Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
My goal at trying to prove that Islam was a Religion of Peace continued to get more difficult because I found more Islamic teachings and practises that had nothing to do with Jihad, such as capital punishments prescribed by Sharia that I unknowingly condemned. I discovered how Sharia was really incompatible with western values such as democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of Religion and Human rights by reading fatwas that got all of their information from the Quran and the Sunnah. What particularly bothered me when I learned about the Pact of Umar, because it imposed significant restrictions on Dhimmis i.e. Jews and Christians who pay Jizya because the Jizya tax was a humiliation to Jews and Christians for their kufr (unbelief) since the Quran says “ḥattā yu’ṭul jizyata an yadin wahum ṣaghirun” in Quran 9:29. Jews and Christians were treated as second class citizens even when paying Jizya because as Dhimmis, they would have to move from their seats if a Muslim desired to sit there, they were forbidden from publicly preaching and promoting their Religion, they had to dress and act very differently from Muslims to make it obvious that they were not Muslims, they were prohibited from building new places of worship and even pre-existing places of worship, they were prohibited from converting Muslims to their Religions, while Muslims were permitted to convert Dhimmis to Islam.
Sidenote: To get a full picture of what the Pact of Umar is, check out an article from this Islamic website: https://quran.com/9:28/tafsirs/169?locale=en
The rights of Dhimmis and other religious were significantly compromised and we still see this in many Muslim majority countries, especially ones with strict Islamic law. The amount of restrictions on the religious freedom of Dhimmis troubled me because in western societies like Britain, Muslims are given far more religious freedom than Dhimmis in Saudi Arabia, the very country that Islam originated from. In Britain for example, Muslims are allowed to practise their faith, build Mosques, give Dawah and start Muslim organisations that promote their faith. I grew up in Britain as a Muslim, and I was given a lot of freedom because it was a western society built that separated Religion from state. But are Jews and Christians permitted to do the same in Muslim majority countries Saudi Arabia? Are non-Muslims in general permitted that same level of freedom in such countries? No they aren’t. Just imagine if these restrictions were imposed on Muslims; Muslims would be absolutely outraged, scream Islamophobia and demand for their own Human rights. All of these restrictions on the religious freedom of Dhimmis weren’t made up by some later deviant and fanatical Muslim leaders, they originated from the pact of Umar. And that’s just for Jews and Christians since they are the People of the Book, who receive honorary status amongst non-Muslims because in the Islamic narrative, Jews and Christians are people who believe in scriptures that were divinely inspired, but later corrupted. However, other non-Muslims like Atheists, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists don’t fall under that category, so I imagine that they would have it even worse.
Umar was a Sahabi i.e. a companion of Muhammad, so he knew Muhammad like family. Not only was Umar a Sahabi, but he was also one of the first 4 “Rightly Guided” Caliphs of Islam in the very first century of Islam. Part of what defines Islam is the Sunnah, which not only includes the deeds, actions and saying of Muhammad, but also the 4 rightly guided Caliphs, and Umar was one of them.
Sidenote: Check out this clip of Abu Waleed showing how the Pact of Umar explains why Muslims and non-Muslims aren’t equals from an Islamic perspective: https://www.memri.org/tv/british-islamist-abu-waleed-muslims-should-humiliate-christians-order-make-them-convert-islam
What also bothered me was that in Pakistan, the very country that my parents and ancestors come from, happens to be one of the worst countries in the world for Christians to live in. Christians and other non-Muslims receive such brutal persecution in Pakistan, and it’s not the only Muslim majority country that are bad for Christians and non-Muslims in general to live in.
Sidenote: This paper by Turkish Muslim modernist Mustafa Akyol presents the data on the religious freedom in the Muslim word in 2020: https://www.cato.org/economic-development-bulletin/freedom-muslim-world
This created another problem for my goal because I initially had a very vague idea on what Shari’ah was, which proves how much of an uneducated Muslim I was until I started learning more about my faith outside the Mosque. I knew that ISIS dished out these capital punishments, but my cognitive dissonance prevented me from realising that these capital punishments are a part of normative Islamic law. I realised that belief was not only an act of heresy and blasphemy, so I repented to Allah, asking him to forgive me for my ignorance and foolishness, but even then I was still worried about the lack of success about my goal because I embraced western values, but these values weren’t very Islamic. I wasn’t thinking like a proper orthodox Sunni Muslim, I was thinking more like a modernist, but modernists have been branded as heretics for deviating from what is considered orthodoxy, and the dilemma got worse. Either I should support the Shari’ah, which would mean I support laws and regulations that violate Human rights and freedom, or I would continue object to Shari’ah and think like a modernist, which would mean I would be identified as a heretic and hypocrite who is blinded by love for the world. I tried finding a way to support both, but I couldn’t because it was just wishful thinking. I really felt the pressure from all of this. Learning about the doctrine of Jihad and the reality of the Shari’ah and knowing so much about it meant that I had no excuse to not accept Jihad and Shari’ah as a part of Islam as a Muslim since I was no longer in the dark about it. So for a time, my Islamic values and western values clashed in my mind, and for a while, my Islamic values were actually winning. They were winning because I thought that as a Muslim, I’m not here to please the kuffar, I’m here to please Allah. I can’t compromise my Religion for the sake of pleasing the kuffar.
