Leaving Islam.

In another extract from Leaving Faith Behind, Aliyah Saleem, co-founder of Faith to Faithless, reflects on the fall out from her decision to leave Islam …

The first thing I did after this was to remove my hijab. I thought about it for days and I had decided that I was going to finally do it. I left my home on an ordinary day, turned the street corner, placed my fingers around the pin that fastened the cloth around my hair and I pulled. It felt incredible and I peered into a car window to see the reflection of the person that I wanted to be – the Aliyah who was hidden inside. The removal of my hijab sent shockwaves through my family who felt that something was seriously wrong. They quickly found out that I no longer believed in Islam and they were devastated. My relationship with my parents and most of my siblings broke down after this for a few years. We stayed in touch but my lack of belief was always the elephant in the room. I felt unwanted and unloved now that they knew who I really was. They begged me not to tell anyone else that I didn’t believe in Islam and I pretended to be a Muslim at family gatherings and online for the best part of 6 years. I lost many friends during this time which caused a great amount of sadness but it also taught me a valuable lesson. When love is conditional and judgement takes its place, it is no longer a love worth holding on to. The one person who was confused and conflicted but held on to me for dear life was my mother. She is a complicated and wonderful woman – the Queen of my life. She took it badly, not understanding how I could abandon Islam and without meaning to we have both hurt one another, but we have managed to hold on to each other. Our relationship is better now than it has ever been as she has accepted who I am and she understands that I am still the daughter she always loved.

I am grateful that I now have close relationships with all of my immediate family and my mother made sure that nobody in my extended family could say anything to me; she stood between me and judgemental eyes at family weddings like a lioness protecting her cubs. Not all former Muslims can rebuild the relationships that break down as ordinary people get caught in the cross fire between tradition, taboo, and the instinct to protect and nurture their children. Sometimes parents go too far, say, or do things that strike too deeply at their children’s sense of dignity and self-respect.

After years of keeping my beliefs to myself and close friends, I was given an opportunity to break the silence. I was given a platform to speak about my experiences at the Islamic boarding school in Britain by well-known ex-Muslim activist Maryam Namazie. The discussion of the Trojan scandal had broken in the news and I was angry that people were only outraged about the practices that went on in my school every day because it involved taxpayers’ money.1 The video of my speech went online and it didn’t take long for members of my extended family to find out. My mother was floored when she started receiving calls from people in Pakistan, Birmingham, and Walsall to ask how I could be calling myself an atheist. My father sent a message to the family through my mother, ‘If you want to speak about it to me then get in touch but I don’t want your opinion’. Unsurprisingly hardly anyone called him but my mother took on most of the people calling. She defended me and said that she had to keep me close to her now that I had gone public because she felt I was in danger. I wept when I heard that women were making fun of her and I felt guilty. I also knew that it wasn’t my fault that these women were being cruel and that I am not responsible for their actions. I couldn’t bear being silent anymore, it devastated me when I met teenagers who were depressed and suicidal because they felt like outsiders. I had started meeting ex-Muslims and I realised that I wasn’t the only one who felt isolated and ashamed. It dawned on me that there is a real prejudice against people who leave Islam and that it was systematic as well as wide spread.

I am humble enough to acknowledge that I do not have all the answers; however, I have learnt that oppressed people must stand up, make themselves known, be proud to break down any kind of prejudice. When it comes to oppressed groups, often it is not what is being said that counts, but that it was said at all. How could I expect my counterparts in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to do it if I didn’t have the courage to do it here in the United Kingdom, one of the safest places in the world to be an atheist? I went on to found Faith to Faithless with Imtiaz Shams and we have managed to raise awareness in media outlets across the world, and our organisation has joined forces with the largest non-religious charity in Britain, Humanists UK.

We work with apostates, people who have left religions and cults, from all backgrounds, not only people who have left Islam. This experience has taught me that the discrimination which affects ex Muslims also affects people from other groups such as in the case of former Jehovah’s Witnesses who can face excommunication and shunning. Last year I visited Plymouth Humanists and a woman cried during my talk. I spoke to her later and she had left a Christian denomination and had lost her family and friends because of it. She spoke about how lonely she has felt and that she was glad to have met someone who understood what she was dealing with.

I believe that the prejudice affecting apostates is a social issue that can be resolved through social change, awareness, and theological reform. If the loved ones of apostates understood what it felt like for us, appreciated that we have the right to our beliefs, and understood that we need support, then maybe many relationships and even lives could be saved. There are people out there who have suffered violence and whose mental health has been adversely affected just because they no longer believe in a religion. Some of these people can find support networks; unfortunately there are and will be people who will slip through the cracks and they will feel that there is no escape for them. I have been suicidal in the past when I planned to take my own life because there were dark moments when I felt like I couldn’t bear the pain of feeling so alone and unlovable any longer. I am grateful to the people and organisations who saved my life and I am glad that I am here writing this today.

The years of fundamentalism have shaped me, but they do not define who I am any longer. I forget how things used to be but every so often I am vividly reminded of the simple freedoms that I have fought for. I could be standing in a nightclub, surrounded by friends, a cocktail in my hand or swimming in a bikini in a warm sea and I will be suddenly reminded of how things used to be. I have come out on the other side, stronger and bolder. If I could go back and speak to my younger self, I would comfort and hold her, try to reassure her that she won’t always feel like this. It is difficult to convince people who are in despair that things can get better, but they really can. My final words of advice to anyone who is going through what I have been through are: you are enough, don’t stay isolated, reach out; you do not have to feel ashamed and you deserve to be treated with love and respect.

 

This is an extract written by Aliyah Saleem, co-founder of Faith to Faithless, from Leaving Faith Behind: The journeys and perspectives of people who have chosen to leave Islam edited by Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters and Aliyah herself.

 

1 The Trojan Horse Scandal was the outcome of an anonymous letter sent to a city council in Birmingham with the allegation that Islamists were infiltrating state schools in Muslim-heavy areas.