Michael Coren with muslim atheist Kacem El Ghazzali

    


Kacem El Ghazzali is a muslim atheist (a "devert?") who warns about the dangers of islam. You'll never guess how in-bred paranoid islam has responded.
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I grew up in a Muslim sufist family, where religion was an essential component. Doing prayers and learning Koran had become so entrenched in my spirit and habits that my father's dream was to make me a cleric. That's why I stopped my studies at school for two years, and was taken to an institute specialized in teaching Koran and Tradition. I learnt the Koran and many hadeeths of Muhammad by heart. We never asked questions or even dared discuss what we had to learn; our only concern was to memorize and to abide by the teachings of Koran and Tradition. During those two years, I was not permitted to wear shorts: I always wore legal Islamic clothing, and even had to follow some ridiculous teachings, by cutting my pants short so they'd reach just above the ankles for example, because Muhammad ordered us to do so. I've never felt at ease in that place, always felt nostalgic to the days I spent in school studying mathematics and philosophy, and always missed my friends and my family, which I could see only once a month. That period was very decisive in my subsequent refusal of Islam, and religion in general. In short, and as not to repeat what every ex-Muslim would say, I think that life is a seed that cannot grow in the soil of Islam. Islam is lethal to the growth of that plant and its potential to please the senses.

I have always been passionate in asking questions since my childhood; questions which used to cause me existential disturbance. I have never treated the Qur'an as a holy text, rather as any piece of furniture in the house. I asked my mother many times why she keeps a version of the Qur'an among her personal stuff since she is unable to read or write. This is maybe why I have considered reading and reciting the Qur'an as any day-to-day habit or cultural tradition, trying in this regard to free it from any spirituality or religious significance and by considering it as a repetitive action like going to the toilet or wearing a type of traditional clothes. And maybe this is what has facilitated, for me, the possibility of discussing it and analyzing its discourse using a skeptical, logical and scientific approach. Consequently, this has pushed me to create straight positions regarding religion and the concepts associated with it such as "god", "punishment", "reward", which has created a big transformation at the level of my life and my relations.

A reasonable person cannot live in peace with a culture or a religion that advocates a complete removal of reason, and a total resort to pre-established religious texts which are never renewed to fit the requirements of our era. Suffices that you call for human rights and right to life for you to be insulted and threatened with violence, even if you're not an atheist; and if you are, that would make you eligible for decapitation. They'd do it with relief and joy of all the virgins and boys they're supposed to get in Heaven. It's the law of the jungle. I can affirm that every Muslim dreams of martyrdom, to book their place in Heaven, but the political and military situation in each country makes them retreat either out of fear or inability. If the situation changes in the future, they'd be ready to execute the unbelievers.

Frankly, I'd like to direct a message to the free world: a call to abolish Shari'a has to be made; it's a law akin to Hammurabi's that Islam copied from Jews, despite the fact that the most fundamentalist among Jews nowadays do not accept to apply it anymore. It's comparable to a weapon of massive destruction. Do you know that during the period when Shari'a was applied in Sudan, more than 7000 hands had been amputated? Not to mention thousands of hands and feet that were cut off, for those who engaged in armed robberies. Do you know that in Iran more than 2000 women were stoned to death so far? We, as free minds belonging to this world, cannot accept that a law that advocates stoning, limb amputation, and lashing, continues to exist. Where's the role of the United Nations? Why is the world ignoring such sadism?

- Kacem El Ghazzali