Sunday, November 13, 2011

Amil Imani: Islam Was Not for Me

Iranian activist Amil Imani has written an article explaining why he rejects Islam.

My breach with Islam started as far back as I could discern things. More to the point, I never embraced Islam in the first place, although I was born and raised in a Muslim family.

For one thing, I had a very difficult time following a so-called religion whose founder and followers had butchered my ancestors, raped and sold our women, burned our libraries, and destroyed our magnificent culture. Islam was forced down the throats of Iranians with the sword of Allah. In my heart, I never considered myself a Muslim. However, I didn’t reveal this until later in life for fear of retribution by radical Muslims.

Sharia law stipulates that any Muslim who turns his back on Islam should be given a chance to revert to the faith. For an unrepentant male apostate, death is the proscribed punishment and life imprisonment for the female apostate.

“Kill whoever changes his religion.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 9:84:57)

Islam considers an apostate as a person who unilaterally breaks the covenant he has made with the faith. An apostate is condemned as guilty of turning his back on Allah’s immutable eternal religion.

I came to the realization that the root cause of my peoples’ degradation and suffering was Islam. It was a creed imposed on an enlightened, tolerant and free people at the point of the sword by savages hailing from the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century with promises of booty and women in this world and glorious eternal sensual rewards in the promised paradise of Allah in the next. With each passing day, I rejoice more and more in my good fortune; in my ability to avoid the yoke of Islamic slavery and its blinders that imprisons a billion and half people by walls of superstition, hatred of others, and a celebration of death.

Things Islamic not only did not resonate with me, they often clashed head on with what I valued and loved. What appealed to me and even enchanted me were more often than not, taboo in Islam or anathema to the creed. I loved life, beauty in all its forms, poetry, ancient Iranian culture and traditions. I loved laughter, celebrations of joy such as birthdays; our yearly festivities of Nowruz, my favorite, lasts for thirteen days. Nowruz, this ancient festival, has been celebrated for thousands of years by my people; it ushers in the spring, welcomes renewal of life, and expresses optimism for the year ahead to bless us with good health, abundant food, family, and friends in the land of a civilized and free people.

I have always believed one cannot possibly be a Persian and hold to the lofty tenets of the ancient Iranian Zoroastrian triad of good thoughts, good words, good deeds, and remain a Muslim. In the same fashion, one cannot cherish American values, the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution and be a true Muslim. They are comprehensively incompatible with Sharia Law. . . .

There are still those who foolishly claim that Muhammad was a messenger from God and the Quran is a divinely revealed book. My suggestion is that they use their intellect and read the Quran fully for themselves without the assumption that the book is the literal word of God and that Muhammad was their messenger. Without this assumption as their starting point, they will find better than 90% of the book is about violence, threats of hell, exclusion of people, and the like. What kind of God would dictate things like what you find in the Quran? It took Muhammad 20 years to reveal this hodge-podge book that reads more like expressions of a delusional individual with multiple personality disorder.

I bemoan the plight of my native land and the people who have suffered and continue to suffer under Islam. Without Islam there wouldn’t be any Muslims to hoist the banner of hate and violence against non-Muslims. A few claim that Islam has done some good in the past. Well, that’s debatable. There are those who are equally convinced that Islam has inflicted a great deal of suffering on others from its inception to the present. What we all must agree on is that Islam and its sharia laws, at the very least, do not fit in today’s world.

Islam is a creed of an ignorant people in a primitive and barbaric age. It is fixated in time and place; it harbors the ambition of taking the 21st century world back 14 centuries and ruling it by its dogma of violence, intolerance, injustice and death. Yet, Islam is not only an obsolete vestige of a defunct era, but itself is an infinitely fractured belief that can hardly put its own home in order. The numerous Islamic sects are at each other’s throats; sub-sects and schools despise one another as much as they hate non-Muslims. Hatred, not love, drives Islam.

I am not against Muslims. I condemn Islam with all its derivatives and those who support and promote it. Muslims are patients and Islam is a disease. You want to help the patients to rid themselves of the affliction. You want to eradicate a horrifically communicable disease. Although many prefer to tackle the militant version of Islam, “Islamism,” for all intents and purposes, there is no sharp demarcation between, Islamists, Jihadists and Islamism. One and all are progeny of Islam itself. Any differences among the three are of degree and not kind. When one addresses Islamism and jihadism, their source is also addressed.

Regrettably, Islam cannot be reformed. Keep in mind that Islam claims it is the perfect eternal faith for mankind. Splits have occurred and will continue to occur in Islam. Yet, reformation has not happened in nearly 1400 years and is not going to happen. Islam is carved in granite, just the way it is. No change. Allah’s book is sealed.

In the monumental task of dealing with Islam and its variations, every individual, group and government must combine their resources and energies to prevail. We must urge all people to resist Islam’s encroachment and not be deceived by its sanitized version presented in non-Islamic lands. The destiny of civilized life hangs in the balance. Shirking of this responsibility would be an unpardonable act of every enlightened human being and organization that values human liberty and dignity. (Read more.)

