Saturday, November 10, 2012

What Do I Have To Do Now?

I don't know what it will take to make people believe in me and my story. I have been writing this blog for the last one year, and still some people doubt if I really exist and some even accuse me of being Robert Spencer's creation and that he made me up and he is the one writing the blog himself.

Now for a moment if we believe that assumption, it would mean my friend Bob has a very wild imagination to put himself in the shoes of a woman who happens to be an ex Muslim. Some people here accused me after reading my last blog that my English is too American. Well, what else do you expect? I have grown up with American TV shows. As my fiancé always says, trashy American soap operas, but I don't agree with him, because I owe what I am now to all these American TV shows which I have been watching since I was a toddler. Dallas, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, Magnum, Fall Guy, Knight Rider, Small Wonder, Bill Cosby show, the Jeffersons, Different Strokes, Bold and the Beautiful, Melrose Place, Friends, Beverly Hills, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and the list goes on and on.

So just think using your brains for a change, if I don't get influenced with American TV and speak American English then what else do I use? Mandarin or Spanish? Its funny how people try to look for loopholes to prove that I am not real, and frankly I really don't know how am I going to prove to everyone that I exist and I am not Robert Spencer's creation. OK here is what I will do. I will call everyone personally, whoever is brave enough to give their number. I will call each and everyone of you. What do to say to that, my fearful friends?

You can email your phone number to kshakila13@gmail.com.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The cat is out of the bag -- part two

I am overwhelmed with the response that I got on my last post, and it feels wonderful to know that people who I have never met and who don't even know my real name are so concerned about my safety. Well, rest assured that I am absolutely safe.. I am sure most of you must have guessed that I live in UAE, not Saudi or Kuwait or Iran, or worse still, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This country is too westernised and far too eager to be in the good books of dear old uncle Sam. There is a nightclub and bar in every area and alcohol is freely available, but you need a liquor permit for that, which, by the way, I happen to have, even though I have a Pakistani passport and am a Muslim on paper. There has never been a case of honor killing in this country and not likely to be one now. So please, my dear friends and well wishers, rest assured that I am fit and fine and my family are not going to kill me and jeopardize their future.

Both my brothers have good stable jobs and so do their wives. They live in luxurious apartments and their children attend private British schools. They both have four wheel drive cars and so do their wives. They travel to Europe or the far east every summer. Do you honestly think they would risk losing all that and get deported to Pakistan or put behind bars? There is no way they would forsake their heavenly luxurious lives for anything or anyone, and yes, that means not even for Allah or Mohammed. As far as my parents are concerned, they don't have a penny of their own. My dad is retired and mom a housewife all her life. My two brothers and I support them financially. By the way, I write cheques and give them to my parents every few months. In fact the last time I spoke to my mom, on Saturday, when I told her about my apostasy, the last thing she did before hanging up was to remind me that December is the last cheque she has. I assured her that I will write cheques for the next six months and send the envelope to her with my company driver. So you see, it's next to impossible that my family would kill the hen which lays the golden eggs.


Ok, let's go back to the conversation I had with my mom on Saturday. I made it very clear to her that I left Islam last year in October, four months before I met John, so there is no way they would link my apostasy to him. They know we been together since February and he came to the country in January, so his life is no danger at all.  To be honest, the phone call with my mom didn't end that bad, at least not as bad as I had expected. In fact, I almost felt she actually understood why I did what I did. She was in a shock, no doubt, but she never said don't call me again. When I was telling her about Mohammed and how he made it all up and he invented Islam just for his own benefit and financial gain, she never said she doesn't want to hear about it. In fact she said she is too old to even consider doubting Islam and she wants to spend rest of her remaining life in peace. I didn't tell her openly that I am a Christian now lest she blames John for proselytizing me, but I did say to her that even though I may not believe in Allah and Mohammed anymore, I still do believe in God but he is just a different God from yours and he is more loving. He doesn't teach violence and he says to love everyone. I told her more than once that John has nothing to do with my leaving Islam and he is just a catalyst which helped me to come out, or else I might have ended up being a closeted apostate rest of my life. John's life is not in danger because now he is no longer in the picture for them. They are just very sad, disheartened and disappointed in me, that how can our daughter or sister do this after being such a pious Muslim all her life.

The phone conversation with my mom proved to be very constructive and I have a gut feeling it won't be the last.

The best thing out of all this is my mood swings are not as bad. I don't feel like crying all the time because that burden is finally off my chest. I no longer have to pretend anymore, in fact, the last two nights I have slept really well. I haven't felt this light hearted since I left Islam last year. I no longer have to pretend being a Muslim and I don't have to hear those lectures about going to hell and offending Allah, because now they know I don't believe in Allah or Mohammed anymore. Now my brothers and their wives won't forward me stupid hadeeth or ayaats because they know it means nothing to me anymore. So in a way, I am relieved that finally I can live an honest life, no more pretense.

