Why We Left Islam (17 page)

My mother always taught me to respect those whose opinions are different, and understand that everyone has their own way of spiritual enlightenment. She also taught me to never use foul language. Most of all, never be angry, because you will later regret what you say. Sorry Mom, I guess I failed you tonight with what I am about to say.

F you! (Wow that really does feel good.) I will not serve you, and I will not serve a god who is the monster the Qur’an speaks of. Call me a
kafir,
please; I would much rather be associated with that culture, than one that believes it’s okay to kill 750 Jews in one day, behead nonbelievers, and escalate an old man who had sex with a nine-year-old girl, and married her at age six. If the
jannah
you speak of is full of people like you, why would I want a destination like that? The true hell would be living around millions of people such as you.

I will lock my doors now, change my name, and move. . . because for Muslims to denounce Islam and leave their religion is punishable by death.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
YOU WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG

“They told me the very word ‘Islam’ was ‘peace.’ But they lied. Now I know it means ‘submission,’ which is the opposite of peace. I did the world no justice when I helped to glorify Islam.”

A
S WE HAVE SEEN, leaving Islam is not an easy choice or a viable option. To become an apostate means not just turning one’s back on your faith and your friends but in many cases even your family. It also requires questioning and ultimately denying everything you once believed in. When this realization happened to Dee Anna she felt compelled to write to Ali Sina at Faith Freedom because she began to think that he and many other fellow apostates were right all along!

One of the most important concerns raised in this book is stated clearly in this short letter by Dee Anna: Islam means submission, not peace. Dee Anna’s story proves that what happened to her could happen to anyone.

Dee Anna’s Testimony

I wanted so much for Islam to be good that I fell into its trap and tried to make it good. And yet I noticed my brothers and sisters in Islam, who praised me when I praised Islam, just as quickly and readily demonized me when I began to question all the lies I was told about Islam. . . . Because, you see, I knew nothing of Islam, nothing at all. September 11 was my first introduction to Islam.

But I was so eager to love the world into a better world. Muslims began telling me Osama was to Islam as the anti-Christ was
to Christianity; they told me Islam was all about peace and love, and that Mohammad was some great prophet of peace. They praised him as though he were pro-women. They basically made him into a god. But they did not tell me about his evil actions, and when I began to learn of them and wanted to discuss them because I still wanted to believe Islam was good and perhaps there was some good explanation for why Mohammad would commit such evils, I quickly learned that to dare question Mohammad is to be demonized, threatened, abused,
etc.
They will also see themselves as doing good. As a result I began to study and learn all the more, and after five or six years of research and trying so hard to prove apostates wrong, all I have found is that they were right all along.

I put some challenges of apostates before my Islamic friends as though they were my own challenges. They could not dispute them. They merely attacked and demonized me instead. The very people I worked so hard to defend became my enemies. As they demonized me, more and more I began to get angry. The more I saw the truth about Islam, the angrier I became. I was hurt, very, very hurt, afraid, shocked, and humiliated.

On one hand they tried to convert people to Islam—tried to convince people that Islam is about love and peace, but never did they show me this alleged love and peace; nor did they show this love and peace to anyone else who did not glorify Islam as they did. I started off full of love and eager to embrace Islam and be embraced by it. I defended it. I told the lies it had trained me to tell. I proclaimed Islam is peace, because that’s what they told me. They told me the very word “Islam” was “peace.” But they lied. Now I know it means “submission,” which is the opposite of peace. I did the world no justice when I helped to glorify Islam: And now because I know the truth, the whole truth, about Islam and because of all that it has done to me and because of what it has done to believers and disbelievers alike, I hate Islam. By saying this I am often demonized and they see me only with hatred. But they do not understand. I hate Islam because I love humanity. I love the believers and the disbelievers alike and I hate what Islam has done to them, for what it has done to humanity. I hate Islam and never again will I defend it; never will I submit, or bow!

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN
DISOWNED

“Allah, show me how I can be like them [have peace] in Islam. . . .
The answer never came. I finished the Qur’an and could not identify the same God. Could he be different? If Islam is right, then Christianity cannot be right.”

F
OR MANY WHO leave Islam, the process involves not only giving up a religion; for some it also means being disowned by family and abandoned by friends. For while Iran finds itself isolated from the international community, many Iranians have been individually isolated from family because of the way that they view the Iranian regime and how it affects their lives.

When her husband became a Christian, Sarah found herself wrestling with her own native Islam. In the end, she decided that the violence of Islamic teaching could not match the powerful grace and love of the Bible. She knows Islam. And she knows the dangers it presents. Her message to anyone reading this: Christ is peace, Islam is not. She worries that the West does not understand this. And she fears for the future.

Sarah’s Testimony

I was born in Tehran, Iran, in the 1950s. I was raised in an educated and wealthy Shiite family. My father was a very devout Muslim man who loved to please God. He was very spiritually sensitive and used to always talk about faith, love, and obedience. He had previously lived on the wild side, but in his mid-thirties, after having three or four kids, he settled down and turned to God. He tried to know Allah with all of his might, and what Islam was able to give him. He also studied other religions, some in order to know if there is more to religion than what Islam offered. Unfortunately,
his studies did not go deep enough into Christianity. There was not a Christian who wanted to share deeply his life in Christ with him. My father was trained by the U.S. military, so he lived in America many times, for three to eighteen months at a time. But as far as I know, no one ever witnessed to him.

