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Preface: I cannot think of a better complements for a writer, than to hear from a reader� his writing has helped her to �think clearly.� And that�s what Sam Elias wrote to me about my article �My Experience with Islam��an autobiographical essay describing why and how I became a humanist from once a pious Muslim. In her e-mail to me, Ms. Elias also expressed her desire to have a conversation with me on religion and similar issues. We had a long chat and it was not long before I discovered � she has a unique experience and background of being an atheist. Born and brought up in Kuwait to Bangladeshi parents (not a favorable situation to become a freethinker), she had to think and decide for herself the futileness of religion, the scriptures and the hypocrisy of its preachers. It was like going against the tide when no one is ready to listen but only to blame you for everything. Later in her life, Ms. Elias came to US from Kuwait and is now living a happy independent life as a chemical engineer. Her story touched me just like her passionate admirations for Mukto-Mona and its readers. I suggested- she put her story in words and sends it to Mukto-Mona. She has readily agreed on and done so. Over the course of editing her article, we kept in touch with each other for a while and following is the result. I am sure, just like me, the readers are also going to be moved and touched by her tale� funny, sad, shocking; yet powerful enough to say, �hats off to you, Sam!� Happy reading to you all, dear readers!
Jahed Ahmed
A young woman speaks out about her experience
Growing up in a family devoted to a designated religion (Islam in my case) can be rather challenging for children, I think. Children ought to know where the line has been drawn when it comes to curiosity-a natural human trait. In school, children are taught to ask questions in order to clear their minds off the doubts. The more questions we ask the better and the more we learn. (To put it in PB Shelley�s words: The more we learn, the more we discover our ignorance). At home, however, when the same drill is followed on grounds of religion, it is taught to be a taboo. Why aren�t these questions about religion answered and often averted? Once I wondered. And I had to find the answer on my own and it�s been worth its while. Religion was made up by individuals in society to suit themselves best and to control and dominate over the rest. Despite their prevalence in every society, culture, there are no proofs to the outrageous and meaningless claims that the believers point out at. To the contrary, Science provides clear reasons and proofs behind any claims and unlike his/her counterpart, a scientific minded person is always ready to accept/review new ideas so long as it�s based on rationale, logic and the methodology of science. For these reasons, I am more of an �Evolution� believer than �Adam and Eve� myths described in Koran and Bible. Born and raised in Kuwait, as I was growing up, I--like many other Muslim children--was sent to a mosque (also functioned as a Madrassa) where I was expected to learn to read the Holy Quran and to memorize wherever possible. I went there after school hours for about 3-4 hours just like many other kids did. There, however, were kids that spent the whole day at the mosque. They not only read and learnt the Quran but also did all the chores for the Imam, which ranged from washing his clothes to cleaning the whole mosque. It supposedly is considered a �sawab� or a virtuous act. A pupil should serve his or her Imam, we were taught. It is one of the pathways to heaven. At first, I was determined & curious to learn about Islam very sincerely. Initially it felt as if I were going to school to learn math or science. With time, however, I realized- a mosque is nothing like a school. Students were supposed to learn what the Imam asked them to, and they were forbidden from asking any questions. When I asked questions like what the meaning of a particular verse was, I was told �The teachings of the Almighty ought not to be questioned� or the Imam would give me some mumble jumble answers that made absolutely no sense to me or others and I dared not to ask him to repeat it. The Imam always had a thin bamboo stick with which he would punish children, if they didn�t read accurately or as in my case, asked too many questions. There were children as young as four years old and he had no mercy for anyone. It seemed as though he enjoyed a strange delight when punishing the children. When he hit me for the first time, I came home, aggravated and complained to my parents. I strongly believed, my parents would not let me go back but to my horror, I was wrong. They sent me right back. My mother told me when she was a child, her mosque episode lasted only three days. She discontinued because the Imam hit her for no reason. I made the same plea but I was left with no choice but to return. Since I was not allowed to ask questions at the mosque, but to read mundanely chapter after chapter from the Quran with absolutely no understanding, I indulged in asking questions at home. Who is Allah? Where is Allah? Is Allah a HE, or SHE? Why do we use HE but not SHE or IT to when talk about Allah? Why do we not see Allah? Why is it assumed Allah is in the sky? How was Mohammad (pbuh) selected to be THE MESSENGER and why? How is it possible that the Quran is the words of Allah? My answers were usually responded with �It is haram (forbidden) to ask questions like that� or �Don�t ask those questions as you won�t be a Muslim anymore� or �Go pray to Allah and ask for forgiveness� or most commonly- a slap on the face. There were tons of more questions arising in my mind as I was growing up and watching and learning the Islamic environment but I dared not to ask. Part of me was scared of the hell fire and the harsh punishment in the after life and another part of me could make no sense as to