I, Rayhana Sultan.

I still remember the afternoon 5 years ago when my father casually pointed me towards a jar of high-pressure medicine. He told me if I took enough of those capsules, I will die. He couldn’t tell me honestly that he wanted me to die for all the shame I have brought upon him and his honour. It would make sense why: until then, I had broken so many rules of my Muslim family and they, at the end of every episode of domestic abuse and psychological torture that they inflicted on me (and other women and children in the family), tolerated. But when I finally broke the culture of silence and became a witness to an Enfield police officer after a male uncle assaulted his 8 year old son, the honor of my family was spoiled and for my parents that was the last straw. Of course, I didn’t take those capsules and die, so then came a wave of abuse and a kidnapping threat few years later.

I still remember that day my father showed me something, I, back then was searching desperately: a swift and painless way to end my life. That clear afternoon of good sunshine is stitched in my brain. It will stay with me for a long time. I know, regardless of the coercion and the abuse from my father, I was still his favourite child. So for him, it must have been painful. I can only imagine, holding my first newborn and raising them to adulthood amid day-to-day hardship and sacrifices. I wouldn’t want them to die for my faith.

That day was the beginning of a very long journey. Being slammed against the door, having your hair pulled, being slapped, spat at and beaten with leather belt, a hanger and a metal ruler since the age when you are as young as 8, all the way to when you are a fully grown woman of 26 years old, can take a toll on you. It can make you very angry. It can make you desperate to go out of your way to ask for help. And when you finally get help, leave an abusive family, an abusive culture and rebuild a new life, it can make you feel a little empowered — empowered enough to help others like you. It is the right decision to leave my family that meant so much to me but where my freedom was held hostage by the Muslim honor culture. If I could go back in time, I would do it again. But this time when I hug my family for one last time, I would hug them a little longer.

My dream job was to be an economist, not just because I love the subject but because I was constantly told I wasn’t good enough to be one, and that the degree was just to bring honor to my Muslim family and help me find a suitable husband. I wanted to be a self-sufficent economist because I didn’t want a husband to feed me in the first place (and also because I love the subject). When I finally left my abusive community and was in the process of rebuilding my life from scratch while dealing with homelessness and unemployment, I was very determined that outside my day job, during my sparetime and in the weekend, I could do something that would help others who were once defenceless like me. So I knew, for the life that was still flowing in me, that I wanted to help other Ex-Muslims who endure the violence and abuse everyday that I left behind.

So in 2015, with the help of some activists I have met, I launched #ExMuslimBecause. It became very popular and controversial. I met some brilliant Ex-Musilms and Muslim allies who showed solidarity with Ex-Muslims — i.e. Muslims who have renounced the Islamic faith. In the bigger context of the serial murder of athiest bloggers in Bangladesh and the rise of a new breed of Islamic State terrorists back then, standing up against the blasphemy law of death sentence in 13 Islamic countries and the worldwide persecution of Ex-Musilms was as ever important as it is now.

I started campaigning for the human rights of Ex-Muslims because I hoped in my lifetime, blasphemy laws in the 13 countries will be abolished. Ex-Muslims will live with equal dignity as Muslims. Ex-Muslims emerge from the Muslim world and some of their most loved ones, their mother, father, sisters, friends or a lover are all Muslims. So the ultimate outcome of the campaigning for the human rights of Ex-Musilm had to be one where both Muslims and Ex-Muslims respect one another. I had thought, my campaign #ExMuslimBecause, which I launched to give a voice to Ex-Muslims would go in the direction of achieving that outcome. I was wrong.

It took less than half a day for #ExMuslimBecause to go viral worldwide, praised as well as framed in a negative light. As someone who was new to activism and a Bangladeshi immigrant in Britain who had no background knowledge of what far-right, white supremacist politics is, it took me about a year to realise my cause was hijacked by anti-Muslim, far-right groups. Fake far-right accounts and bots were created to constantly tweet anti-Muslim remarks using the #ExMuslimBecause hashtag while those allied with powerful Islamist groups made this a golden opportunity to label #ExMuslimBecause as “racist” and “Islamophobic’’. Rational criticism of Islam, Islamist extremism or Islamised politics is not a criticism of Muslims but this fact was conveniently ignored while the campaign #ExMuslimBecause was caught up in a crossfire between the far-right and the far-left. There were times I had consistently reported far-right Twitter trolls for anti-Muslim remarks but they were barely addressed by Twitter.

