Ex-Muslims

[Ross]

Thoughts on these people. Are they fully justified to leave the religion completely or are they wrong and they should stick to being secular/moderate/non-practicing Muslim? Are there moral lessons and ideas that they should keep from Islam, or just embrace Western thinking? 

[Ross]

???

[PurpleTree]

just ditch it baby

[Ayham]

To be honest, a lot of them hold Islam in bad regard, the key is to think of Islam as something that evolves over time.

Check out Mufti Abu Layth on youtube

Check out Progressive Islam on Youtube,

And check out my long reply in another thread: 

 

Quote

Okay so, this is kind of my current obsession as I usually have an obsession with a topic every few months, so I am researching this topic.

 

This is related to a lot of history, and particularly the Salafi/Wahabi movement (I will be referring to them as Salafi as Wahabi is used as an insult sometimes, but they are almost the same).

When Islam first divided, there was shia and sunni (and at first it was a political stance not a religious one), sunni has 4 schools: hanafi, maliki, shafii, and hanbali.

Now the Hanbalis were most extreme but are still not like the Salafis of today, Hanbalis believed in Allah having a physical body for example too, which is the Athari theology, they believe in literal intereptation, avoiding philosophy

The rest of the sunni schools were Ashari/Maturidi in theology, which are largely the same we won't delve into them, but basically, they believed in Kalam, or using philosophy to understand things, they also had other methodologies other than literal and complete adherence to Hadith and Quran, they also believed Allah doesn't have a body.

Won't delve into Shia's as it is not my expertise much.

Fast forward to the Islamic golden age, the mainstream of Islam is literally Sunni Sufi Ashari Theology,

Sufism, it doesn't have a clear origin but there are theories, in the Islamic golden age, a sufi is someone who practices purifying the heart, by a lot of rememberence of god, inducing and drowning in divine love, strict adherence to Islam, and following a Tariqa, or Sufi order.

A Sufi order, has a number of disciples centred around a Sufi master, whose lineage goes back to prophet Muhammed through Imam Ali usually (Naqshbandis are the only order who go back to the prophet through Abu Bakr), each person who joins the order gets blessings and initiation of the Sheikh or master, and also gives a pledge, it is an initiation, and this Sheikh or master guides you to reach the end point of Sufism, and he also appoints his best student as the next master afterwards.

Now Ibn Taymiyya, A hanbali scholar, the first Salafi, emerged in the 12th century I believed, he spread the Salafi Ideology but he wasn't taken seriously by scholars of the time, he was thrown in prison a lot, but he also had a lot of students.

Salafi Ideology is characterized by:

Literal intereptation of the Quran and Hadith, causing extremism and also believing Allah has a literal body

Believing that vising tombs or shrines or praying there is forbidden 

Consider the Sufi practices as innovation 

Consider themselves the only true Muslims

Meanwhile Sufi mystics believed that the Quran is ever changing, that its meaning changes depending on how spiritually advanced you are.

Now the first belief is the same as early Hanbalis, but, the Salafis claim to follow the "Salaf" which are the first 3 generations after the prophet, who he declared are the most rightous according to a Hadith, but here is the thing, the early hanbalis aren't even in the first three generations.

The whole Salafi ideology is based on going back to the Salaf, the first 3 generations after the prophet (even though their beliefs such as believing in god having a body or considering vising graves as Haram are not from the Salaf).

And despite Ibn Taymiyya's attempts to spread his thought, they didn't work until the 18th Century (excuse me if I am wrong with the dates), where Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab came in, a very famous scholar and Jihadist who used Ibn Taymiyya's books as a resource, he declared all muslims who don't follow him as Kuffar and disbelievers, he killed thousands as "jihad", and he allied with the Saudi royal family, and also some people say he got financial support from the UK.

Due to the big financial backing, the ideology spread, and even though, majority of scholars today are not Salafi, if you google anything related to Islamic rulings, you will only find Salafi scholars, that's how big their online presence is.

and look at this short article, in which the Saudi prince says that the west asked them to spread Wahabi ideology after the cold war to counter the Soviet influence: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/03/243388/spread-wahhabism-done-request-west-cold-war-saudi-crown-prince

In my opinon, the real reason was to kill Islam from the inside.

