The Ex-Muslim Phenomenon: Ex-Muslims Have Abandoned Islam But Support Muslims On UCC And Hijab
By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
20 March
2024
Muslims
Are Abandoning Their Faith In Thousands Across The World
Main
Points:
1. 20 per cent
of respondents in Iran said they were apostates.
2. 10 lakh
Muslims in Saudi Arabia are atheists.
3. FIA,
Pakistan report says 400,000 Pakistanis regularly engage in Islam bashing.
4. 4-5 per cent
Muslims of Kerala state in India have abandoned Islam.
5. In the US,
23 per cent youngsters of Muslim community do not call themselves Muslims.
------
Ex-Muslims, initially, were a phenomenon in the West. Then YouTube
happened. And the Indians arrived on the scene. And it blew up in 2020. (Image:
Vani Gupta/India Today)
------
In Islam,
apostasy is a grave sin but the phenomenon of abandoning Islam has seen a sharp
rise in recent years though on the other hand, Islam is growing fast and will
overtake Christianity as the largest religion by 2035.
The number
of apostates has been rising rapidly not only in non-Muslim majority countries
like India but also in Muslim majority countries like Saudi Arabia, Tunisia,
Morocco, Pakistan and Iran. Initially, the Muslims of western nations abandoned
Islam presumably because of the un-Islamic atmosphere prevailing there but
gradually the Muslims of Islamic countries also started abandoning Islam.
Though the
phenomenon of abandoning one's faith is not associated with any faith as a
number of the followers of almost all the religions leave their faith as a
result of their own understanding of it but the Muslims who leave Islam now
identify themselves as Ex-Muslims. These are the people who do not convert to
any other religion but become atheists. The reason they give for their apostasy
is not specific. Some of them say that they drifted away from their faith
(Islam) after they started studying Islam deeply. For example, Amina Sardar
drifted away from Islam when she started to study Islam. A Pakistan born
ex-Muslim Harris Sultan says he left Islam as a result of an 'honest study of
Islam'.
Generally,
some one who leaves his faith does not want to be associated with it. Some one
leaving Buddhism does not identify himself as ex-Buddhist or one leaving
Christianity does not identify himself as ex-Christian and so on. But those
leaving Islam identify themselves as ex-Muslims. This group of ex-Muslims is
active on social media under fake names because if they reveal their identity
in society for they will be killed or ostracised. The Quran does not prescribe
any punishment for apostasy but in Islamic jurisprudence, apostasy is
punishable by death. This is the reason, the group of apostates holds debates
on Quran and hadiths on social media platforms enjoying anonymity. They have
not joined Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism because they do not find the
philosophy or doctrines of those religions also acceptable but they call
themselves ex-Muslims to convey the biased message that Islam is obscurantist.
They are, in fact, atheists who do not believe in any religious philosophy. A
retired IPS officer proudly calls himself an ex-IPS and a retired governor
proudly calls himself a former governor but a Muslim leaving Islam calls
himself ex-Muslim only to convey the message that he found Islam obscurantist
or irrational.
Such
ex-Muslims run their social media accounts on Facebook, twitter and YouTube
under fake names and have millions of subscribers. Interestingly, an ex-Muslim
from India is Sach Wala who was a hafiz-e-Quran and well versed in Arabic. He
drifted away from Islam. His being a hafiz did not benefit him because he only
learnt the Quran by rote.
E.A. Jabbar
from Kerala India has his account under the name Free Thinker with 2 lakh
subscribers. Ex-Muslim Sahil was formerly associated with Tablighi Jamat and has
500,000 subscribers. Adam Seeker is another ex-Muslim who left Islam after
studying it in detail.
Ex-Muslims
from Iran and Pakistan living in UK and US are also active on the social media.
For instance, Maryam Namazie of Iran and Zain Malik of Pakistan run campaign
against Islam from the UK.
Harris
Sultan, an ex-Muslim from Pakistan says that apostasy will rise in Pakistan and
cites a report of the FIA which shows that 400,000 Pakistanis regularly engage
in Islam bashing in a country where blasphemy laws provide for death sentence
for apostasy and blasphemy.
Arab
Barometer survey shows that the number of 5 per cent or more than 10 lakh
Muslims of Saudi Arabi are atheists. The number is gradually increasing.
