Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As a law graduate from Pakistan, what was your experience there?

A.M.: What I observed in Pakistan became the main reason for my conversion or the start of rebellion though it was a gradual and long process. Ultimately, it ended up in me becoming an ex-Muslim.

What I observed there was whenever I asked questions about the creation of the universe and ultimately the creation of Allah who was the maker of the universe I was shushed all the time. I was told that good Muslims never ask questions. In fact, I did not know then that Islam had no answers for my questions. Islam needs submission and total blind followers who would follow the faith blindly, so blindly that they would tie the suicide belt for the sake of will of Allah without even asking why they were being deprived of the right to live a happy and fulfilling life.

The test of questions is so dangerous for Islam that It has developed a mechanism of Blasphemy law in Muslim countries to shut the voices and Hate speech laws in western countries to further their agenda without being questioned. You can see Muslims and Islam have become a privileged class and religion, who cannot be questioned in any way. They have the free pass to rape the girls, commit a crime, preach hatred in the mosques, wage jihad on Infidels but if you question their behavior suddenly you are bombarded with the labels of bigot, Islamophobe, Racist from all direction. Media would be bashing you not them.

In Pakistan, no religious leader has regards for the religion. They educate their children from foreign western countries but they themselves teach the children of local followers in their own local Madrassas( religious schools).

No politician follows any religious tenets of Islam which they are supposed to do as Muslims. I have seen the religious clergy on the payroll of the politicians. Who work as a mediators or suppressors of any resistance or thought of resistance, developing in the minds of Masses. In Pakistan, no resistance or revolutionary movement can prosper because the Mullahs preach in their weekly Friday prayer sermons to have patience because patience is what Allah wants and Allah is testing his follower’s power of patience so that he could reward them in the Jannah( paradise).

In other words, people are emotionally and religiously blackmailed into bearing the corrupt and greedy politicians with patience considering it a test from Allah. People believe this nonsense and keep calm just because they have been taught to do so unquestioningly.

Other than that there are various sects of Islam who have bloody and severe differences with each other, very often they clash with each other, kill each other so there is no peace. These differences are so grave and huge that Saudia and Iran are two Muslim countries based on two different sects. During the current mass immigration of Muslim asylum seekers from Syria, Gulf countries refused to accept asylum seeker due to sectarian differences. Islam will bring destruction wherever it would go.

Other than that in Pakistan Mosques use loud speakers for the pronouncement of Azan( Muslim calling for prayer). So different sects have different timings for azan. For five prayers of a day, you have to listen to the noise pollution 40 to 50 times a day. Which drives people crazy but they can’t question because the question would be considered a blasphemy.

Above is the shortest possible scenario. There are numerous uncountable examples of Islam’s Brutality and stupidity.

But still, I was a believer in Islam when I was in Pakistan though a little suspicious about its true nature.

Jacobsen: What prompted the need to flee the country?

A.M.: I have been very active as an advocate in my country. I did a lot of Public Interest litigation and stood for the rights of my fellow Pakistanis. I challenged the corruption of the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Laptop scheme launched by the Government for the students. I even challenged the Nomination papers of Nawaz Sharif before the elections. I challenged the then Foreign Minister’s right to hold the office due to her default in the electricity bills which amounted to 10 million Rupees at that time. Other than that I challenged hike in oil prices and a lot of other things for the sake of elevating Human Rights of Pakistani People.

With the same devotion and determination for making the things right in the Pakistani society. I and my friend decided to start a project for highlighting the issue of child sexual abuse in the religious schools by their own religious teacher who in the most cases were very revered in the society.

We decided to highlight this issue by writing a novel about it. I researched and wrote the preface of that book and my friend wrote the novel. We changed the names of the persons and places but based the novel on some true incidents. The novel was written in English in order to reach the elite of the Pakistan who mostly are used to read and write in English. Even otherwise official language is also English in Pakistan.

The novel after its publication got instant attention from the various class of people. The reason for quick attention was also my personal popularity in the media on the local level as a lawyer and political worker. Anyhow the novel fetched criticism from the Religious Fundamentalists or extremists who instantly issued a Fatwa against us and the novel which was published in a newspaper.

Other than that I was threatened by a group of people who met me outside high court and I was also attacked and was shot at by two bikers which I luckily escaped.

My friend and fellow writer also came under fire. Locals of his residential area protested in front of his house and demanded him dead. He had to flee instantly.

Some Petitions in the high court were also moved by various persons who invoked the high court to punish us under blasphemy law of Pakistan.

In that scenario, we considered it reasonable to run from Pakistan.

Jacobsen: How did you survive when people wanted you dead?