Also Sufism in the islamic golden age was much different from Neo-Sufism in the west today, it is much more rooted in Islam.

(I could have wrong facts here so i don't mind correcting)

In general, I would say the western culture is better for most people, but if you wanna use Islam for real spirituality, this is the way.

Or if you want to use it to integrate blue, also helpful.

Edited September 8 by Ayham

[manuel bon]

Do you need to justify yourself if you leave a religion? 

[Epikur]

On 4.9.2024 at 10:50 PM, Ross said:

Thoughts on these people. Are they fully justified to leave the religion completely or are they wrong and they should stick to being secular/moderate/non-practicing Muslim? Are there moral lessons and ideas that they should keep from Islam, or just embrace Western thinking? 

They should stay with islam if they want to stay in the community and be part of the tribe. Some people are good with pretending. Life is already often a pretend game. Lying is part of life also in the West.

I am an ex muslim. I was always a bit science minded. So I could not handle their lies. I became quite allergic against Islam but after experiencing the woke left they don't seem to be alone with their crazy.

I have to say I got some stuff from the religion which is good like that alcohol is forbidden. There are other stuff as well like being able to be more humble and less greedy.

Edited September 9 by Epikur

[gambler]

Continuously broadcasting that you're an ex muslim and making that your identity and community is a form of jerking yourself off as something special in order to feel special. And in order to reap the social benefits you continue to moral grand stand, and the harder you go the more reward you get, so you just demonize people as sub-humans and that makes you the world's most good person. Garbage community. Garbage behavior.

Edited September 9 by gambler

[Epikur]

44 minutes ago, gambler said:

Continuously broadcasting that you're an ex muslim and making that your identity and community is a form of jerking yourself off as something special in order to feel special. And in order to reap the social benefits you continue to moral grand stand, and the harder you go the more reward you get, so you just demonize people as sub-humans and that makes you the world's most good person. Garbage community. Garbage behavior.

I think this opinion is garbage. I think ex muslims are one of the few groups who earned to be allowed to be extreme. It is like being extreme against fascists. People who defend islam do not know much about islam or they like to virtue signal.

[Gennadiy1981]

@Epikur I give you a lot of props. It’s not easy to leave especially a religious community no matter what it is, any religion as you will be looked down as infidel or some other name. And this applies, especially to closed communities like those on the more strict, religious sector. Those who are moderates it’s easy to check out, but if you are part of any religious group, you are not so equipped to be in a secular world and it would be pretty challenging. 
But I think that’s a step towards advancing, it’s making a step from stage blue to stage orange and beyond, so this is on a path of human development into higher stages. So good for you actually. 

[Jacob Morres]

13 hours ago, Epikur said:

after experiencing the woke left they don't seem to be alone with their crazy.

the left is good overall i think about muslims. they protect muslims from human rights violations

some of the left could improve in the sense to being more conscious that many muslims are stage blue. that would put things into perspective

but the problem is that the right will often resort to racism, propaganda or human rights violations as a backlash toward muslims. like propaganda during UK riots, camps in china, Gaza, post 9-11 in the usa etc. so the left at the very least is doing some important things . but yeah they can def improve

maybe the left and the right are two sides of a coin here 

Edited September 10 by Jacob Morres

[MutedMiles]

 

On 9/9/2024 at 11:04 PM, gambler said:

Continuously broadcasting that you're an ex muslim and making that your identity and community is a form of jerking yourself off as something special in order to feel special. And in order to reap the social benefits you continue to moral grand stand, and the harder you go the more reward you get, so you just demonize people as sub-humans and that makes you the world's most good person. Garbage community. Garbage behavior.

What do you expect ? There are laws against them to be executed if they happen to be in wrong place and stating something very obvious.

Everyone has a particular experience of religion in their life while growing up, due to how it is interpreted by society and people around them. For some it's like a "toxic relationship" which they need to quit to be alive and healthy again. Mostly early on Ex-Muslims are filled with rage due to obvious reasons and some make the rage an identity but many find there way in life after few years and being an Atheist doesn't play any major role in there lives. 

I found seasoned ex-Muslims to be really balanced and un-biased people. It's a rare combination of courage, integrity and insight that makes someone take such a huge call, specially people from some of the less privileged countries.