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Disassociating Oneself From The Muslim Identity Because Of Sectarianism
Hello sir, I’m an indian muslim. I started practicing atheism at the age of 13-14 when I was fed up of certain wrongdoings in the name of religion specially, Islam. At that time civil wars etc were happening in middle east countries and those people used to spread videos of their mass killings in the name of religion, on social media. So in that perplexity, I left Islam as a teen. But when I didn’t get answers for some obvious questions about life, I started to reconsider religions. I read some islamic books and quran, and I started reading bible and geeta too as I was influenced by them since childhood. I found and I still observe this that most people, particularly muslims don’t follow their deen. After I’ve accepted islam I’ve always eager to study different interpretations of it. I went from barelvi to deobandi jamati school of thoughts and from there I followed an Allama and now I find Ghamidi sahab’s arguments strong and appealing. But the problam with me is that I left islam because of muslims which I consider most risky decision of my life and until now I have many light and dilute disputes (politely from my side) with muslims over islam. In short I’m still not emotionally proud or anything like that to attach myself to muslim community. And over past some years, muslims are continuing their collective negative mindset about goverment and other communities like only all of them are responsible for their current state. First the 3 Talaq issue, then Babri mosque, then NRC CAA issue, killings of animals other religions consider as sacred, and these events seems to be suddenly growing exponentially. In this year we’ve had hijab row, another alleged mandir turned into mosque issue and now this blasphemy issue.
My problam is, I’m having very very strong disagreements with the attitudes of muslims towards these kind of issues. From past couple of days, they’re protesting throughout the country againt a blasphemous statement by a woman and in that attempt, they’re being violent in their protests. This community is not ready to accept simple logics and this is resulting in negative sentiments about muslims from other communities, which is completely fair. Many people can disagree with this last statement but if they just change their perspective to an objective non muslim, they’ll get to know how others are perceiving this community.
I’m seriously still not a muslim just because I was born as a muslim. In fact, I left their religion long ago and accepted a faith purely because it appealed my mind. I want to detach my self from this community. What does islam say in this?
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3 Replies
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Disassociating Oneself From The Muslim Identity Because Of Sectarianism
updated 1 year, 10 months ago
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First of all, I invite you to study Islam from the perspective of the Quran and how Prophet Muhammad SAW preached and practiced it. You’re correct that there’s a lot of confusion amongst people about Islam, however, I can assure you that by and large it stems from ignorance and lack of knowledge. The only way to counter this ignorance is through education and continuous learning.
Ghamidi Center and various other Al-Mawrid organizations have been trying for many years to humbly contribute in educating people about Islam as it was given to us by Prophet Muhammad. There are several books, videos, courses, workshops, as well as Q&A opportunities available for people across the globe who are serious about learning their religion.
If you have not yet already read the entire Quran from cover to cover, I advise you to begin there. You can choose any good translation of the Quran, however, Ghamidi sahab’s translation is also available online for free in both Urdu as well as English languages.
Before you read the Quran, it will really help to make yourself familiar with the nature of the book of Quran itself. This can be done by reading the following concise booklet:
Introduction to the Quran (Insights from Javed Ahmad Ghamidi)
Once you have read the Quran with some level of understanding, you may want to read Ghamidi sahab’s book Meezan in which he attempts to explain the entire religion of God in a very methodical manner. This book is also available for free online as well as in the Ghamidi app.
Secondly, what must be understood is that different prevalent viewpoints or the confusion about Islam amongst the masses is not a basis for atheism (conclusive denial of God). Existence of God is established beyond reasonable doubt independent of such confusions. There are various discussions on Ask Ghamidi regarding this topic that you can search for. You can also post new questions should you need any help.
As far as your question about disassociating yourself from the community, I’m not really sure what that really means. If you mean not attending the mosque while you’re still trying to learn and make sense of Islam then there’s no harm in it. Also if you have a different viewpoint about a given incident or a concept than other Muslims then there’s no harm in that either as long as your own viewpoint is grounded in knowledge based upon evidence. However, of course, one should not disassociate themselves from their family and friends.
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Yes sir I consider myself to be a follower of quran and prophet my concern was about my religious identity.
I mean other than being a muslim on paper, can’t I be a good muslim in the eyes of Almighty even if I don’t view my religious identity as muslim ‘officially’.
What I think is yes, there are many good muslims but they’re minority. Most among muslims are viewing islam to gather power politically in all countries.
You must be knowing about the incident, where Shah Rukh Khan, a well known actor and a great influencer, was stopped on airport to ‘check’ him throughout. Why? Because his religious identity was a ‘muslim’.
So this identity matters a lot in this world. And it doesn’t matter if a muslim is practising or not. (Although most good muslims I’ve come across don’t seem to be religious by popular view of muslims).
So all I was saying can I remain a good believer even if I remove my religious identity as a muslim from gov. papers?
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Religious discrimination is only one layer of discrimination. In life there are many more such layers based upon country, region, language, political views, gender, etc.
One should be able to live with their identity despite challenges and learn to deal with them. Simply removing any identity that gets in the way leaves one with no identity whatsoever, and we know that unless one chooses a life of complete solitude, that’s not feasible.
If you consider yourself a follower of the Quran and the Sunnah then you have a Muslim identity that you should be proud of. If your circumstances make it difficult to claim that identity then you should think about how to change those circumstances first and foremost for your own self, then for your family, and then if you have the resources for others as well. Simply hiding behind a different identity is not a solution under most situations.
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