what I was scared for or what my supposed beliefs were, and if they made any sense to me. I started accepting valid reasons and proofs in science and secretly searched for the same in religion but in vain. I found myself drifting away for Islam. Yet I kept going to the mosque just because I was forced to and it was the �right� thing to do, as I was told. I stopped asking questions both at home and at the mosque. I despised the time of the day during which I spent in the Mosque. I took part in competitions where students were asked to memorize chapters from the Quran and recite in front of the judges. It was merely a memorizing task. Not a single student knew or understood what they were memorizing. The assigned parts were memorized, presented and forgotten. I too was a part of it and won almost all of them. As prizes, we were given extracts from the hadith that were cheaply framed. There was absolutely no motivation or reason to be a part of that world. Finally, I finished the lessons in Quran and refused to go as there was no reason for me to be a part of a world I wasn�t connecting with. At last I �graduated� from the mosque. My parents agreed with me and gave me a break from a few days and hired a �house Imam� to teach us (me and my siblings) Islam. I failed in arguing with them that there was absolutely no need for me to go through this all over again. They refused to listen to anything I had to say, and so it started once again. They believed, apart from praying, some connection with Islam ought to be maintained in order for us to mold ourselves into good Muslims. Imam Iqbal (not actual name) came in for about three hours a day everyday, and taught us how to read the Quran (all over again) and other principles of Islam (which included saying a prayer or �doa� in every act of life, even while answering nature�s call). Again, I was strictly ordered to refrain from asking questions of any sort. I was just to listen and learn. Is this a healthy learning process? Having a �house Imam� was a lot easier than going to a mosque. I was able to make numerous trips to the restroom or to my room or get a drink or sometimes even answer the phone while my parents were napping or sometimes even got my homework done so that I could go out later in the evening. I suited the teaching process according to what I wanted. Occasionally, I would get into the conversation with the Imam (mostly one sided). He would tell us stories from the Holy Quran--stories which, according to him, are infused with �the greatest moral tales� in human history, yet I had no idea what all those meant. Most were very hard to believe and some sounded absolutely ridiculous. For instance, when Allah said the Arabic word �Koon�, the world was made, when HE would say (sometime in the near future) �Fayakoon�, the world will come to an end. There is more to it: Allah asked �Prophet� Ibrahim to sacrifice his son in a dream and accordingly, Ibrahim was doing so to appease to Allah�s will. Meanwhile, Allah--realizing Ibrahim�s love for his son--spared Ibrahim from sacrificing his own son (Isamel) and instead, asked to sacrifice a camel (or sheep). One may ask: how come Allah the omniscient couldn�t realize or predict Ibrahim�s devotion to him and had to wait until the latter was about to slaughter off his own son? Is He extraordinary or just a product of the fabricated myth created by humans? I was told, Prophet Mohammed married all the women to save their lives from the then cruel society, including 6 (had sex when she was 9) years old Ayesha when he was about 51 years of age. Some of these �stories� were unbelievable while others I thought were pure crimes. Imam Iqbal criticized everything I did starting from the way I dressed, my eating manners (I usually held, and still hold, the spoon with my left hand�supposedly, a Satanic act in Islam), my athletic nature, love for music, books I read, choices on TV programs, friends (Christians and Hindus, boys), freedom, education etc. He always told me he was a �pure man� and that I should learn to be like him. While speaking with a woman, unless absolutely necessary, he refused to look at her (I shouldn�t be interacting with the opposite sex, as he advised). Indeed, he never looked at my mother in the eye while talking to her and spoke to her only when it was unavoidable. He went to the extent of hanging up the telephone if my mother answered when he called. He wouldn�t keep any request my mother made and waited till it came from the man of the house, my father. He, however, would stare hard at my bosoms, my sisters� and women�s on the street. My parents wanted me to memorize the Quran (Duh!!). The �house Imam� instructed me to start with Sura Yasin, supposed to be the most important and powerful of them all. I was to remember this all my life and if I dared to forget, I would go straight to the hell and burn in fire for the rest of my �after life�. When asked why, I was told I ought not to question the scriptures. This answer would drive me insane. There were so many confusions inside me and with time I realized it existed among everyone but they simply avoided it. They saw only what they wanted to see, and pretended to understand everything. Everything else was filtered in their minds. This included my parents too. My �house Imam� taught another set of children just like me and my siblings. They were four sisters, ages ranging from 8 to 16 years. He picked the afternoon (3�5 pm) shift to teach them and then came over to our house in the evening. Their parents would return from work at about 4:30 pm, which meant the parents weren�t home for most of the period when the Imam gave lessons. One evening Samira (not actual name)--the oldest of them all--called me and was frantically sobbing. I was trying hard to process the words coming from the other end of the phone. On calming down, she told me the Imam had molested her youngest sister, Salma (not actual name), the 8 years old. I wasn�t sure if I wanted to believe her. She unfolded the incident to me. The abuse had started after about a month of the Imam started his educational visits. The youngest would sit closest to him and was the most vulnerable. Salma was a very quiet girl and usually kept to herself. She was fond of drawing, coloring and fairy tales. Initially the abuse wasn�t too �harsh.