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Here's a bit about who I am and my journey to, through, and out the other
side of Islam.

I was first introduced to Islam when I was 18 years old by way of my

former husband, a none-too-practicing (at the time) Sunni Muslim from
Egypt. We fell in love quickly and soon planned to be married, as he felt
Muslim guilt (sigh) over having a girlfriend. I figured I should find out
something about Islam if I was going to spend the rest of my life with a
Muslim, so he arranged for me to meet the wife of a friend of his who was
an American convert. She gave me a Quran and answered my questions and in
the coming months we spent many hours talking on the phone. I was curious,
but skeptical, and asked all manner of perplexing questions, such as, "How
do you know aliens didn't write the Quran?" I had no intention in the
beginning of converting to Islam, but I had decided to learn a bit merely
to better understand my fiance's background and beliefs.

I was impressed by the fact that this woman clearly had chosen a lifestyle
and not simply a neat set a beliefs to hang on a shelf and pull down when
times got tough. I was surprised, but not put off, by the fact that she
dressed very modestly and wore a headscarf. I thought it was cool that she
was so out of the mainstream and I identified with that as I had always
felt different from the world around me. I listened intently as she
described the relations between the sexes, Islamically-speaking, and
thought it made sense to have more boundaries in society. On an
unconscious level I suppose I wanted some rules to live by, though I was
probably the most free-spirited person I knew at the time.

After some weeks of thinking and reading, I began to feel drawn to Islam
on a more personal level. Through my teen years I had struggled with the
big questions to the point of almost feeling that I would go crazy. Why,
why, WHY were we here, I would ask myself again and again. How could there
be a God? How could there NOT be a God? Over and over my mind would race
and move in circles and debate itself. By the time I met my husband
though, I had more or less reconciled myself to agnosticism and had thrown
all of my energy and passion into the study of dance. It gave me something
to focus on and helped mute the questioning voice in my head.

The fasting month of Ramadan was soon upon us, and I took the surprising
step of deciding to take a month off from my dance training and experience
the fast. Initially I tried to do both, but a full day of dance classes
doesn't really work without food and drink in your body. By this time,
Islam was clearly impacting my thinking and affecting me emotionally.
However, I had rejected Christianity previously because it didn't provide
the proof I was looking for and was not compatible with science. Any other
religion would have to pass where Christianity had failed. So despite my
attraction to Islam for its structure and unique way of life, I didn't
accept it right away because I wanted some concrete proof that I could
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fall back on in my moments of doubt.

I ended up going to the local mosque in Brooklyn, NY (which incidentally

was the mosque that Meir Kahane's murderer attended) for a weekly halaqa
for American converts. At some point I was introduced to the idea that
Islam was perfectly compatible with science. Intrigued, I went to a
lecture on science and the Quran around this time, but I left still
unconvinced.

A few months later I was off to Egypt for a 6-week honeymoon and had my
first taste of the Muslim world. I was particularly curious about Muslim
women and how they were treated in the family, and especially by their
husbands. We stayed with my brother-in-law and his wife who fortunately
both spoke English. I talked to my brother-in-law's wife about Islam and
eventually they brought someone they considered knowledgeable and
religious to come answer my questions, most of which at the time centered
on the status of women in Islam.

I had issues with polygamy, male dominance, unequal inheritance, etc and I
asked about all of those and more. I was struck with how this man had an
answer for everything, though the answers were not always what I wanted to
hear. After he left I felt depressed and confused and remember crying in
frustration. I had developed an emotional attachment to Islam, felt it was
probably from God, WANTED it to be from God, but at the same time, felt
some of its laws were just too hard to swallow.

I returned to the US not any more convinced than when I had left in an
empirical way, but with less fear and more understanding of the Muslim way
of life, and this set the stage for me to continue my journey with less
trepidation than I had previously felt. I continued attending the classes
at the mosque and eventually acquired a copy of "The Bible, the Quran, and
Science" by Maurice Bucaille. Though I had approached this subject early
on, I was emotionally primed, I now realize, to WANT to accept Islam by
this time. The author's thesis that within the Quran there were so many
scientific pieces of information that were unknown at the time of its
writing that it must have a supernatural author was just what I wanted to
hear and see him prove. By the end of my reading the book, I was ready to
become a Muslim.

PART TWO:

As to my leaving Islam, here is a letter I wrote to a friend at the time

on the subject:

When I first converted, I was very strong in my faith. Something that is

stressed here in the West among Muslim missionaries is that the Quran and
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science are in perfect agreement, unlike the Bible and science. This
impressed me very much, and these "scientific proofs" that were presented
ultimately led me to convert. In addition, the Quran is said to be
preserved just as it was 1400 years ago, and so there was no reason to
doubt if it was really the same message that Muhammad had first preached.
Muhammad's character as "the best of creation" gave me a clear guide.
Also, it was emphasized that because the message is word-for-word what
Allah said, that there is no room for doubt and must be followed exactly.
That was good for me, because it gave me something so black and white when
before I had felt so lost and confused.

But in that starkly-demarcated view is also what led to my loss of faith.