Deep down in my heart, I actually considered whether I should participate in the cause of Jihad, or at the very least, have the desire of funding Jihad in one way or another, but I was reluctant to support terrorist organisations such as ISIS because I had some of my humanity in me, and part of me still considered these terrorist organisations to be a disgrace to Islam. I also started learning about Islam’s history of religious infighting such as the Sunni and Shia split and their feud that dates back to shortly after the death of Muhammad. I read about a lot of Sunni Muslims being very critical of the Shia and watched Sunni lectures about the Shia, such as “The Reality of the Shia” by Shaykh Muhammad Abdul Jabbar, and I even asked my local Mosque teacher about the Shia, he wasn’t fond of them at all, he claimed that they Shia were not Muslim and said that they’re very mischievous.
I learned so much about the Shia, that they believe that the Quran was changed by the Sahabah and cursed Aisha by accusing her of fornicating and poisoning the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. I also learned that in Iraq, the Shia would kill any child named Abu Bakr, Uthman, Umar or Aisha simply for having these names.
All of this enraged me, so I started holding prejudice and ill will against Shia Muslims because of their blasphemous beliefs. I didn’t necessarily have ill will against all Shia Muslims, but I definitely had ill will against the devout Shia Muslims that were actually practising their Religion. This is a given because Muhammad encouraged his followers to love for the sake of Allah, but also hate for the sake of Allah, and that this was the only way to have perfect hate:
“Narrated Abu Umamah: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If anyone loves for Allah’s sake, hates for Allah’s sake, gives for Allah’s sake and withholds for Allah’s sake, he will have perfect faith.” — Sunan Abu Dawud Hadith 4681.
I didn’t care too much about the layman Shias in my local communities because they didn’t seem devout to me, so I viewed them as harmless, and I didn’t even know them that well anyway because there were so few of them. However, I still stereotyped and generalised devout Shia Muslims as being dishonest and untrustworthy, and I even blamed them for the amount of violence and division in the Ummah because I had the impression that they were responsible for all the religious infighting.
I wasn’t the only one who thought that Shia Muslims were such a huge problem for the Ummah. Imran Ibn Mansur AKA Dawah Man, once even said that the Shia are the biggest problem for the Ummah (Muslim world):
“Many of you do not know things like this, and there are many such things that you do not know that it is necessary and imperative for you to know. Brothers and sisters, primarily because the Shia are probably the biggest problem that the Muslims have ever faced since this Ummah actually came into being, they have caused us the most amount of destruction and problems…” — Dawah Man, “The Reality Of the Shia [MUST WATCH]” time stamp 3:14.
Dawah Man is a very popular Muslim preacher who has a large following from the British Muslim youth. Bear in mind that he said that Shia Muslims are the biggest problem that Muslims have ever had to face since Islam began, so he’s literally saying that Shia Muslims have been a worse problem than the Muslims than Jewish, Christian and Pagan tribes that were hostile to the Muslims. Worse than the Khawarij. Worse than the Crusades. Worse than the ex-Muslim phenomenon. Worse than Hadith rejectors AKA Quran only Muslims. Worse than Jihadist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. Let that sink in.
I was demonizing Shia Muslims and I would say I almost fulfilled the religious duty of Jihad because I subconsciously had the desire to support Jihad against the Shia for their blasphemies and crimes. The only thing that was missing was the fact that I didn’t fully embrace the desire to support Jihad against the Shia. If I did, this would have taken my bigotry against the Shia to a whole new level. Looking back at all of this, I would say that I was gradually being radicalised.
I was only a few steps away from fulfilling this crucial religious duty of Islam, and I can only imagine what I would have turned into if this continued. Luckily for me, the process of being radicalised didn’t develop any further because I decided to halt these thoughts by doing further investigations to see if I would find a way out of it, as long as it doesn’t mean I end up becoming an unbeliever or a heretic. I wanted to find a way out of it that wasn’t sinful. This was happening because my moral compass was telling me that I should rethink what I was doing because it’s not outside the realm of possibility that I am being brainwashed. But looking back, I can understand why I was gradually being radicalised, it was because I was going so deep into Islam, that Islam psychologically pressured me into wanting to become a mujahid. But my moral compass interfered because it was just too uncharacteristic of me to adopt such an extreme view, and brainwashing me is no easy task. But looking back at what my mind was going through, this is by far one of the darkest places that I had ever been in. I was in an incredibly dark place because I was only a few steps away from supporting Jihad against the Shia, that in of itself could’ve easily led me into supporting Jihad against Muslims from other sects and even non-Muslims. Was I an extremist at this point? No, not quite. I had mild anti-Shia sentiments, which would have definitely led to me becoming an extremist if I continued down that path. So It’s not outside the realm of possibility that if this process had continued uninterrupted, I would have become an extremist.
