I was born to a religious family. From my mother's side I have a few relatives who are Ayatollahs. Although my grandfather was a skeptic, in the family where I grew up religion has been the pivot around which our lives revolved. My parents were not very fond of the mullahs. In fact, we did not have much to do with our more fundamentalist relatives. We liked to think of ourselves as believing in the "real Islam," not the one taught and practiced by the mullahs. I recall discussing religion with the husband of one of my aunts when I was about fifteen years old. He was a fanatical Muslim who was much concerned about the filth [Islamic jurisprudence]. It determines the way a Muslim should pray, fast, run his public and private life, do business, clean himself, use the toilet, and even copulate. I argued that this has nothing to do with the real Islam, that it is a concoction of the mullahs and that too much attention to fiqh diminishes the relevance of the real Islam, which is a religion to unite man with his creator.

I believe that I was lucky to have open-minded parents who encouraged me to think critically. They tried to instill in me the love of God and his messenger, yet upheld humanistic values like equality of rights between men and women and love for all humankind irrespective of their faiths. In a sense, this is how most modern Iranian families were. In fact, the majority of Muslims who have some education believe that Islam is a humanistic religion that respects human rights that elevates women and protects their status. Most Muslims still believe that Islam means "peace."

I expended my early youth in this sweet dream: advocating the "real Islam" as I thought it should be and criticizing the mullahs and their deviations from the real teachings of Islam. I idealized an Islam conforming to my own humanistic values. Of course, my imaginary Islam was a beautiful religion. It was a religion of equality and of peace. It was a religion that encouraged its followers to go after knowledge and be inquisitive. It was a religion that was in harmony with science and reason. I thought science got its inspiration from this religion. The Islam that I believed in was a religion that sowed the seeds of the modern science, which eventually bore its fruits in the West and made modern discoveries and inventions possible. Islam, I used to believe, was the real cause of the modern civilization. The reason the Muslims were living in such miserable state of ignorance in comparison to the un-Islamic West was all the fault of the self-centered mullahs and the religious leaders who, for their own personal gain and dominance, had misinterpreted the real teachings of Islam.

Muslims honestly believe that the great Western civilization has its roots in Islam. They recall great Middle Eastern scientific minds whose contributions to science have been crucial in the birth of Modern science.

Omar Khayyam was a great mathematician who calculated the length of the year with a precision of 0.74% of a second. Zakaria Razi can very well be regarded as one of the first founders of empirical medicine who based his knowledge on research and experimentation. Ali Sina's monumental encyclopedia of medicine was taught in European universities for centuries. There are so many more great luminaries with "Islamic names" who have been the pioneers of modern science when Europe was languishing in the medieval era or the Dark Ages. Like all Muslims, I used to believe that all these great men were Muslims, that they had been inspired by the wealth of hidden knowledge that is in the Koran, and that if the Muslims today could regain the original purity of Islam, the long lost glorious days of Islam would return and the Muslims would lead the advancement of the world civilization once again. Yet the reality was harsher than dreams. Iran was a Muslim country but it was also a corrupt country. The chance of getting to university was slim. Only one in ten applicants could get to university and often they were forced to choose subjects that they did not want to study because they could not get enough points for the subjects of their choice. The regime of the shah was a repressive regime and freedom of thought was suppressed. People feared each other as each person could turn out to be a secret agent of the dreaded Sazamane Etelaat Va Amniate Kechrar (SAVAK; Iranian secret police). I was always outspoken and hardly had any "tact" to keep my mouth shut when my life was in danger. The level of education in Iran was not ideal. Universities were underfunded, as the shah preferred building a powerful military force and becoming the gendarme of the Middle East to building the infrastructure of the country and investing in education. Because of all these factors, my father thought I would be better off if I left Iran and continued my education somewhere else.

We considered America and Europe but my father, acting upon the advice of a few of his friends, thought another Islamic country would be better for a sixteen-year-old boy. We were told that the West is too lax in morality, that its people are perverts, that the beaches are full of nudes, that they drink and have licentious lifestyles and all that could represent a danger to a young man. So I was sent to Pakistan instead. Pakistan, being an Islamic country, was safe. People were religious and therefore moral. This, of course, proved to be untrue. I found people there to be as immoral and corrupt as Iranians. Yes, they were very religious. Yes, they did not eat pork and I saw no one consuming alcohol in public, but I noticed they had dirty minds, they lied, they were hypocrites, and they were cruel to the women and, above all, filled with hatred for the Indians. I did not find them better than Iranians in any way. They were religious, but not moral.

In college I did not take Urdu (the national language of Pakistan, much influenced by Persian); instead I took Pakistani culture to complete my A-level FSc (fellow of science). I learned about the reasons for the partition (of India) and for the first time about Muhammad All Jinnah. He was presented as a very intelligent man, the father of the nation, while Gandhi was spoken of in a derogatory way. Even then I could not but side with Gandhi and condemn Jinnah as an arrogant and ambitious man who was responsible for breaking up a mighty nation and causing millions of deaths. I did not see difference of religion enough reason to break up a country. The very word Pakistan seemed to be an insult to the Indians. They called themselves pak, or "clean" to distinguish themselves from the Indians, who were najis ("unclean"). The irony is that I never saw a people dirtier than the Pakistanis, both physically and mentally. It was disappointing to see another Islamic nation in such intellectual and moral bankruptcy. In my discussions with my friends I failed to convince anyone of the "real Islam." I condemned their bigotry and fanaticism, while they disapproved of me for my westernized and un-Islamic views. I recall when I spoke about the hijab ("the veil"), arguing that this has nothing to do with woman's chastity, I was accused of preferring to see women's underwear. When I spoke of women's rights and their freedom I was asked whether I enjoyed watching my wife making love to another man.

