Leaving Islam
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''Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out'' is a 2003 book, authored and edited by
ex-Muslim Ex-Muslims are individuals who were raised as Muslims or converted to Islam and later chose to leave the religion. These individuals may encounter challenges related to the conditions and history of Islam, Islamic culture and Islamic jurispruden ...
and
secularist Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion. It is most commonly thought of as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state and may be broadened ...
Ibn Warraq Ibn Warraq (born 1946) is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Qurani ...
, that researches and documents cases of
apostasy in Islam Apostasy in Islam ( or ) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by Religious conversion, converting to another religion ...
. It also contains a collection of essays by ex-Muslims recounting their own experience in leaving the
Islamic religion Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number 2 billion worldwide and are the world's second-largest religious populatio ...
.


Synopsis

''Leaving Islam'' is divided into four parts, with a preface and five
appendices Appendix (: appendices or appendixes) may refer to: __NOTOC__ In documents * Addendum, an addition made to a document by its author after its initial printing or publication * Bibliography, a systematic list of books and other works * Index (publis ...
.


Part 1: Theory and practice of apostasy in Islam

The first part of the book presents an overview of the
theological Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of an ...
- juridical underpinnings of
apostasy in Islam Apostasy in Islam ( or ) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by Religious conversion, converting to another religion ...
based upon the
Qur’an The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
, the
hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...
s and written opinions from classical schools of
Islamic jurisprudence ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica
''Fiqh'' is of ...
, as well as contemporary written pronouncements of Islamic jurists. The next section presents the history of the application of Islamic jurisprudence on apostates, documenting notable cases from the early centuries of Islam, such as those of freethinkers
Ibn al-Rawandi Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi (), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi (;‎ 827–911 CEAl-Zandaqa Wal Zanadiqa, by Mohammad Abd-El Hamid Al-Hamad, First edition 1999, Dar Al-Taliaa Al-Jadida, Syria (Arabic)), was a scholar and ...
and
Rhazes Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, also known as Rhazes (full name: ), , was a Persian physician, philosopher and alchemist who lived during the Islamic Golden Age. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of medicine, and a ...
(865–925), or skeptical poets such as
Omar Khayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīshābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) (Persian language, Persian: غیاث الدین ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابورﻯ), commonly known as Omar ...
(1048–1131) and Hafiz (1320–89), or Sufi (mystic) practitioners
Mansur Al-Hallaj Mansour al-Hallaj () or Mansour Hallaj () ( 26 March 922) ( Hijri 309 AH) was a Persian HanbaliChristopher Melchert, "The Ḥanābila and the Early Sufis," ''Arabica'', T. 48, Fasc. 3 (2001), p. 352 mystic, poet, and teacher of Sufism. He ...
(executed in 922), As-Suhrawardi (executed in 1191), and the skeptic
al-Ma'arri Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, ,(December 973May 1057), also known by his Latin name Abulola Moarrensis; was an Arab philosopher, poet, and writer from Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Syria. Because of his irreligious worldview, he is known as one of the "forem ...
(973–1057).


Part 2: Testimonies submitted to the ISIS website

Part 2 consists of numerous case studies, covering modern-day apostasies, and conversions-out-of-Islam trends throughout the world. These were submitted to the website of the
Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government. History The Center for Inquiry was established in 1991 by ...
(ISIS), co-founded by Ibn Warraq.


Part 3: Testimonies of born Muslims: ''murtadd fitri''

The third part contains testimonies of Muslim-raised apostates, including the ex-Muslim Ali Sina. According to Sina, it is no longer sufficient to simply not believe anymore, but "it is our duty to expose Islam, to write about
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
's depraved lifestyle, about his shameful acts and his foolish claims." Many of the authors are from Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where a strict version of Islam dominates society, even though the
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
isn't Arabic, and these authors only discovered the real meaning of the texts after reading translations of the Quran, hadith and other early Islamic writings when they moved to the West.


Part 4: Testimonies of Western converts: ''murtadd milli''

The last part is about people born in the West who were not raised as Muslims, but
converted to Islam Reversion to Islam, also known within Islam as reversion, is adopting Islam as a religion or faith. Conversion requires a formal statement of the '' shahādah'', the credo of Islam, whereby the prospective convert must state that "there is none w ...
in later life, and then deconverted out of Islam again.


Appendices

The appendix "Islam on Trial: The Textual Evidence" cites, amongst other scriptural sources,
Sahih Bukhari () is the first hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar al-Bukhari () in the format, the work is valued by Sunni Muslims, alongside , as the most authentic after the Qur'an. Al-Bukhari organized the bo ...
, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57: "Whoever changes his religion, kill him."


Author's rationale

On 24 June 2003, Ibn Warraq held a public lecture (in disguise, to protect his identity) in
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
about the book and the context in which it was composed. He cited several of his co-authors and other ex-Muslims who decided to leave the faith for a variety of reasons, but stated that these people rarely dared to speak out for themselves, and non-Muslims such as Western publishers often refused to grant them a platform out of fear. Unlike himself however, Warraq said he was surprised that many co-authors, especially the women (whose stories he thought readers would "find the most moving"), were prepared to write their testimonies under their real names rather than pseudonyms. In a July 2003 interview with ''The Religion Report'' on Australia's
ABC Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...
, Warraq said he wrote ''Leaving Islam'' to support his claim that there were a large number of ex-Muslims and to encourage other Muslims to openly leave Islam. He also said his target audience with the book was not just Muslims but everyone. Aside from giving Muslim apostates a voice, Warraq also conveyed his idea that ex-Muslims should take the lead in criticising Islam and
Islamism Islamism is a range of religious and political ideological movements that believe that Islam should influence political systems. Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism ...
. As former Muslims, they have experienced Islam from within, and know it better than critics from outside, and perhaps can speak about it with more authority. To support this, Warraq compared 1930s
Bolshevism Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...
and 1990s Islamism, and modern-day ex-Muslims to ex-communists from the 1930s, referencing
Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...
's statement to his formerly fellow communists: "You hate our Cassandra cries and resent us as allies, but when all is said, we ex-Communists are the only people on your side who know what it's all about."