7 comments:

Juniper in the Desert said...

Thank you so much for this posting! God bless you all!!

Deleting said...

Amen.

curly said...

I hope Kim will be next!

simple_truth said...

The last paragraph says it all.

"In the monumental task of dealing with Islam and its variations, every individual, group and government must combine their resources and energies to prevail. We must urge all people to resist Islam’s encroachment and not be deceived by its sanitized version presented in non-Islamic lands. The destiny of civilized life hangs in the balance. Shirking of this responsibility would be an unpardonable act of every enlightened human being and organization that values human liberty and dignity. "

I was so thrilled to read this very well articulated piece. I would like to see more people take this approach and voice their opposition to the disease known as Islam.

Tom ta tum Tom said...

Amil has so much as said it for us: "It is our turn."

The generation before us sacrificed themselves so that we might be free from fascism. Others before us have sacrificed themselves so that we could be free from communism.

Now, either we will sacrifice our time, talents and resources on behalf of uniting ourselves and together defeating this wretched, hate-filled 7th Century idolatry or the generations to come may be wondering why we couldn't be bothered (but then, they may not even be allowed to wonder).

The Christ of the Only Living God sacrificed Himself so that all of humanity could be freed for all time from slavery to sin.

Muhammadanism is very much an institutionalization of sin AND an imposition of slavery. Let us honor the sacrifices of those gone before us and let us honor the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

We stand like Gandalf on the bridge of Khazad-dûm. The Balrog that faces us is named "Islam".

What would Gandalf say?

What say ye?

KAFIR AND PROUD!!

WhatsUpDoc said...

Very well written. I can relate to this.

Every year in late March sometimes early April there is a festival called "Basant" in India. Its a festival celebrated for the arrival of spring festivities include flying of Kites for one week. It has been celebrated for thousands of years.

In Pakistan every year it is debated weather they should allow people to celebrate or not. Some years they allow it some they ban it depending what kind of government is in power.

A large percentage of Muslims believe that in Islam there are only two days the festivities are allowed and they are the two Eids and everything ells is Shrik.

Nimochka said...

I so much identify with what Mr. Imani wrote in that fine piece! Iran is a country with double personalities. One is the one which we inherited from pre-Islamic times who love poetry and music and beauty. Our women love to look beautiful, we love our pre-Islamic celebrations around the year, most of our families look at polygamy as an abomination, we love a kind of religion which would offer us a real and close relationship with God and many sects of Islam have been born in Iran which tried to mould Islam into such a religion (all deemed heretical of course)!

But on the other hand people cannot completely let go of Islam. The terror and brainwash has been so effective for the past 14 centuries that it is hard to eradicate it from our psyche. People say they are Muslim and believe in Muhammed and Quran and the "14 sinless ones" (the 12 Imams+Muhammed+Fatima) without having read a single verse of the Quran in a language they can understand or a single Hadith and book of History.

But I can say one thing about Iranians that I cannot say about many of Arab and Pakistani Muslims that I have come into contact with online and elsewhere. Iranians are truly unaware of the true Islam. Even till this days many can't believe that what the mullah regime is doing is pure and authentic Islam. They are used to the Islam of their grandma which was no Islam at all and don't want to admit that their grandma was a heretic according to Muhammed's Islam!

So if the true Islamic sources could be sufficiently demonstrated to the people of Iran so that they could read the Quran and Hadith for themselves and see the disgusting behavior of Muhammed and even his offspring they will leave Islam rather than try to whitewash and excuse that kind of behavior. I know the vast majority will apostatize immediately.

But unfortunately many Muslims from other parts of the world ARE aware of the Haditha and Sirah and Quran and know that Islam allows rape and killing and plundering and slavery , but their value system has become so distorted and Islamized that they already think these things are OK and would even defend it and try to pretend that amputation of the hand and feet from opposite side or Jihad or taking women as war booty is acceptable behavior and good things indeed!

So I really see a great ray of hope in Iran. It is a big and powerful country with a lot of population and if we Iranian people, with the help of the world manage to redeem it from Islam imagine what a positive anti-Jihad and anti-Islamic effect it will have on the world. Khomeini actually was the very person that started this very wave of Islamism around the world! We Iranians started it we shall end it too!

Imagine the loss of morale and credibility and funds for Islamists all around the world if Iran becomes a free democratic society where Sharia is ditched for ever and secular law will come back and people will prosper and live well. Imagine all those Arabs and Pakistanis that now are rushing to go under strict Sharia will look at their own loss of freedom and misery and poverty and will see Iranians freed from shackles of islamic government are living so much better and happier than them and they will be truly disillusioned! They will start to ask themselves "what did Sharia bring us other then oppression and misery and poverty and violence?"

I hope and pray to God that the world will wake up and assist Iranian people in their quest for freedom from Sharia!