� The Imam would touch her feet with his, under the table. Slowly, he started grabbing her feet with his. She complained to her sisters and parents but they ignored her thinking she was trying to get away from taking Quran lessons. This kept going on and the Imam kept moving up her legs. Then he started sliding his hands across her chest �innocently�. Salma kept complaining but realized it was of no use. She started believing it was probably just done unknowingly. After a few months, the Imam started talking dirty to her when she was alone. He would ask the other three sisters to either get him some tea, or sit in the other room and read the assigned chapters in solitary, or would make the pretext Salma needed more concentration. He would then touch her un-developed bosoms, and between her legs, pretending to explain the taboos of Islam and occasionally make her touch his penis. Salma was very disturbed and frightened. He also told her she ought not to speak a word of this to anyone and if she did, it would only result in harsh punishment in hell and death of her parents, stressing much more on the latter. He said he taught these things to her as he thought she was a special one and that Allah had instructed him to give her �special� lessons. Such was the nature of �special� lessons! While this continued, one afternoon when Samira�s mother was napping in the other room, Samira came in to offer some tea to our Imam--only to watch a horrific sight. She saw he made her little sister touch his bare penis. Salma had tears running down her cheeks. The Imam, frightened, got his act together, ran out the door and never returned. Samira, having been ignored about her earlier complaints of the Imam, yelled at her mother. This time, however, her parents were terrified too. Her mother asked Salma how long this was going on for, and her response was �a long time�. Her parents now believed her. This young girl was sexually abused right in her house, almost in front of her sisters, with their mother in an adjacent room; by a man her parents trusted the most. Samira called to warn me of the Imam. I listened to it all and wasn�t sure at the time what was the right thing to do. Shocked and in disbelief, I reiterated the whole incident to my mother. She refused to believe it, or just pretended not to, and said bluntly �That�s not possible. Do you think the Imam is crazy?� No matter how hard I tried to tell her this was true, she said I had no choice but to continue my lessons. His next round was our house. I warned my sister. She believed me for obvious reasons. So we continued to take lessons from him. My mother strictly asked my father to be present while we were taking lessons. To this day, I still try to understand why my mother refused to believe me yet she asked my father to be present every single day from that day onwards during our lessons. I still question, why my parents didn�t discontinue the lessons. I had lost all respect for this �man of God� and behaved as harshly as possible in the absence of authority. I believed this was the zenith of it all. How can a �man of God� commit a crime so harsh and get away with it? How can a criminal preach the importance and the divinity of a religion? Why would any adult abuse something as pure as a child? Is this religious justice? Is this what the Imam learnt when he was a child? Was he abused too? Imam Iqbal was very much aware that he was committing a grave crime as sexually abusing an innocent child in front of so called Holy Quran before which he had performed waduh (sanctifying ritual before a prayer). Where is the fear of Allah in this act? Reading this story, many bigoted Muslims and those sympathetic to them would probably ask, how could you base your judgment of Islam on a single isolated (?) incident (�house imam� story in my case)? Or, why blame Islam for the fault of its follower? In that case, I have got something to say here: What use, if any, is a religion, if it cannot stop its own �sacred preachers� from deliberately committing sin? Why Islam, the truest and the greatest religion�as its followers claim�fail so badly to stop its followers from committing such a heinous crime as sexual abuse of a child? Where does the greatness of a religion lie--just in myths? Or is it because � to cure evil in human nature we�ve mistakenly adhered to religion�an artificial remedy? So ironic is the fact despite prevalence of so many odd, abusive and mediocre traits among their preachers, common people continue to believe that a person cannot be honest, decent without subscribing to some form of religious belief. Indeed, from what I have seen-an atheist�s sense of morality is much stronger and deeply rooted than that in most of the �preachers of God.� Let me share another true but small episode: A �gentleman� I know walked out of a mosque after the Maghrib prayer and snapped the tires of another gentleman�s car with a pen knife. As I was passing by and noticed the action, I went up to him and questioned him to which he replied, �Ami sure shalar beta amar gaarir tire puncture koreche. Dekhi aj kemne amar garir shamne park kore!� (�I�m sure that the guy punctured the tire of my car. Let me see, how he parks his car today in front of mine.