Reception

Some weeks before publication, a few writings taken from ''Leaving Islam'' were made available online on the website of Warraq's
Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government. History The Center for Inquiry was established in 1991 by ...
. Reviewing these previews for Dutch daily newspaper ''
Trouw ''Trouw'' (; ) is a Dutch daily newspaper appearing in compact size. It was founded in 1943 as an orthodox Protestant underground newspaper during World War II. Since 2009, it has been owned by DPG Media (known as De Persgroep until 2019). '' ...
'', scholar of Islam
Hans Jansen Johannes Juliaan Gijsbert "Hans" Jansen (17 November 1942 – 5 May 2015) was a Dutch politician, scholar of contemporary Islam and author.World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
being accessible around the globe and users with other native languages now able to communicate in unprecedented ways that censorship would previously prevent. "For the first time in history, Muslims will have unrestrained access to anti-Islamic
polemic Polemic ( , ) is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics, which are seen in arguments on controversial to ...
s. The rule, applying in all Islamic countries, that only Islam may enter the marketplace of new religious ideas, has definitively come to an end due to the Internet, and Ibn Warraq." ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'' commented that ''Leaving Islam'' is "probably the first book of its kind — a compendium of testimonies from former Muslims about their estrangement from the Islamic faith." Finding the personal stories widely varying in quality ("from the tragic to the trite"), it remarked that the "long and illustrious history of Muslim doubt" in the book's first part was most informative. According to ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'', "''Leaving Islams stories make eye-opening reading." When a
Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...
translation by Bernadette de Wit (with a foreword by
Afshin Ellian Afshin Ellian (born 27 February 1966 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-born Dutch professor of law, philosopher, poet, and critic of political Islam. He is an expert in international public law and philosophy of law. Biography In 1989, Ellian ...
) was published in 2008, ''
de Volkskrant ''De Volkskrant'' (; ), stylized as de Volkskrant, is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium- ...
'' found the book "interesting, because it shows how the process of deconversion occurs in Muslim migrants." On the other hand, there was an apparent inconsistency in the authors' attitude towards the Abrahamic holy books. They agreed that both the Quran and the
Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
described many atrocities and contained a lot of immoral commandments, but while modern Christians and Jews were praised for
cherry-picking Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
the good bits and ignoring the unethical parts or taking them as
parable A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whe ...
s, the contributors of ''Leaving Islam'' tended to claim that modern Muslims who try to do the same are blind to what the texts literally say, and should stop believing in them altogether. ''Trouw'' journalist Eildert Mulder noted that the ex-Muslims' testimonies had a lot in common with those of ex-Christians. However, the latter usually focus on attacking the churches, or recounting how they suffered from their Christian upbringing; they rarely target the character of
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
: "Criticism is restricted to the observation that one cannot walk on water, nor rise from the dead." In ''Leaving Islam'', Mulder read that "Amongst deconverted Muslims, on the other hand, the aversion towards the prophet's personality ''is'' an important reason to break away from their religion. (...) The anger against Muhammad is enormous amongst apostates," especially concerning the oppression of women, human rights violations and mass murder. Although Warraq does discuss a few such cases in the book, Mulder criticised Warraq's website for featuring only ex-Muslim atheists and agnostics' excerpts from the book, and none from people who left Islam for another religion: "This website is not dedicated to people who have exchanged one type of irrationality for another." Mulder concludes that the books' contributors are "impressive, because these people have literally put their lives on the line." In a similar book, ''The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam'' (2015), Simon Cottee challenged ''Leaving Islams assertion that the fact that the death penalty for apostasy is supported by several passages in the hadith, this means this reflects the 21st-century mainstream Muslim opinion on the matter.


Translations

*Dutch: ''Weg uit de islam: getuigenissen van afvalligen'', 557 pages, Uitgeverij Meulenhoff, Amsterdam (2008),


See also

*
Apostasy in Islam Apostasy in Islam ( or ) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by Religious conversion, converting to another religion ...
*
Criticism of Islam Criticism of Islam can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions. Subjects of criticism include Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines. Criticism of Islam has been present ...
* ''
Why I Am Not a Muslim ''Why I Am Not a Muslim'', a book written by Ibn Warraq, is a critique of Islam and the Qur'an. It was first published by Prometheus Books in the United States in 1995. The title of the book is a homage to Bertrand Russell's essay, '' Why I Am N ...
'' *
List of former Muslims Ex-Muslims, Former Muslims or ex-Muslims are people who were Muslims, but subsequently left Islam. Although their numbers have increased in the US, ex-Muslims still face ostracism or retaliation from their families and communities due to beliefs ...


References

{{reflist 2003 non-fiction books Apostasy in Islam Books by Ibn Warraq Books critical of Islam Islam and secularism