Any book which is God's guide to man should leave those who follow it
feeling good and their life should be better than others. In some ways, I
felt this was certainly true. Here in the West especially, Muslims often
feel their lifestyle is glaringly superior to that of the general society
because they don't engage in premarital sex or drink alcohol or do drugs.
Certainly, all of these prohibitions have some merit, but eventually I
realized that ANY thinking person could figure these out. It wasn't
necessarily "Allah's perfect guidance".

Meanwhile, over time I started to notice some of the negative

characteristics that Islam encourages in people, both from my own
experience as well as that of the world at large, and in the latter I am
speaking specifically about terrorism. Most Western-raised Muslims are
quite appalled by the idea that Islam is associated with terrorism, though
it is my experience with Arab Muslims in particular that they often see it
is a reasonable method of waging ³jihad´.

On this issue, I particularly started to notice a shift in my thinking

after participating in an online forum. I noticed that my views did not
match those of other Muslims and I was forced to think about why that was.
In the end, especially after doing some reading on the battles in the time
of the Prophet and the idea of waqf (Islamic trust) making Palestine
permanently Muslim land, I really started to see that Islam does not
encourage peace, but insists on war unless its stringent demands are met.
Part of me had always known this, but I guess I was so sure that that was
what Allah wanted, that I didn't feel uncertainty about it.

But getting back to the new test I was setting up for my faith-- If this
is really the word of God then it will make the world a better, not a
worse place-- I could see that it was not passing. I could see, for
example, that there would never be peace in the Middle East as long as
Islam had anything to say about it.

And the idea that Islam is a perfect lifestyle handed down by God was
assaulted in my mind by other glaring facts as well. Here are a few that I
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either personally encountered or considered on a theoretical basis:

1) Men may marry up to four wives, and the wife can do nothing to stop
him, save asking him to divorce her. He can refuse, and then, unlike him
who can divorce her by saying "I divorce you", she must go to an Islamic
judge and plead her case and hope he agrees that she has a right to a
divorce. If not, she is stuck. Furthermore, she must give him back
whatever he has given her and is not entitled to any share of his
property, no matter how long they were married. I personally know of
several situations where a man has trampled on his wife's feelings and
married another woman. And of course these men do this in full conviction
that God has given them this right. No matter that he will now see his
wife and kids half the amount he used to, or that she will now have access
to only half of the money she had before.

2) Women of the enemy are allowed to be used as sex slaves in times of

war. I had known this, but it was justified to me by saying that it was
only if the women wanted and only because there were no refugee camps in
those days, so ³allotting the women´ to the fighters was the best thing to
do under the circumstances for these helpless bystanders. Eventually, it
did dawn on me that God could certainly enlighten people to better ways,
and besides, I could find no proof that the women even had to agree to sex
with their captors. After all, according to the Quran, they are ³right
hand POSSESSIONS´, not free women with the ability to choose what happens
to them. Furthermore, what woman would agree to sleep with a man from a
group that had just murdered her relatives? Only under coercion, in hopes
of better treatment, would any woman agree to this.

It is often said by Muslims that it is man's natural inclination to become

sexual with women who are helpless and under his authority, so Allah was
just making a halal (permissible) way for this which was the best for all
concerned. The woman would be protected and the man could take care of his
needs without being forced into haram (prohibited things). It never occurs
to these people that Islam also asks people to forgo their natural desires
in other ways, and they generally do, when it comes to other prohibited
things such as alcohol. Ultimately, I saw through the excuses and came to
the conclusion that this practice was acceptable at the time due to the
primitive nature of society, but "God's final message to man" would surely
do better than that.

3) There are many points under the subject of Islam's view of women that I
eventually found to be more based on the thinking of ancient people than
anything based on reality, such as women cannot be good leaders, they are
deficient in intelligence, they are most of the people in hell (despite
men doing most of the crimes!), they must sleep with their husbands
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whenever the husbands wish or the angels will curse them, if God was to
ask anyone to bow down to another it would be a wife for her husband,
women can't pray on their periods because God won't accept the prayers of
these unclean people, etc. And my favorite- men will get the hourieen
(beautiful virgins of Paradise) while the women can go screw themselves-
no virgins for them! In short, the Islamic view of women, much to the
opposite of what I was initially told, is really quite disparaging. I
finally got the courage to look at these concepts critically and to
determine that even a mere mortal of our times wouldn't say such hateful
and demeaning things about women, so therefore, how could God's final
messenger?

4) There is no interest-dealing allowed in Islam. I first started to think

carefully about this one when I was living in Egypt. That is because
almost the entire country is in a perpetual state of building. The skyline
is marred by half-finished buildings that are waiting for their owners to
collect some more savings and build some more.

It occurred to me that a loan would make life run much more smoothly in
these cases. Not to mention that most of the businesses are very small
because they are started with just a small amount of money that the owner
is able to invest from his savings. I started to ponder over whether a
completely interest-free economy would ever be better than the developed
capitalist economies. And certainly it would HAVE to be better, if it were
really based on God's perfect plan for humanity.