It is now imperative that achieving equal rights for Ex-Muslim apostates in the Islamic world will not be possible while this identity politics is hijacked by far-right, anti-Muslim groups in the Western world to spread malice and violence against Muslims as a monolithic, ethnic community. Because such anti-Muslim discrimination also fuels the victimhood machine that reinforces Islamist extremism. I wanted #ExMuslimBecause to be free from this toxic identity politics and wanted it to be apolitical — I wanted #ExMuslimBecause to be a platform that not only upholds the freedom of speech and thought that is censored in much of the Islamic world but also one of self-care and self-development. I wanted it to be a platform that addresses social issues affecting Ex-Muslims in the Islamic world every day: their mental health, the domestic abuse and coercive control they are exposed to, forced marriage, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Male Genital Mutilation (MGM), the fervent anti-semitism and xenophobia against polythiesm such as Hinduism, the persisting threat of Islamist extremism… the list goes on.

So when I failed to launch #ExMuslimBecause as an independent, non-profit organisation that focus on the well-being of Ex-Muslims, I launched a similar online platform called ‘’Empower Ex-Muslims’’. Then, I again made a mistake. I made the very mistake that I was trying to avoid: beng sucked into the vortex of identity politics. I forgot that these same issues I am speaking of that affects Ex-Muslims also affect Muslims, in fact, the most vulnerable of them. I forgot that the community that is most persecuted and is at risk of Islamist radicalisation, violence and gross abuse are none other than Muslims who speak up against it or want to escape it. I have always maintained that freedom from religion is as much important as freedom of religion. So dignity of Ex-Muslims matter as much as dignity of Muslims. I have always shouted on social media that the suffering of Ex-Muslims should never, in any way, be used as a stick to beat the Muslim community as a whole. Gaining Twitter followers feels amazing but I have deleted hoards of anti-Musim, far-right bots that would follow me just for tweets related to Ex-Muslims so they could be used to spread malice against Muslims. There is already enough groupism in the world with polarised global politics. So any day, any one should oppose using the death of Ex-Muslims at the hands of Islamists as a way to justify spreading hatred against the general Muslim popultion like the way hatred against Jews is spread in the Islamic world.

Victims of the Christchurch Mosque terrorist attack, 2019

I talked the talk. But I fell short of walking the walk. I realised it the day I woke up to the news that 51 people were murdered at the Christchurch Mosque Shooting. There is a heavy guilt that far-right groups that had been bolstered so dangerously leading to the death of the defenceless Muslims, had at some point, have fetched out Ex-Muslims as token and used their experience of abuse in the Muslim community as a weapon to spread hatred against random Muslims who were not responsible for such suffering in the first place. One of my Muslim aunt, my Mami, had survived years of abuse. Her husband, my uncle, would beat her infront of me and my cousin sister when we were kids to teach us to stay within our boundaries. It is difficult to imagine my Muslim aunt being one of the 51 victims because a white supremacist coward lumped an 1.5 billion Muslim and Ex-Muslim population as unworthy of the right to live.

6-year old Muslim girl, Zainab Ansari, raped and murdered in Pakistan in 2018

The decision to finally do something within my own means to break the cycle that connects Islamist extremism to anti-Muslim, neo-Nazi far-right extremism came on this year’s Easter holiday when more than 250 people were killed by Islamist terrorists in Sri Lanka. The decision I took is that I will no longer allow #ExMuslimBecause and ‘Empower Ex-Muslims’ to be used by anyone to serve exclusionary identity politics. The more the Muslim world is demonised, discriminated and segregated from a multicultural, globalised world as punishment for the acts of terrorism perpetuated by Islamists or as a bizarre gesture to respect medieval practices such as FGM, forced hijab to avoid being called ‘’racists’’, the more they are at risk of radicalisation by Islamists.

Aftermath of the Ramu attack where Islamist hardliners destroyed Buddhist temples, 2012.