These
reports and surveys are indicative of a secret phenomenon of rising apostasy in
Islamic societies. More and more Muslims are leaving their faith but do not
reveal their apostasy because of the fear of death and ostracisation. Muslims
of Pakistan are also leaving Islam because of the rising extremism and
sectarian violence. In the Muslim majority state of Kerala, 4-5 per cent of
Muslims have left Islam but do not make their apostasy public.
Some
Muslims leave Islam because the Islamic society does not tolerate critical
thinking or debate on religious issues. A 34 year old Muslim H Farook was
hacked to death by four men in Kerala for expressing critical views on Islam.
The ex-Muslims claim that more than one crore Muslims of India have left their
faith based on a Pew Research Centre report. But the AIMPLB member Qasim Rasool
Ilyas said that the ex-Muslim phenomenon was only a stunt and that it ws only a
group of disgruntled people who had left Islam as a result of poor upbringing
and shoddy study of the Quran and Islamic religious texts.
Interestingly,
the ex-Muslims do not hate the Muslims and support them on social issues. For
example, they oppose UCC along with the Muslims and like the Muslims feel that
the UCC is against the Muslims. Similarly, they stood by the Muslim girls in
support of hijab because they thought that hijab was not a religious issue but
a human rights one.
In short,
the ex-Muslims call themselves so because they wanted to bring about a change
in the Muslim society. Since they were not allowed to express any critical
views on religious issues or conduct debate as Muslims, they left Islam so that
they could discuss and debate religious issues freely. But the problem with
this approach is that the larger Muslim society considers such groups enemies
of Islam playing in the hands of detractors of Islam and does not take their
views seriously.
The best
way to bring reform in any society is from within. Many social and religious
reformers have brought revolutionary changes in their society by engaging from
within and not abusing it from outside. Islam is a fast growing religion and
will overtake Christianity in 2035 in popularity, according to a Pew Research
Centre report of 2017.
Therefore,
the ex-Muslim phenomenon may be a parallel phenomenon in global Islamic
society. However, the phenomenon can not be ignored merely as a stunt as it
brings focus on the need for inner reform in Islamic society. Dogmatism,
superstition, sectarian and terrorist violence have dominated the global Muslim
society and is driving a section of vulnerable Muslims away from Islam.
-----
Ex-Muslims Of India Find The X Factor Online
By Yudhajit
Shankar Das
Aug 29,
2023
All that
the invention and then proliferation of the printing press did to Christianity
is loosen the grip of orthodoxy over it and help spread what is called the
enlightenment values. The Ottoman Empire, then flagbearers of Islam, resisted
and even banned printing presses. But then the time of that idea had come. The
printing press was not only adopted in the Muslim world, but it also
flourished. The Holy Quran was soon being printed in volumes and became
accessible to the common man.
Then came
the Internet, which allowed knowledge and information to travel in real time.
Everything became accessible to everyone. Increasingly, in their own language.
While it
has become easier to spread God’s word, it is now equally easy to spread the
disagreements with the faith. A new band of people emerged, who had freshly
left the faiths they were born into. They were the new atheists. But those who
left Islam insisted they be recognised as Ex-Muslims, unlike Ex-Christians or
Ex-Hindus who prefer to be bunched under the umbrella term atheist.
Ex-Muslims,
initially, were a phenomenon in the West. They came from the Muslim-dominated
West Asia and sought to fight the faith. Iranian-Canadian Ali Sina started his
blog way back at the dawn of the century. He inspired a bunch of Ex-Muslims to
go online and declare their abandoning of Islam from the safety of their new,
secular homes. Apostasy, or the act of leaving one's religion, is punishable by
death in Islamic countries.
These
Indian Ex-Muslims began discussing the Quran and the Hadith, and debating with
clerics on social media. All this while not revealing their location or
identity for fear of facing violent retribution.
Muslim
leaders and clerics call the Ex-Muslim movement in India a “stunt”, and trash
it, saying their numbers are “too small to matter”.
But there
are ripples now, if not waves, in the ocean of one of the biggest faiths in the
world.
Islam is
the fastest-growing religion in the world and is expected to overtake
Christianity as the biggest religion by 2035, according to a Pew Research
Center report in 2017.
However,
there is also an undercurrent of people quitting Islam, which is true for most
other religions.
In the US,
about 23 per cent of adults who were raised as Muslims no longer identified as
members of the faith, according to a Pew Research Center report published in
2018. Of those who left Islam, 7 per cent said “they didn’t agree with the
teachings of Islam”.
The fact
that many are leaving Islam has gone unnoticed because people do not come out
for fear of being ostracised or even losing their lives.