�). Remember, we�re talking of a man who had just walked out of a mosque after the prayer. They were neighbors in continuous dispute. There are plenty of rumors about Imams and preachers of other religions, mostly relating them to sexual abuse, child abuse and misbehaving with women. I refused to believe them initially. Now however, I believe these rumors are out and about due to some reasons. Something must have happened somewhere that brought up these rumors. I have spoken to women in �Imam Families� that speak ill of the men in the family. I passionately dislike Imams no matter how good they are. I dislike any individual who tries to preach Islam or any religion to me or anyone. As said already, I didn�t make my decision based on just Imam Iqbal. I chose to write about him because he is supposedly a �pure man� of religion but for sure, we have abundant no. of such Imams in all religions. Let�s take priest as an example. Priests are continuously being reported for sexual abuse of young boys and nuns. These �men of God� ought to be in abstinence all their lives, they ought to give themselves up for God, but are they doing so? Recently it has been religiously legal for priests to get married. The conclusion here is these men can choose to change religion according to their wishes and people just have to keep their mouths shut and accept. Is this fair? Reverting to Islam, there are also other aspects of Islam which I refuse to accept and believe, don�t make any sense to me. As a woman, I find the treatment of women in Islam is unfair, discriminatory & parochial. For example, I felt shocked to learn about the kind of attitude which Islam shows toward women in following verses of Quran. (I�m avoiding quoting �hadith� here since many Muslims would dismiss �hadith� as unreliable). Sura al-Baqarah 2:223: Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will, [My comments: So according to the greatest and truest religion, women to their husbands are just like paddy fields!]
4.11. 4.11-12. A male shall inherit twice as much as a female [My comments: what a crude form of gender-based discrimination by the Almighty Allah the most just!]
4.34. Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other �So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart; and scourge (beat) them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great. [My comments: so �good women� are just like domestic animals�obedient, loyal and always ready at master�s service!]
2.228. �.And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above them. [My comments: what evidence is there that men are a degree above women?] 2.282. �. And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye approve as witnesses, so that I f the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the other will remember. [My comments: so, to suit a man�s intellect, at least, two women are needed? Gimme a break!!]
It�s the
Quranic instructions such as the ones mentioned above that encourage many
Muslims to treat women just like owned slaves. Arab men marry more than a
dozen women in their lifetime. These women have to spend the rest of their
lives alone. They aren�t entitled to divorce or a second marriage. Is this
fair? They say, in the Middle East when a sheikh sees a young girl
and happens to like her, he demands to marry her, enjoys her and then
trashes her. This is very true as I have met women that have experienced
this and are helpless. Some women have gone insane while others have
accepted their fates. Most sheikhs don�t even know how many children
they have. The Middle East is said to be the land of the Prophets and
this is the example they are setting. It is truly a shame.
It is also preached in Islam,
men in heaven will receive seventy virgins (usually stressed upon the most)
in addition to other pleasures. Isn�t this just for luring men to Islam?
Isn�t it obvious these were the methods used to get men to convert to Islam?
Despite their equally inhuman or sometimes, even worse outlook of women, other religions had risen to the challenges of time and undergone reformations. In contrast, Muslim takes pride because Islam has remained same! What an irony! Thus when it comes to treatment of women in religions, Taslima Nasrin�the renowned Bangladeshi feminist novelist and freethinker comments �Every religion oppresses women. I talk about the Quran because I know this book best. It allows for torture and other mistreatment, especially for women. And I despise the Sharia laws [the code of law based on the Koran]. They cannot be challenged. They must be thrown out, abolished.� Today, Jihad is a huge controversy. Why does a religion have to rely on violent methods to serve the mankind? Didn�t Mahatma Gandhi win independence by Ahimsa or non violence? Same goes true about today�s Nelson Mandela. What would be the consequence, if a Jihadi Muslim is to be kept in prison for 27 long years�the period Mandela spent time in jail? Who are the victims of so called Jihad? Why do the common men, children and women that have nothing to do with politics have to be victims? Why do innocent people (majority Muslims in this case) have to be looked down upon as criminals? Can we deny, in today�s world religion is fueling violent politics? Religion simply restricts the horizon to broaden up people�s minds. Our cardinal objective in life should not be to follow any designated religion but to be a good human being. I have emphasized Islam in my article as I have been most exposed to it. But if we look at the world around us, most preachers of almost all religions preach what they don�t practice themselves. I strongly believe, I am a better individual than many other very religious people I have met in my life--both old and young. I am proud to be who I am--a freethinker. I am proud to learn and build myself according to my own criteria of what is right and what is wrong. I abide by the motto: Whenever possible, I�ll try to be good at others but if I cannot, for any reason whatsoever, at least I have no right to cause any harm to others. But in either case, I don�t need someone telling me who I am supposed to be and molding me in their desired way. I believe in myself and in my ideals�love, reason, science and understanding. -------------
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