The means of bringing multiculturalism, pluralism and liberal values to the Muslim world has got be one of hope and ambition. It has got to be one of breaking segregation and engaging in dialogue. It has got to be one where the Muslim culture is open to the ideas of Hindu or Buddhist cultures if we are to truly avoid news where Muslim hardliners vandalized precious Hindu temples, or news where Islamist militants killed Coptic Christians at another mass.

Anti-LGBT protest held outside utside Anderton Park School

It has got to be one where LGBT+ Muslims are empowered enough to speak to conservative Muslim parents in Birmingham who oppose education in marriage equality and believe in misogynistic views such as “women were created for men’s pleasure”.

It has got to be one where honest conversations are held with Muslim parents on antisemitism and make opportunities for them to understand the Jewish culture so that not another Jewish child is bullied mercilessly by his Muslim classmate who he once thought would be his best friend.

Pakistan’s first Muslim Nobel laureate, Abdus Salam

It has got to be one where the first Muslim Nobel Prize winner, Abdus Salam, is given the honor he deserves even though he is an Ahmadi Muslim, a persecuted minority in Pakistan whose cousin was murdered by Sunni Muslims for being an Ahmadi Muslim.

Operation Sanctuary: Chid grooming gangs of Newcastle

It has got to be one where Muslims fightback pedophile rings within its community and safeguard children, not just its own children but the predominantly white and non-Muslim vulnerable teenagers abused and dehumanised by the grooming gangs in Rotherham and Newcastle.

It has got to be one where Sunni Muslims recognise the diversity of its Muslim world and the Islamist terrorists from its community don’t blow up sacred Sufi Shrines in Pakistan.

Khaled Al-Assadd, 82, was behaeded by Islamic State terrorists for not giving away the location of priceless Palmyra antiques

It has got to be one where the passionate historians like Khaled al-Assadd, who protected the priceless Palmyra are not beheaded by Islamic State terrorists.

It has got to be one where Yezidi women were not raped, enslaved, tortured, killed and buried in a mass grave by the Islamic State terrorists.

It has got to be one where elements of a liberal culture and its wisdom in Afghanistan is not erased and replaced by the veil of niqab by the Taliban terrorists.

So reaching out to the Muslim world has got to be one of slow progress, with compassion, tolerance and an honest dialogue about fighting the persisting threat of Islamist extremism. Doing this is very important but it is not possible with an increasingly powerful anti-Muslim, far-right populism growing worldwide that frequently uses Ex-Muslims as a weapon against the general Muslim population. And it is straight up wrong. No Ex-Muslim, in their sane mind, should sympathise with the anti-Muslim, far-right whose fascism is no different from Islamist fascism. Therefore, there can be no other way to promote the human rights of Ex-Muslims without falling prey to anti-Muslim, far-right discrimination than by having an unified platform that not only supports Ex-Muslims dealing with Islamist and anti-Muslim extremism but also supports Muslims understand the threats of Islamist radicalisation and fight back all sorts of hate speech against Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Ahmaddiya, and other ethnic minorities in the Muslim world.

Sufi Whirl

First I thought only the lives of Ex-Muslims are at risk. I was wrong. There are young Muslim girls at risks of FGM and forced marriage. Who knows how many got married today to an old man in Lebanon? There are vulnerable African Muslim men whose fate is beyond help as they are traded in the modern slavery market. There are priceless Buddhist and Hindu temples in Bangladesh and India, targeted by Islamist vandals — who knows when mobs will find another chance to destroy them? There are harmelss Muslim traders in India — who knows when one of them will be humiliated by Hindutva mobs for trading cows? There are beautiful poetry of Sufi mystics and Ghazals in Pakistan — who knows when Sunni Islamist terrorists will destroy them invoking music and poetry are ‘’devil’s ideas’’? There are erotic Islamic art of Middle East — who knows when they will be banned from display in an art gallery like Saatchi Gallery coverd a naked body to appease Islamists in the UK? My father is a Muslim but his lifelong favourite songs are written by a famous Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore — Who knows when militant Islamism will rear its ugly head in Bangladesh again and find a way ban Tagore’s song like they banned literature critical of Islamism?

More than lives are at risk, cultures at risk, ideas are at risk, good songs and poems are at risk. If we don’t act now, the future is at risk. First I thought the threat was only Islamist extremism. It is still the largest threat. Now we have other threats too: Hindutva populism, revival of far-right, white supremacist, Neo-Nazi populism, hardline Buddhist extremism in Myanmar that wiped out a diaspora of Rohingya Muslims.

