted your decision to leave the the Muslim faith? Also, do you believe that there are a large number of people who identify as Ex-Muslim and are too afraid to openly admit? What do you say to those people?

One of the amazing things with having a community of people that have gone through the same journey is how diverse the paths are. Some people leave due to moral objections, some due to the entire framework of 'god' being faulty, some leave due to (moral or scientific) issues within the religious texts , some leave due to the status of women... nearly every person has a unique take on what caused them to rethink their worldview.

For myself , a very well educated friend of mine , STEM major started believing in demons. In Islamic mythos one is tortured in the grave depending on ones sins, the friend I mentioned talked of a contemporary religious scholar that had experienced it , while burying someone.

That led to me spending about a year trying to understand my faith better. The goal was to prove to him that he was wrong and Islam was a scientifically sound religion, by the end of the year I had a moment of clarity where I realized that I was lying to myself ... the rest as they say is history.

In Islamic mythos one is tortured in the grave depending on ones sins

Isn't this similar to the idea of purgatory? And I thought the time in the grave was based on the balance between good and bad deeds?

Purgatory is like the waiting room at motor vehicles. Nothing bad happens, but no one wants to be there. I think you're thinking of Hell.

It seems to me that the Islamic version is basically the same thing as long as you are a "true believer"/ practicing member of an Abrahamic faith, or a good person if you weren't exposed to any.

Yep, If you're a 'good' person, you'll enjoy the 'breeze of heaven' If you're a sinner, you'll be tortured till the day of judgement!

Hi folks, do you think that the end of I.S. can come about without the help of countries like Jordan and Egypt etc. Can you envisage a time when the more hardline states will start to soften their stance on their interpretation of the Quran.

The thing to remember is that the overwhelming majority of muslims believe with 100% certainty that the quran is the inerrant word of god, and that there are no imperfections to it. The majority in my experience also believe that Mohammad was the ideal man for all time and is to be emulated as such. The dissonance becomes clear when you realise that many of those who would say that muhammad’s actions are to be emulated also stand against the actions of IS, many of whom they share and were common 1400 years ago.

Slavery being a very obvious example. Most muslims like most other people in the 21st century abhor the idea of slavery but have trouble coming to terms with the fact that their vision of a perfect man practised it himself.

A lot of progressive muslims understand that what was common 1400+ years ago and what is moral today is very different. The problem is that they need to stand up and acknowledge that parts of the Quran or Mohammad’s life are no longer relevant which is a very quick way of being cast out from the circle of believers entirely. Maajid Nawaz, a muslim secularist from the UK is routinely castigated as being an atheist for the audacity of talking about reform.

Two possibilities regarding the change of stance of hardlines states, you have a revolution where someone like Ata-Turk of Turkey comes into power and sets their nation on a course towards secularism. I view that scenario as somewhat improbable. The other possibility is those that are Muslim or those that were Muslim promote the idea of reform. As it gains mainstream traction you change the dynamics that allow conservative, literal interpretation to gain acceptance. The internet will play a big part in making this possible, just having the relevant information available to the masses goes a long way. A little prodding from reformist Muslims and ex-Muslims doesn't hurt either ;).

What words of advice would you give to someone who left Islam who is worried about coming out to their family and community?

Primarily look after your own safety and independence. If you’re in a secular state focus on your education and try to become financially independent. There are active Ex-Muslim Communities in Australia, Canada, US, UK, reach out to them for support and if there isn’t one local to you reach out to secular groups. They’ve been very helpful to all of us.

If you’re NOT in a secular state, keep it to yourself at least if you don’t have an option to leave quickly. We get regular reports of people being arrested or worse if word of their atheism reaches the wrong circles (it obviously varies greatly based on ones geography, socioeconomic conditions etc). I’d also advise studying , applying for school in a secular country and trying to move over. The easiest way to do so is with work or education.