“Ex-Muslims
face threats primarily from the orthodox sects of Islam. For the same reason,
many individuals are unwilling to come out [as Ex-Muslims]. Even on social
media, they are forced to hide behind fake profiles and names,” EA Jabbar, an
Ex-Muslim and activist from Kerala, tells IndiaToday.in.
Jabbar, who
has been associated with the atheist movements in Kerala for decades now,
refers to the 2017 Coimbatore killing to highlight the risk to lives of
Ex-Muslims.
Thirty-one-year-old
H Farook was hacked to death by a group of four people, which included two of
his friends, for his views that were critical of Islam.
“The
documentary provides an important insight into the hidden plight of young
people in Britain, many of whom are leading double lives – pretending to still
be Muslims, including by wearing the veil or attending mosque, in order to
avoid ostracisation, abuse and even violence,” writes Maryam Namazie, who has
herself renounced Islam. The Iranian-born writer and rights campaigner now
resides in the UK and Namazie's Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain holds regular
protests.
In 2018,
pop singer Zayn Malik told British Vogue that he stopped believing in any of
the Islamic doctrines. A person of Pakistani-British descent, Zayn Malik, said
he neither identified as a Muslim nor did he carry out the religious practices.
Social
media, says Maryam Namazie, has not only given countless young people access to
“forbidden” ideas, it has also helped them find each other, share their stories
and see that they are not alone. “It’s become a global resistance movement,”
she adds.
Kerala
Ex-Muslim EA Jabbar agrees that the internet is the big reason for the
visibility [of Ex-Muslims]. He says the internet significantly helped the
Ex-Muslims connect, meet and ideate, and finally get organised.
“I started
writing blogs in 2007 [on rationalist, atheist thoughts] and the response was immense.
A large number of people connected with me. We started a Facebook group ‘Free
Thinkers’, and it had more than 2 lakh members. We cannot say that all of them
are Ex-Muslims, but the movement emerged with the help of the internet,” tells
IndiaToday.In.
Ex-Muslim
Sahil, Sameer, Azaad Ground, Zafar Heretic, Sachwala, and Faiz Alam (The
Humanist Murtad) have used social media platforms and their YouTube channels to
reach out to more and more Indian Muslims. A regular on Sahil's channel,
Ex-Muslim Munna Bhai aka Adnan is a fearlessly funny Ex-Muslim who entertains
his audience in his Mumbai Tapori-style language.
They have
been engaging with clerics and practising-Muslims on these platforms. But they
do so mostly without revealing their identity and location.
But before
the advent of all these masked social media crusaders was Shakeel Prem. He came
out as a freethinker and runs the website Tarksheel Bharat. He questions the
“orthodox way of life and beliefs" of Muslims in India.
Ex-Muslim
Sahil took the internet by storm. His YouTube channel ExMuslim Sahil has over
500,000 subscribers and he has over 33,000 followers on Twitter, now X.
Sahil’s X
bio says: “I am an Indian Ex-Muslim and my aim to present the other side of
Islam and Prophet Muhammad SAW in a very simple and non-technical way to Muslim
Ummah."
His YouTube
livestreams, which at times run to 13 hours at a stretch, have seen over 13,000
real-time viewers, which even some news channels might find difficulty
matching.
YouTube
blocked Ex-Muslim Sahil’s channel on July 6. But immediately after the ban,
#UnblockExMuslimSahillnIndia started trending on Twitter. The ban is yet to be
revoked but Sahil is livestreaming to the world. Ex-Muslim Sahil now has a
"backup channel" too.
Sahil’s
journey to becoming an Ex-Muslim is one of U-turn.
He was born
and raised in an orthodox Muslim family in Mumbai’s Dharavi. He participated in
Tablighi Jamaat programmes and even extended Da’wah or proposals to non-Muslims
to convert. According to his interviews, closer reading of Islamic religious
texts raised several questions in his mind and he drifted away from the faith
that he had once invited people to.
Ex-Muslim
Sahil used to hide behind a mask until he was doxxed by a Pakistani cleric. Now
that his real name and identity were revealed, he came out with a bang. Now he
and Ex-Muslim Sahil both appear on mainstream channels without masks.
The other
regular on Ex-Muslim Sahil's YouTube channel is Adam Seeker.
Adam Seeker
is an Ex-Muslim Youtuber from a Pakistani Sunni family and is said to be
well-versed in Islamic scriptures.
