RSS FeedAs far as Arab society is concerned, openly declaring a disbelief in God is a shocking and sometimes dangerous thing to do. It can lead to being ostracised by family, friends and the local community – as well as charges of apostasy which in some countries carry the death penalty.
Arab atheists – or at least those prepared to declare their atheism openly – remain a tiny minority but they are gradually becoming more visible, partly because online media have now given them a voice.
Writing about this in a recent blog post last week, I invited Arab atheists to send me an email about their journey into disbelief. Since then, I have posted two of these emails on the blog – one from a Lebanese ex-Christian and another from a gay Emirati who abandoned Islam – plus an article from "Egyptian infidel" Khaled Diab.
To add to the collection, today we have an email from British-Egyptian atheist Mostafa al-Khashaab (see below).
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More emails and articles on this theme are welcome (send them to brian@al-bab.com). Please describe how you became an atheist – any particular books, etc, that influenced your decision – and, if you have told people about it, how they reacted. You can remain anonymous if you wish.
Brian Whitaker
Would my best friends really be burnt to a crisp for not believing?
by Mostafa al-Khashaab*
I am a 22-year-old British-Egyptian atheist, born and raised in the UK. As a result I am fairly open about my beliefs with those who live in the UK, even if they are Muslims. However, I cannot reveal my beliefs to my Arab contemporaries, including family.
I grew up with a fairly solid education in religion and learnt to read and speak Arabic as fluent as though I had been raised in Cairo. Every morning I would walk to school with my mother and recite the Qur'an, loudly and in a child-like singsong voice, so that God would protect me during my school day. However I never truly believed, so being a believer was one of the worst things to have to go through.
I went through all the rituals when I was younger, especially the show-off ones like reading the Qur'an aloud and chanting the adhan because I was a ridiculously egotistical child and I loved the attention. I really enjoyed doing Islamic stuff to keep my parents, relatives and friends happy. However what I couldn't get my head around was that I should love God and Muhammad more than I loved my parents, siblings and everyone else.
I started drifting away from religion when I was 14 years old. I had friends from all walks of life but realising that I had little belief in Islam caused me to drift away from my Muslim friends. As they got more religious, I got further away from religion.
My school had been rebuilt when I was around 15 and now had a prayer room which the Muslims took advantage of. I went a few times with my friends but the judgment in that room pushed me even further away from Islam. One boy literally stood in front of me, watching me pray, so that he could give me a bow-by-bow critique of my prayer and topped it off by explaining why my prayer wouldn't be accepted and the level of hell I would be in.
Then there was the rampant, unchecked misogyny, racism and homophobia – even in school – that stemmed from Islamic literature. There were a few Jewish people in my school and by the time we were 16 it became sinful to hang out with them. Women had a clear role in society, that of baby-maker and food-maker. As for gay people, well I don't think much more needs to be added after the email from Saeed ...
It took a long time to finally admit to myself that I didn't believe in God and it was harrowing not knowing anybody of the same cultural/religious background who was having the same thoughts. I did the whole thing of doing whatever I want and ignoring the parts of the religion I didn't agree with. I was technically a Muslim and if I died I'd just tell God I was definitely going be a better Muslim if he gave me more time. He should have known that, right?
In the Arab atheists series ...
Arabs and atheism: the shock of disbelief
Email from an Arab atheist (1)
Email from an Arab atheist (2)
I started becoming more outright un-Islamic and tried cannabis and alcohol when I was 16 and then ecstasy when I was 18. They had a profound effect, not just on my religious outlook, but also on my views on British society. On the one hand, I couldn't believe that God would seriously have time to incinerate those who dared to consume mind-altering substances, and then synthesise a new skin for them to be re-burnt in an infinite loop of mind-boggling torture – a torture I wouldn't inflict on the worst living creature in existence.
On the other hand, I found it morally reprehensible that British courts actually treated drug abuse punitively, criminalising people who don't deserve to be treated as criminals and possibly even launching them into a life of crime. I suppose I always had an underlying interest in philosophy – my outlook as a 16-year-old was stereotypically existential – but these experiences spurred me into explicitly exploring philosophies not rooted in Islam. The philosophical teaching that most resonates with me today is Socrates' "I know that I know nothing."
The nail in the coffin of my Islamic belief came about a year ago. My father called me one day, his tone of voice drenched in mourning. I feared the worst: a family member had died, or they found out the extent of my un-Islamic behaviour. Although I had been clearly drifting away from religion, I had never explicitly told my parents my religious concerns.
What had actually transpired was that my older brother had come out to my parents as gay. For a brief second I was relieved that nobody had died and that they hadn't realised how 'naughty' I had been. Then the gravity of the revelation hit me: my Arab brother had come out as gay to an Arab family.
There was a lot of grievance from my parents, but the situation passed surprisingly well. My parents reaffirmed to my brother that they loved him and that he was a part of the family but then embarked on a path of trying to convince him that homosexuality was entirely irrational and unnatural. This carried on for a few days, with plenty of guilt tripping, but life went back to normal pretty fast. The homosexuality has not been spoken of since.
My brother's revelation forced me to finally confront my religious beliefs. Did I really believe that my best friends would be burnt to a crisp for not believing? Did I believe that my brother would not get a whiff of heaven for 500,000 years for the crime of sodomy? Could I really ignore the fact that the Qur'an does sanction a man to hit his wife, to own slaves and to own sex-slaves? I realised that day what I was – an Arab atheist.
When I finally admitted to myself that I just didn't believe in God I started looking for Muslim people who had gone through the same thing – the internet is a wondrous innovation.
After realising that I was not the only person who had this life view, and reading about people who even managed to maintain their relationships with their Muslim friends and family, my ordeal was over. The only reason I'd ever have wanted to believe was to make sure I didn't lose the people I loved but I've made it work – for now.
* Mostafa al-Khashaab is a pseudonym
Posted Tuesday, 20 August 2013