About the family specifically, it’s more about whether they’ll be accepting or not, it varies dramatically. If you’re a guy it’s usually significantly easier than if you’re a girl. If you stagger changes, it’s often easier for others to come to terms with it. For example, praying 5 times a day to once a day to once a week to stopping altogether, or taking off the Hijab while swearing to be devout.

Obviously if conditions are intolerable or abusive , making a clean break is the best way but ultimately you’re the only one that can decide that.

I am gonna piggypack your comment to plug /r/exmuslim; anyone thinking of leaving should definitely visit the subreddit, as there's a ton of people there that have a ton of great advice for apostates and how to deal with family and such.

Mentioned it in the post itself ;) <3

How do you feel about "Islam Apologists" or people that consider pretty much any criticism Islamophobia?

It’s good to look at motivations. Some people come at it from the perspective of tamping down on anti-muslim bigotry which is a real and increasing phenomena (you might have read about the PEGIDA rallies in Europe) and laudable as a motive.

Other are trying to obfuscate things due to tribalism, my beliefs, my people, I will do what I can do make them look good. Facts be damned Reza Aslan incorrectly suggesting slavery was banned by Muhammad for example.

Muslims must realize that Islam is like ALL other religions, flawed and a product of its time. As an example, Muhammad himself had slaves and sex-slaves (Mary the Copt), none of this was unusual or regarded as scandalous during his time. In contrast, Mohammed marrying his daughter-in-law (after his adopted son divorced her) was a scandal. Islamic empires conquered neighbouring ones, were brutal and enslaved conquered people (when the first conquest of India happened, a few hundred thousand people were taken as slaves lowering the global price of slaves). Again, this doesn’t mean Islam or Muslims were somehow evil but that was what was common , moral and acceptable in the 1st , 7th or 11th century. We need to come to terms with our past. Very few Muslims have bothered looking beyond the ‘facts’ we’re told as children or from Islamist narratives.

I personally dislike the term Islamophobia since it conflates Islam (a problem with an idea) and Muslims (bigotry against a people) and prefer using the term anti-muslim bigotry.

If you read many statements by leading Muslim groups they often use Islam and Muslims in the same breath since they do want to protect BOTH Islam and Muslims. We need to be aware of the distinction and push for clarification and demand that double standards for any idea not be accepted.

Only through vigorous HONEST debate can we move forward and those that are stifling this debate, even due to good intentions are effectively complicit in furthering the misery of a billion odd people.

Hi. I think what you're doing is great. How can Atheists who have never identified as muslims help?

Copy/pasting from a prior comment I made

• Invite Ex-Muslims to speak on-campus , media, other venues. Our sister group in the UK has launched an initiative where Ex-Muslims are speaking on campuses, sharing our experiences. In order for change to happen Ex-Muslim voices need to be normalized and mainstream. We’re working on launching a similar series in the US / Canada as well.

• Encourage Muslim organizations to talk to us or invite us to speak at their events. Ultimately the apostasy stigma is something that affects their own families, their own children… they have to come to terms with it and the faster that happens the better we will all be.

• The biggest issue we have is people do not know we exist, most ex-Muslims are in the closet for various reasons and it’s extremely hard to find/organize those that are in hiding :). Spread the word of our existence!

• Donations - We’re a volunteer run organization and received our non-profit designation around 6 months ago. We can use all the help we can get :)

• Whenever you see the word Islamophobia, encourage the use of Anti-Muslim Bigotry, clarify that disliking any idea is very different from bigotry towards a people. By conflating all valid criticism of Islam with bigotry, you may be slamming on the brakes of the very reform you desire to see.

Fire off any other ideas our way, I'm sure there are a million other ways as well.

Why do muslims seem to struggle so much to interpret their faith in non-literal and even non-traditional ways? Why does there not seem to be a thing called "muslim atheism" that kind of ties the spirit and morality of Islam with a rejection of the supernatural, tribal, and illiberal?