Adam
Seeker, who has moved out of Pakistan, says "questions are
restricted" in the Islamic country. In India, he says, people try to
answer questions and queries. Adam Seeker reveals that he was a strict adherent
of the religion since he was 7-8-year-old but moved away from the faith as he
delved into the "details".
A 2020
survey of Iranians' attitudes towards religion threw up some surprising results
for the Islamic republic that has a strict anti-apostasy regime.
The Group
for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) surveyed over 50,000
respondents and found that around 20 per cent of the respondents believed
neither in God, heaven-hell or in life after death.
The survey
also found that approximately half of the population reported “losing their
religion” and 60 per cent reported that they did not pray.
“The rise
of the so-called ‘nones’, who do not identify with a particular faith, has been
noted in Muslim majority countries as different as Iraq, Tunisia, and Morocco,”
Pooyan Tamimi Arab, assistant professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht
University and co-author of the GAMAAN survey, was quoted by DW, a German media
outlet, as saying.
Going by
that, the results of a survey by Arab Barometer, a pollster that surveys Arab
countries, should hardly be surprising.
The share
of Arabs describing themselves as “not religious” was up at 13% in 2019, from
8% in 2013, according to the Arab Barometer.
In 2012, a
wide-ranging WIN/Gallup International poll found that 5 per cent of Saudi
citizens — over 10 lakh people — identified as “convinced atheists”.
In the
United States, about 23 per cent of adults who were raised as Muslims no longer
identified as members of the faith, according to a Pew Research Center research
published in 2018. Of those who left Islam, 7 per cent said “they didn’t agree
with the teachings of Islam”.
“Unlike
atheists, Ex-Muslims include everyone who leave Islam, be it an atheist, or an
agnostic or someone who converted to another religion,” says Indian activist
Jabbar.
Even
Pakistan, which has harsh laws against blasphemy and apostasy, has seen the
rise of atheists.
Harris
Sultan is one of the most popular Ex-Muslims of Pakistani descent. Born in
Lahore, Harris Sultan moved to Australia when he was 19. Though he credits
Richard Dawkins for pulling him towards atheism, he adds that the “honest study
of the Quran” was what actually moved him away from Islam.
Harris
Sultan, the author of ‘The Curse of God: Why I Left Islam’, a critical analysis
of religion in general and Islam in particular, has a huge fan following on
social media.
In a long
tweet in April, he warned Pakistanis to “stop forcing Islam down the throats of
children”.
“I have
been warning the Pakistani clergy, intelligentsia, and wider community that,
sooner rather than later, they will have to face the sudden rise of apostates,”
Harris Sultan wrote in the post on X. “Now, they are crying and wondering where
these apostates came from. There are hundreds of thousands of ex-Muslims in
Pakistan who are blaspheming and insulting their sacred Islamic personalities.”
In the long
tweet, Harris Sultan added, “According to the latest FIA report, there are
nearly 400,000 Pakistanis from all walks of life, who regularly engage in
bashing Islam.”
Ghalib
Kamal (an alias, not his real name) is another Pakistani YouTuber and blogger
who identifies himself as a “Human Rights Defender” and freethinker who rejects
dogma and religious extremism.
A
geophysicist by qualification, Ghalib Kamal has worked to promote “freethought”
in Pakistan through his blogs and social media handles. He and his wife are in
exile since the crackdown against freethinkers by Pakistani authorities in
2017.
“People
like me can’t speak freely in the presence of Pakistani blasphemy laws. Still,
no matter how complex and challenging things may become, I will continue to
play my role in the enlightenment of the Pakistani masses,” Ghalib Kamal says
in his YouTube bio.
Pakistan
has regularly cracked down against rationalists and atheists. Indian YouTuber
Zafar Heretic’s YouTube channel was blocked by Pakistan in 2020.
The YouTube
channel of Zafar Heretic -- who describes himself as an Indian Ex-Muslim,
atheist and activist -- has over 3 lakh subscribers. Zafar Heretic says he
works to “promote humanity and scientific temper along with free speech and
rational thinking”.
Ridvan
Aydemir whose YouTube channel is called Apostate Prophet is another big name in
the internet world of Ex-Muslims. The 32-year-old Turkish-German YouTuber is
known for his “critical views" on faith.
Ridvan was
formerly a devout Sunni Muslim who was born to a Turkish family in Germany. He
moved back to Turkey as a teenager and became interested in Islam and decided
to practice it devoutly. His study of Islam led him to doubt the religion, and
eventually, he left it altogether. This hit his relationship with his family,
friends, and the Turkish government.