In addition, programs such as the Grameen Bank which deals with

microfinancing to poor people would be illegal, as they include some
interest. And of course here in the US it is very difficult to afford
college or a home if you do not pay interest. Remember, the prohibition is
on both taking and paying interest. So basically, you are pretty well
preventing people from improving their conditions in many aspects. And
although there are Islamic banks which structure contracts so that
consumers are not paying money on money, these contracts usually end up
being more difficult and costly for the consumer.

5) Islam allows for the wholesale punishment of groups and the stealing of
their belongings. Would the "most gracious, most merciful" really want a
person to lose his life's savings in tools, land, or cattle because his
tribe had a disagreement with some Muslims?

6) On punishments:

Would God really tell his followers to cut off the hands and feet at
opposite ends of those who fight the Muslims?
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Does God really want the children of adulterers to grow up without their
parents because they need to be executed?

Does God really think that a person who has doubts about His existence or
one who sees grave problems within the Islamic system should be killed?

Does God really want homosexuals to be put to death for expressing what
they feel, often against what they wish they felt?

Does God really think public whipping is the most enlightened way to deal
with those who have sex before marriage?

Does God really want a person who steals to have difficulty for the rest
of his life by losing his hand?

Eventually, it became clear to me that these are merely primitive attempts

at social control. There is nothing enlightened or merciful about them.

7) The book that I read which prompted me to convert, ³The Bible, the
Quran, and Science´ neglected to mention or explain effectively the verses
and hadiths which contradict science such as the idea that the sun rests
above a muddy place or that the stars were created to throw at the devils,
or from the hadith that no soul will come into existence that wasn't
destined to, hence, there is no need to use birth control.(Wrong!)

As I later discovered when researching more about the Quran and science in
order to try to SAVE my faith, the supposition that the Quran confirms
scientific fact isn't in fact true at all. Some of it contradicts, some of
it can be nudged to look like it matches scientific facts, and some is
information based on logical guessing. And strangely, the author has never
publically declared himself a Muslim when asked.

8) Contrary to popular belief, the Quran is NOT the same book it was 1,400
years ago, and this contradicts the Quran itself because it states that
Allah will protect it. However, there is a caveat to this in one verse
which says that Allah will not allow Muhammad to lose any of it, except as
Allah wills. A nice cover in case anyone should notice that the Prophet
forgot some of the verses, or a stray goat should eat them.

I once read a hadith which clearly shows that there were some verses of
the original Quran which are no longer there. I believe they are related
to mutah, the practice of temporary marriage. And yes, a goat is reported
to have eaten the only written copy. Furthermore, when the Quran was
written, it was written without any diacritical markings which would
indicate the vowels or even the dots which could change a consonant sound.
So both the root words and the grammatical gender and number of words
could be lost.
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9) The character of the Prophet came into question for me as well. Why did
he encourage and order such brutal treatment of the Jews? Why did he
"marry" women whose husbands had just been killed by the Muslims? Why did
he have more wives than the other Muslims? Many of his statements recorded
in the hadith also show disturbing thought patterns. If you haven't
already, you could see the www.faithfreedom.org site for specific hadiths
on this.

Ok, so these are some of the major issues I have. I could do more, but I
think you have enough to chew on for a while.

My current religious affiliation is none and I don't think that will be

changing in the direction of any of the organized religions out there.
Certainly all of the Abrahamic traditions have similar problems. I do
still believe that there is a reason we are living this life and that
there is a "God" of some sort. I just don't believe in the messenger-
sending-man-in-the-sky-with-a-big-stick version.

My guiding principle now is that we are all here making connections and
living life in order to learn and grow together as spiritual beings.
Religions are merely human expressions of the longing to understand this
process, but are not the end-all of the process. In other words, I think
life is not for the purpose of reaching the point of believing in some
dogma, whether it be that Islam is God's final message, or that Jesus died
for our sins, or that there are a million gods, etc.

If there is one spiritual belief I have, it is that. I also think it is

highly probable that we have lived other lives before and will live again,
either in this world or some other ones. To say that you've got one shot,
either of 2 years or 40 or 85- just one shot, is illogical to me.

So it is partially because of this belief in the necessity of making

connections with people if we are to grow spiritually, that I am happy to
have conversations with people like you all around the world. It was
through such conversations and readings of postings in Yahoo! Answers and
elsewhere that I was finally able to face my uncertainties head-on. And I
hope for my part that I also have some benefit to others.

You also asked about whether Osama Bin Laden represents the true Islam or
not. Of course, at the time of 9/11 I would have told you absolutely not.
But something I have discovered about myself and other Western-raised
converts is that Islam for us was in large part what we were told it was,
or what we wanted it to be. So we would read the texts with a different
eye than born Muslims and incorporate human rights as we know them into
Islam, mostly on the understanding that OF COURSE Islam doesn't allow this
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or that because it went against our principles of decency. And since Allah
would never give us anything indecent or bad, of course such revolting
acts would be against Islam. However, when looking at the Prophet's own
life, as recorded by Muslims, one gets an entirely different picture. So
now I would say that more or less, OBL has a clearer understanding of
"true Islam" than I did or than many Muslims do.

There¶s a lot more to say, but this is a start«