I am a jewish american who was raised in a secular jewish community and attended typical liberal jewish religious and educational commitments. For example, I went to a jewish preschool, I attended jewish religious classes 2-6 hours a week depending on age (at the youngest ages you only go on sundays for 2 hours, and then as you got a little older you would go after school on one weekday plus sundays, and then as you approach bar mitzvah age (13) you would go on 2 weekdays plus saturdays or sundays). So I was fully exposed and indoctrinated in a jewish worldview is my point.

However as I got to the older during this time it became more and more clear that I really didn't believe in any of the supernatural elements of religion. The moral lessons and other intellectual ideas that can be gleaned from religion I thought was one thing, but the idea that there were magical scientifically-unexplainable forces at work anywhere was something that I just thought and still think is stupid.

I started to identify as religiously atheist, as some of my friends in this same jewish community did, and there is absolutely no backlash- nobody bats an eye, nobody thinks twice, even people from the older generation who are more religiously observant just think that I'm being slightly foolish or naive, amongst most people there seems to be an acceptance that parts of religion are tough to swallow and a people who don't can't really be blamed. On the contrary many of the most accomplished jews that the jewish community holds up as our legacy and role models, like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, and even Israeli prime ministers, identified as jewish atheists. Nobody questions my jewish identity, its not considered ironic or hypocritical that I still participate in jewish holidays and religious services, etc.

The only time in my life my jewish identity was ever questioned was from a muslim coworker, who remarked "you're not even really jewish" on the topic of me eating bacon and not otherwise keeping kosher, and of me bringing up my atheism. Which kind of was an epiphany to me because I realized that the way my worldview understands religion and the way the muslim worldview understands religion must be different to some degree. There is something going on with muslims where part of their definition of religion is that it has to conform to some sort of prescribed interpretation. That if you not follow this interpretation then you are somehow not only not a muslim, but you are to be actively shunned from your community. Doesn't this suck for muslims and can't the mainstream muslim majority reform to become more accepting to varying levels of belief in magic and supernatural forces?

Judaism is a bit different then Islam in the sense of there is a tie ethnicity, Jews trace their lineage to varying degrees to the ancient Kingdoms in the levant.

Islam is simply an idea and that idea is what binds the Muslim community together, take away the idea and there is very little else holding things together.

Moving past the issue is you CAN have Jewish atheists b/c the identity isn't solely tied into the religious ideals, while a Muslim Atheist is somewhat of an oxymoron (a believing disbeliever).

At one point Christian scripture was regarded as absolute and unchangeable and disagreeing with it was heresy. The Muslim world to a great extent still lives in that world. One of the ideas within Islam is also that Jewish and Christian texts got corrupted and therefore there are verses about how god has completed religion and guarantees the accuracy and permanence of the Quran.

If one goes against that, it's very easy to turn it around into YOU are no longer a Muslim... witness the treatment of Maajid Nawaz and Irshad Manji , reformists who are often reviled by mainstream Muslims.

There is also very little academic study showing the flaws within Islamic foundational texts, we've only within the past few decades started studying it.

Over time I'm sure we'll have less literalistic interpretations getting mainstream traction, unfortunately that's a good while away

As an ex-Muslim, does it bother you to be named after the founder of Islam?

lol, not at all! For starters, Mohammed's name was not unique and predates Mohammed himself. I view it more as reclaiming it from the religious ;).

On a more serious note though, a lot of our cultures have been or are in the process of being erased due to Islamic imperialism.

Many Islamists through-out history have attempted to conflate Muslim with all people from Middle East, South Asia and East Asia. The purpose of course is to assert dominance and erase the histories of the conquered local people.

In Pakistan, for example we are taught about history from the Day Mohammad Bin Qasim invaded the southern border of India. Nothing prior to that is mentioned in textbooks, even though the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the oldest in the world.

Even if you look at it from a modern perspective the cultures , music, dance, cuisine, attire, even attitudes vary dramatically by geography. For example, Pakistani's have far more in common with Indians then with Arabs from Saudi Arabia.