He
immigrated to the United States and started publishing videos on his YouTube
channel Apostate Prophet from November 2017.
It’s not
only men who are taking to social media and discussing Islam.
Amina
Sardar is one of the most vocal Ex-Muslims and her interviews get massive views
on YouTube.
A resident
of Denmark, Amina Sardar was raised as a Muslim. “My purpose was never to leave
Islam. But when I went to educate myself about Islam, I ended up leaving
Islam,” she reveals in an interview.
Originally
from Afghanistan, Amina Sardar's family moved to Dehradun, India, in the 1930s.
Some of her family members moved to Pakistan and some stayed back in India
after Partition.
“Surprising
numbers of women are joining the movement. In fact, the women and girls who
left Islam are the biggest headaches for the maulanas now. They are the ones
who are throwing piercing questions at the religious leadership,” he says.
Jabbar
sites as example that when a maulana recently warned against participating in
Onam, a group of Muslim girls joined in the celebrations and performed
Thiruvathira (a traditional dance). “Muslim girls are taking bigger steps in
this direction,” adds Jabbar.
Among the
Indians who are prominent on social media, especially YouTube, is Sachwala. He
is well-versed in classical Arabic and has memorised the Holy Quran.
The
personal life of Sachwala Abdul Hamid is shrouded in mystery, but people do get
glimpses of it during his interactions.
Sachwala
said he was forsaken by his father and sisters when he revealed to them that he
was renouncing Islam. “They were okay even with me committing murder and
dacoity, but they couldn’t tolerate that I was leaving the religion,” he says
during one of his interactions on his YouTube channel.
Azaad
Ground, another popular Ex-Muslim, was excommunicated and told that he wouldn’t
find space in a Muslim graveyard after his death. Azad Ground ended up buying
land for his and other atheists’ burial.
But How
Many Ex-Muslims Are There In India?
Ex-Muslim
Sahil says there are "about 1.2 crore Ex-Muslims in India". He quotes
from the 2021 Pew Research Center that says 6 per cent of Muslims in India ‘do
not believe in God’. So, he calculates, “Of the 20 crore Muslims in India, 1.2
crore are now Ex-Muslims”.
All India
Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) spokesperson SQR Ilyas tells IndiaToday.In
that the number of the “so-called Ex-Muslims is very small to even matter”. He
says the YouTubers were brought to his notice some 5-6 months ago.
Jabbar says
it is impossible to get a count of Ex-Muslims in India as people are afraid of
coming out, fearing threats from the community leadership and family. “In the
case of Kerala, I believe at least 4-5 per cent members of the Muslim community
have given up their beliefs,” says Jabbar, who is from Kerala's Malappuram.
Being a
Muslim is not just about religious identity, it’s about political identity as
well. So, how do the Ex-Muslims align themselves on political issues like the
Uniform Civil Code?
“We have
been batting for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and gender justice for Muslim
women. But we are apprehensive about the UCC the central government is trying
to bring in. It is already clear that it will not be a ‘uniform’ one, as it
would target Muslims... I don’t think their intention is to bring a Code to
ensure justice,” says Jabbar.
Whenever
Muslims are targeted by the state, the Ex-Muslims of Kerala stand with the
community, he says. “For example, when the hijab issue happened in Karnataka,
we supported the girls. For us, it was not a religious issue, but a human
rights issue,” explains Jabbar.
All India
Muslim Personal Law Board spokesperson SQR Ilyas calls the YouTube channels a
“stunt” and says “they have been created to attack Islam”.
"Either
you will be Muslim, Hindu, Christian, atheist or non-Muslim. There’s nothing
called Ex-Muslim,” SQR Ilyas tells IndiaToday.In.
The Muslim
leader blames the “poor upbringing” and “shoddy reading of religious texts” for
people drifting away from Islam.
But
whatever the reason, Ex-Muslims are a phenomenon on social media platforms,
especially YouTube, and no one can deny that.
“As a
movement, it is growing and more people, especially young, educated Muslims are
coming out of the religion questioning it. But the issue they are facing is, a
majority of them cannot say it aloud. They will be targeted. But, becoming an
organisation is the solution. I think it needs more time,” says Jabbar.
------
Source: Ex-Muslims Of India Find The X
Factor Online
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/ex-muslim-phenomenon-abandoned-ucc-hijab/d/131958