I loved my dad; he was a great man. As his youngest child I looked up to him as my hero. Even though I was a girl in a Muslim country, he always gave me the type of opportunities that only male children received in that culture. When I was a teenager, he sent me to America to continue my education and become a doctor one day. I was a very good student and he wanted me to achieve the most I could in my life.

When I came here, I was surprised with the culture. It was a bit wild. It was the ‘70s, and some high school girls were very loose. I always had male friends, but could not date when I was in Iran. This open dating was very new to me. I did not join the dating scene until I started attending college. Of course, my parents were not aware of this side of my life. They would have never approved of it. I met many American guys; since I was a popular student in college, I got to go out on a lot of dates. But after the guys found out that the good night kiss was even a bit too much for me, they would not ask me out for a second date. While I attended college, I lived with an American family who attended church every Sunday. I even went with them. The Gospel was preached, but it had no affect on me. I believe that the Holy Spirit opens our ears and eyes when it is our time to hear his message.

I knew Alex from my high school years. He was very popular, a soccer jock, great-looking; a nice guy whom all the popular girls had dated. I met up with him two years later. We started going out together. He knew that I was a Muslim, although a nominal one at this point; he was a nominal Catholic. We began to date exclusively; he was patient enough not to push me into a type of relationship other men sought. I fell in love with him, and after dating each other for three to four months we decided to get married. We were not even twenty years old yet. We chose not to tell our parents about our decision. When his parents found out they took it a bit hard, but they knew me and liked me. Their
faith was not very strong, so it did not bother them that their son had married a Muslim.

Even though I was not a practicing Muslim, I had told Alex that I would never change my religion for him. I was very proud of my heritage and my religion. He did not have any problems with that, because he did not have any more conviction in Jesus Christ than I had at that point.

When my parents found out that I had gotten married to a young high school graduate, from a Spanish heritage and a Catholic, they went crazy. My father disowned me and my mother was so angry with me that she could not even talk to me over the phone. I was so devastated. I could not cope with separation from them. What was I thinking when I married Alex? This could not work. I told Alex that if my parents didn’t forgive me, I would have to leave him. It was a difficult time for us. We loved each other, but my family had to come first.

Three weeks later, I got a phone call from my dad. Yes, my dad. He and Mom were coming to America to meet my husband. I was so happy and scared at the same time. So was Alex. When they arrived and spent some time with Alex, they realized why I had married him. He was a whole lot like my dad. My dad spent many hours telling Alex about Islam. His goal in life was to convert my husband. Alex was very challenged spiritually and was very impressed with my father’s knowledge and zeal toward his faith. Believe it or not, God used my Muslim father to get Alex interested in searching his faith, and finding out if Christianity had this many interesting facts about it, and what it really meant to him. Why did he call himself a Christian?

After five years of marriage, Alex was transferred to the Far East with the military. I could not go with him, and I was finishing up college. I was all alone and did not have family or any close friends nearby. Alex was making new friends at his new station, and they had asked him to start attending their church. He truly was searching to find the real meaning of his faith, and once and for all make a decision what he was going to do about it. Thousands of miles away, God started working in my life, too. He started to surround me with Christians.

I met Mary in one of my classes. She always had a big smile on her face, and showed a lot of interest in the foreign students. She and I became very good friends, and she became my sister. She had been a Catholic until recently, then she had surrendered her heart to Jesus Christ and had joined an evangelical church. For the first time in my life, I began to see what Jesus Christ can do in a person’s life. She was always there for me. She never hit me over the head with her Bible, but she shared many beautiful passages from it. She was there when I needed a shoulder to cry on when I missed my husband. She was there to study with me when we were preparing for a final exam. She was there when I read Alex’s letters where he explained to me his journey to find Christ. She would get so excited for him, even though she had never met him before.

A few months later, for my graduation, Alex returned home. He was a new man. He had been baptized at his church and had been “born again.” I did not understand. Wasn’t he a Christian before? Mary and Alex, when they met, acted like they had known each other for many years. That was odd! Alex and I took off after my graduation and took a long trip back home, so I could settle there when he returned back to the Far East.

During this long road trip, Alex shared with me his newfound faith. He truly was changed. He was very much at ease, had a peace that I could not explain. He was very confident, and very caring. He was a changed man. He told me that he would love for me to know God through Jesus Christ. I got very angry about this. I reminded him that I had vowed to stay a Muslim until I died. He was very much saddened about my comment, but he never brought up this question again. He went to God on his knees and gave me to him. Alex knew that I was too hard of a task for him alone. I was very stubborn and I would never give in to his desire. He did challenge me to at least live out my faith.

After he returned to the Far East and I got my first job and settled down, I began to pray every day, and read the Qur’an. I was searching for the peace he had found. After all, we worshipped the same God; he must offer the same benefits in Islam as he has done in Christianity. While I was searching in Islam for
this God of love and peace, God did not stop his work in my life. The first guy I met at my new job happened to be a “born again” ex-Catholic! How could I get away from these people?

He too was very zealous in his faith, and did not hesitate to share the four spiritual laws with me. I told him to back off, because I knew what he believed and I was not interested. He now knew that God was really working on me. He was so kind; he helped me when I had car troubles. He was always there to lend me a hand in our projects. When I was in error, he would take the blame for it. He was very loving and had a peace that I could not explain. I had witnessed Mary, Alex, and now Matt. There was a lot of commonality between these folks, and they did not even know each other!
Allah, show me how I can be like them in Islam.