While that is an on-going problem there have been recent attempts by people to reassert their original identity which are encouraging. There have been attempt to establish Berber as an official language alongside Arabic in some countries among others.

Sorry for going off on a tangent :). To answer your actual question, my twitter handle is MotheAtheist which should give you some idea of how I view it ;).

If you're Muhammad, would it be okay if I drew a picture of you?

By all means! lol

Thank you for doing this, I had no idea a group like this existed. I still consider myself Muslim, however, I drink, don't pray regularly etc. which is all a big secret to my family. I cannot come clean to them because it would tear them apart, which I cannot imagine doing since I love them very much. Especially my mom, she is very fragile and extremely into her faith. I am now reaching an age where I'm starting to yearn for a long term relationship, something I couldn't do before due to my situation. I was just wondering how on earth can I find people like me? I may not be ready to call myself an ex-muslim and denounce the religion, but I don't really know who else I can talk about this to.

I'd strongly suggest spending some time figuring out what you actually believe in and what values you hold dear and want to have mirrored in a partner before finding one.

As to progressive Muslims, look up Muslims for Progressive Values, they're active in various cities.

How do you think attitudes about LGBT people will change in the Islamic community and how should such an issue be tackled?

It's somewhat related to general social mores as well as how tightly people hold scriptures. As both of those relax it will be easier to be a Muslim and Gay. Some LGBTQ Muslim activists claim that Islam does not condemn homosexuality, interpreting Lot's story or other scriptural elements differently or ignoring them.

Check out http://www.lgbtmuslimretreat.com/

Daiyee Abdullah

Salaam Canada

MASGED (I don't have their link handy) and many others

From my personal perspective, the scriptural elements are clearly anti LGBTQ but if others find meaning in the scriptures and are able to square that circle, I'm not in any position to criticize and will be standing with them in the fight for their rights.

Love your organization and the work that you do.

1. What are some things that fellow atheist non-exmuslims can do to help with secularizing the Ummah?

2. What are some things that fellow atheist non-exmuslims can do to help reach out to Muslims to reconsider some of the things that they have been taught to accept as fact but needs to change such as their views on apostasy being punishable by death?

3. What are some of the pitfalls that western liberals tend to fall into when discussing Islam? And how can we change this?

4. How can we help the ex-Muslim and the ExMNA community grown?

Answering your last point, will come back to this in a bit for the rest :)

• Invite Ex-Muslims to speak on-campus , media, other venues. Our sister group in the UK has launched an initiative where Ex-Muslims are speaking on campuses, sharing our experiences. In order for change to happen Ex-Muslim voices need to be normalized and mainstream. We’re working on launching a similar series in the US / Canada as well.

• Encourage Muslim organizations to talk to us or invite us to speak at their events. Ultimately the apostasy stigma is something that affects their own families, their own children… they have to come to terms with it and the faster that happens the better we will all be.

• The biggest issue we have is people do not know we exist, most ex-Muslims are in the closet for various reasons and it’s extremely hard to find/organize those that are in hiding :). Spread the word of our existence!

• Donations - We’re a volunteer run organization and received our non-profit designation around 6 months ago. We can use all the help we can get :)

• Whenever you see the word Islamophobia, encourage the use of Anti-Muslim Bigotry, clarify that disliking any idea is very different from bigotry towards a people. By conflating all valid criticism of Islam with bigotry, you may be slamming on the brakes of the very reform you desire to see.

Why do you think it s necessary to have an ex muslim organization, while there is no ex Christian organization for example ?, i assume ex believers have generally the same issues. No ?

There are actually many other organizations dedicated to similar issues. Check out Post-Mos (Post-Mormonism) http://www.postmos.org/ for one.

There's a difference between mainstream Christianity and fundamentalist strains. We've found our experiences were remarkably similar to those from other fundamentalist strains (ultra-orthodox Judaism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism etc).

One big difference obviously is that none of those groups hold state power in entire regions of the world nor are any governments actively pushing for their spread.