I am actually happy...

Saturday, November 3, 2012

The cat is finally out of the bag...

Oh yes, there have been some massive new developments. I have finally come out in the clean. Told my family today about my apostasy. I told my mother and my two sisters in law that I am no longer a Muslim, though I wish I had done this long ago. It's been a few hours since the bombshell, and I am sure they would have told my dad and brothers by now. It's been on my mind for some time, because I am sick and tired of pretending and living a dual existence, especially since my family had been sending me feelers, and as I mentioned last time, my brother and their wives wanted to get to know John better and were trying to accept him as part of the family, but all this was really not genuine, because they had an ulterior motive. They were assuming and expecting John would become a Muslim and do a nikah with me.

Today it was the last straw, when I ran into Sara and Uzma at the gym, my two sisters in law. They as usual had a message from my mom. She and dad apparently wanted to meet me somewhere and get some clarification about my faith. What clarification, I asked, to which they said my parents are concerned about my faith, if I am still as devout a Muslim as I used to be, and would John do a nikah with me in the mosque and would he recite the shahada in front of everyone. For a moment I was tempted to just go on with the charade that I have been playing for the last one year, but then I thought, what the hell. I am tired of living a lie and it's high time I come out with the truth. What's the worst that can happen? My parents have already disowned me, and perhaps they would disown me a grade higher, perhaps tell the world their daughter is dead, or worst come worse, they would just kill me, which is highly unlikely in this part of the world. They are old and retired and lived all their lives in the middle east. They don't want to spend the rest of their lives behind bars, or worse still, get deported to the God forsaken Pakistan, which is literally a hell on earth.

I knew my parents could not do much, so I just blurted out to Sara and Uzma that I am not a Muslim anymore. Gosh, you should have seen the look on their face, as if they had seen a ghost or something, they looked fearful and terrified and shocked. As if I said something so unbelievably shocking and demonic that hearing those words would bring a curse to their lives. They said, what? What do you mean? Please say you didn't really mean it. Please don't let us down like this. We have convinced your brothers to let it go and accept John, and we are trying to convince your parents as well. If this is true, then we won't be able to do anything, and if we tell this to our husbands, they would never let us speak to you again, and you would never be able to see your nieces and nephews again, because you will be literally dead to us.

I said that I have been living this lie, this facade for over a year, trying to please everyone and see that no one gets hurt, but I just can't do it anymore. They said they don't have the guts or courage to tell about my apostasy to my parents and that I should do it myself as soon as possible, because they are actually hoping for a reconciliation with John and me on the condition that John accepts Islam in front of everyone and does nikah, which is the Islamic marriage ceremony with me in the mosque. So I said fine. I will do it. I called my mom right then and there.

She was so shocked to hear from me after months, and I asked her, what clarification are you looking for? Sara and Uzma told me this morning, and I thought, it's about time we have a heart to heart conversation and an honest conversation for a change, with no lies or deceptions. Then she started pulling out all the skeletons from the closet, saying we trusted you so much but you let us down, you went against the teachings of Islam. You didn't just offend your parents, but offended Allah and his prophet, to which I said, Yes, about that, Mom, you see, I don't believe in Allah and his so called prophet anymore. I disowned Allah and Mohammed a year ago, and you know what? I have never been happier, Mom.

I swear you could have knocked her over with a feather. She was absolutely silent for a few seconds; then she said that they had started to doubt that I have moved away from my faith but they never thought for a moment that I would actually apostasize from Islam like that. I told her that even I never imagined I would give up Islam, as I was so sure of it all my life that this is the only truth, the only path that leads to heaven, but now that I know the truth, I feel I want to tell the whole world about it. I told her the whole story then how in the summer of 2011 I had got the English quran from Pakistan, and how the book seemed so fishy to me, nothing in it made sense. I told her that all my life I had merely read the quran without understanding it, but this time, I actually studied it like a scholar would, not only quran but the hadeeth and the sira and all that because one day I had accidentally stumbled upon www.alisina.org and then from there I got into jihadwatch and the rest, as they say, is history.

I told her that if she wanted, I would send her the links to those websites so she could check out the truth herself that Islam is nothing but pure deception, a cult created by none other but the self proclaimed prophet Mohammed. I asked her a question which left her speechless. I said, Mom, how can you say Islam is a religion of peace when the first thing it says is to kill anyone who leaves it. Isn't that ample proof that it's a cult, an evil cult? She said that she was not interested to hear about all that and she was very happy being a Muslim. We had a very long discussion on this, which I will write about in my next post. Till then, have a great weekend, friends. To be continued.