Through ‘#ExMuslimBecause’ and ‘Empower Ex-Muslims’, I could no longer have focused on making my usual bare minimum difference by supporting only Ex-Muslims because a vile kind of identity politics using Ex-Muslims as token has already been created by anti-Muslim, far-right groups that reinforces the far-right as mainstream politics and ignores the daily injustice experienced by Muslims and minorities in the vastly diverse and heterogenous Muslim world.

Nusrat Jahan Rafi, publicly burned to death in Bangladesh for reporting sexual assault, 2019

I am sorry that I have not thought of it before. In my four years of activism, it took a Muslim woman, Nusrat Jahan Rafi, being burned to death for reporting sexual assault in Bangladesh, the rape of a 6 year old Pakistan Muslim girl named Zainab Ansari, the murder of a Muslim Afghan Journalist Mina Mangal, the despicable persecution of Muslims in China’s concentration camp, the murder of a Iraqi Muslim model Tara Fares killed by Islamist militants for refusing the modesty culture, the thousand women killed for honor in Pakistan , and many to realise it is time to practice pluraism and multiculturism a bit more in practice, by renaming “#ExMuslimBecause” as “#ExMuslimBecause, #MuslimBecause” because freedom from religion and of religion are equally important. And, by renaming ‘Empower Ex-Muslims’ to ‘Empower Muslims & Ex-Muslims’. I am just a one-woman band and the ambition to fight back all sorts of extremism, is an impractical one. It’s going to be an in immensely hard thing to do. But it is the right to do. This is real social justice.

Few weeks ago when the tragic murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi came to the world fora, I tweeted that I won’t let her name die in vain. I wasn’t just scoring internet points. This is what I meant. I was already contemplating if I can support not just Ex-Muslims but also Muslims at risk of abuse and Islamist extremism. Her death told me what the right decision is going to be. And the death of 250+ people in Sri Lanka’s terrorist attack set that decision in stone.

When people become famous on Twitter, they ask for your money on Patreon or Paypal to support their cause. I want to ask for your money too. But so far, I have been successful in this little initiative of mine because it costs me little money which I pay from my own salary which I earn from a 9 to 5 job as an economist — I do that because I put my money where my mouth is. I don’t want your money. There are other ways I want your support. A good colleague of mine told me I cannot save every person in the world. And they are right. This is why humanity is everyone’s shared responsibility. I cannot save everyone is exactly why you exist and the best way to pay me is to do something good with your existence.

If you really want to pay me, here are some ways you can pay me, especially if you are an Ex-Muslim or a Muslim fighting both Islamist extremism and racism:

Be brave. Very brave. Because there is no other way. If you have suffered abuse like me, don’t waste time. Have a plan to leave toxic people and rebuild your life. I lost some 26 years to suffering in silence. That’s 9,490 days. Imaging losing £9,490. I don’t believe in destiny. But if there is one, then it is not ahead of you. It is in you. You decide how you want to see the world, what clothes you want to wear, whether to wear the hijab or not, or take up that electric guitar against an Imam’s advice who says music is forbidden. Seize these finite moments in your life. Be your own legend. If anyone says you will go to hell for questioning or leaving a religion, then be a hellraiser. Learn to cultivate compassion for those who think and live differently than you, espeically if you are a Muslim or an Ex-Muslim. If your heart has compassion for Jews as much as you have it for your fellow Muslim or Ex-Muslim family, be very proud of yourself and nurture this rare empathy. If you are suicidal, be on the side of life. Statistically, zillions of life species have died since the origin of life itself and are dying at this very moment. We are surrounded by death all the time. Death is inevitable. Life is an exception. Make your life worth something exceptionally good. If you are young, prioritise your education. These is not my advice. This is the advice of an asylum seeking mother from Congo who was stripped naked and tortured to death in public by mobs. She died because when the mobs came, the mother offered to have her taken away instead of her children. This is her advice to her children as documented in ‘We are displaced’.

I wanted to write this letter to just Ex-Muslims but now it found a better purpose.

Rayhanaw

(#ExMuslimBecause,#MuslimBecause will reboot when I find volunteers, Empower Muslims and Ex-Muslims is up and running)