A.M.: The overall environment in Pakistan is religiously biased towards minorities or criticism of Islam. But same is the case with over all mentality of Islam anywhere in the world. Islam’s problem is questioning. Until you don’t question Islam, you are safe. But the moment you start to question or criticise Islam, Muslims become furious. In Muslims majority countries any anti sentiment is dealt with, under the blasphemy law and the punishment is the death penalty. In western countries, anyone questioning Islam is regarded as Islamophobe, Bigot, and Racist to shut down the argument.

I think the reason for our survival in Pakistan despite the extremist’s threats was that we did not contact the authorities or police about it.

In many cases, people who were accused of blasphemy were killed in the custody of the police with the otherwise inside collusion of the officials with the religious fanatics just because the sentiment of anger for blasphemers is same for everyone in Pakistan whether it be a common man or Government officials. Every Muslim wants blasphemers dead.

Jacobsen: You are an ex-Muslim and a blogger. How has this impacted your life, simply writing words?

A.M.: Simply saying that now I am spending a dual life. I am not open about my apostasy for the fear of my life and seclusion from the friends and family. Just because understanding all the deception of Islam is not easy. It’s a lengthy process, not until when you personally read all the credible Muslim sources and make your own opinion about the Islamic Moralities, you cannot reason yourself out of it.

The main cause behind the force of deception is the constant promotion of this deception in the mosques all over the world. Most of them are Saudi funded. It’s a business circle for Saudi Arabia, they get millions of Muslims to visit Saudia for pilgrimage and they earn billions. They spend some amount of money on promotion of Islam and win more visitors to Saudia for religious purposes every year. This cycle goes on and on. They never stop promoting because the business of the whole state depends on religion and oil basically. They are getting richer day by day whereas at the same time they treat other Muslims as 3rd class Muslims. No one is willing to understand this system because they are blinded by faith. This is a vicious circle.

After reading the objectionable content in the credible Islamic sources myself. I became frustrated, I felt deceived and downtrodden. I would like to quote some of the objectionable things here, for example, Killing Infidels, Owning female slaves and using them for satisfaction of your physical desire, and ultimately selling them, marrying someone for short period of time by giving them some gifts, Marrying underage as young as 6 years old, Female and male genital Mutilation, Killing someone for apostasy and blasphemy, denying every other religion of the world, to mention a few. I felt as if my life had no meaning. All along the journey of my life I was living and following a lie. My parents could not understand the true nature of Islam, My friends could not understand it, I had been feeling guilty all my life for not properly following the commands of Allah. Believe me, the sense of guilt is the most tormenting and torturous feeling which I believe every Muslim is filled with as I was. This is the same sense of guilt which forces every Muslim to do something for the sake of Islam. In the name of Allah, to do Jihad or something big so that all of his sins which he committed during his life journey could be forgiven as an only means of salvation.

I felt like bursting with anger that all my life I had been believing this nonsense and wasting my life for nothing. Islam and Muslims force you to become a true Muslim and there is no perfection in the Idea of true Muslim. So no matter what you do there is always something left. So this imperfection creates a sense of guilt which is being played, manipulated and increased by the deceptive preachers of Islam.

For example when you impose a ban on all the natural desires of a young teenage boy of becoming physically intimate with a girl or involving in a game then he would feel suffocation and then you would create an imaginary paradise full of lucrative virgins who would be throwing themselves at him. What would he do, he would do exactly the same thing that all the Jihadi Muslims are doing nowadays. Waging Jihad winning martyrdom for the sake of achieving full breasted, sexy virgins in Jannah. Because the system did not leave any way out for him. This was the only way out of the physical and mental torture.

Jacobsen: How do you fight for human rights?

A.M.: I have been actively fighting for the rights of Pakistani People by filing Public Interest litigations in Pakistan. Nowadays my criteria of the fight are narrowing down to fight for the rights of Ex-Muslims and waking the Muslims up and out of the Barbarian ideology. I feel badly affected and Impacted by the false teachings of Islam. So I want to work for exposing the real teachings of Islam to the world at large. Which still seems to be a hard task because of the sinister collusion of the left with Islam. But still, we are doing what we can. Keeping mum and feeling bad is not gonna get us anything. Am writing blogs, tweeting on twitter, supporting other ex-Muslims and also a few plans are in pipeline.

Jacobsen: What is your next step in fighting for the rights of the non-religious?

A.M.: Now is the time of social Media. Social media is the place where we can spread our message far and wide. I am personally planning on creating more social media platforms to spread our concerns to the larger number of People. Alliance of Former Muslims is a one of such kind of Group which gives us an organized platform to voice our concerns. I really appreciate Kareem and other members of our group for being really active on this front. This struggle is hard but we are relentless, persistent and determined for our cause and we hope to achieve real breakthroughs not quickly but soon.