I decided to go to Italy for my university studies. I concluded that there was nothing I could learn in an atmosphere filled with bigotry and stupidity. In Italy people drank wine and ate pork. But I found they were more hospitable, more friendly, and less hypocritical. I noticed people were willing to help without expecting something in return. I met an elderly couple who were very hospitable to me. They called me on Sundays to have dinner with them and not stay home alone. They did not want anything from me, they just wanted to have someone to give their love. I was almost a son to them. Only those who have come to a new country, who do not know anyone and cannot speak even the language, can appreciate how much the help and the hospitality of a local is worth.

Their house was sparkling clean and the floor was marble and always shiny. This was quite in contrast with my idea of Westerners. Although my family was very open toward other people, my religion had taught me that the non-Muslims are najis (IX.28) and one should not take them as friends. I had a pocket copy of the Koran that I still have and used to read from it often. The verses were underlined with a Parsi translation. I came across this verse: O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as awliya' (friends, protectors, helpers, etc.), they are but awliya' to one another.... (V.51) I had difficulty understanding the wisdom of such verses. I wondered why I should not befriend this wonderful elderly couple who apparently had no other motive in showing me their hospitality than just making me feel at home. I thought they were "real Muslims" and tried to raise the subject of religion, hoping they would see the truth of Islam and embrace it. But they were not interested and politely changed the subject. I don't think I was ever stupid enough to believe that all nonbelievers will go to hell. I suppose I read this in the Koran before, but never wanted to think about it. I simply shrugged it off or wanted to close my eyes, not wishing to see it. Of course, I knew that God would be pleased if someone recognized his messenger, but I never thought he would actually be that cruel to burn someone in hell for eternity, even if that person is the author of good deeds, just because he was not a Muslim. I read the following warning: If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him: and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good). (111.85) Yet I paid little heed and tried to convince myself that the meaning has something else than what it appeared to be. At that moment it was not a subject that I was ready to handle, so I did not think about it. I hung around with my Muslim friends and noticed that when it was convenient for them they lived a very immoral life. Most of them found girlfriends and slept with them. That was very un-Islamic, but what bothered me most was the fact that they did not value these girls as real human beings who deserved respect. These girls were not Muslim girls, and therefore were used by them just for sex. This attitude was not general. Those men who were less religious were more respectful and sincere toward their girlfriends, and some even loved them and wanted to marry them; but, paradoxically, those who were more religious were less faithful toward their girlfriends. But I had such high esteem for religion in my mind that it was hard for me to relate the immoral and callous behavior of the Muslims to what was being taught in Islam. I always thought that the true Islam was what was right. If something was immoral, unethical, dishonest, or cruel, it could not be Islam. Years later I realized that the truth is completely the reverse. I found many verses that were disturbing and made me rethink my whole opinion of Islam. The funny thing was that the same very people who lived, according to me, unethically and immorally were the ones who called themselves Muslims, said their prayers, fasted, and were the first to defend Islam if anyone raised a question about it. They were the ones who would lose their tempers and enter into fights if someone dared say a word against Islam. Once I met a young Iranian man at the university restaurant. I sat next to him and became his friend. Later I introduced him to two other Muslim friends of mine. We were all of the same age, but he was an erudite young man full of virtue and wisdom. All of us were captivated by his charm and his high moral values. We used to wait for him and sit next to him during the lunch hour, as we always learned something from him. We used to eat a lot of spaghetti and risotto and were craving for a good Persian ghorme sabzi and chelow. Our friend said that his mother had sent him some dried vegetables and invited us to go to his house the next Sunday for lunch. We found his apartment very clean, unlike the houses of other guys. He had made us the delicious ghorme sabzi that we ate with a lot of gusto and then we sat back chatting and sipping our tea. It was then that among his books we found some Baha'i books. When we inquired, he said that he was a Baha'i. Of course that did not bother me at all, but my two friends on the way back said that they do not wish to continue their friendship with him any more. I was surprised and asked, Why? They said that being a Baha'i makes him a najis person and had they known that he was a Baha'i, they would not have befriended him. I was puzzled and asked why they thought he was najis if we all were complementing him on his cleanliness and had never seen any impropriety from him. We all agreed that he was morally superior to the Muslims we knew, so why this sudden change of attitude? Their response was very disturbing. They said that the name itself had something in it that made them dislike this religion. Then they asked me whether I knew why everyone disliked the Baha'is. I told them I didn't know, because I didn't dislike anyone. But since they disliked the Baha'is perhaps they should explain their reasons. They did not know why. This man was the first Baha'i they had come to know this close, and in fact he was an exemplary man. So I wanted to know the reason for their dislike. There was no particular reason, they said. It's just they knew that they should not like the Baha'is. I am happy that I did not continue my friendship with these two idiots, yet I learned how prejudice is formed and operates. Later I realized that this prejudice and hatred that Muslims harbor in their hearts against almost all non-Muslims is not the result of any misinterpretation of the teachings of the Koran but because the Koran teaches hate and prejudice. There are many verses in the Koran that call believers to hate nonbelievers, to fight with them, to call them najis, to subdue and humiliate them, to chop off their heads and other limbs, to crucify them kill them wherever they find them. I left religion on the back burner for several years. Not that my views about religion had changed or I didn't consider myself religious anymore, I just had so much to do that I had less and less time to expend on religion. I simply lived the way I thought I was supposed to live according to my understanding of how a good Muslim should live. Meanwhile I learned more about democracy, human rights, and other values, like equality of rights between men and women, and I liked them. The Islamic revolution of Iran was a curse to my country. I was not there to see it firsthand, but what I heard about it was nauseating. The mullahs tried to impose a reign of terror that they called "Islamic." Lives became cheap. They executed the Iranians by hundreds. Anyone who disagreed with them was sent to jail, executed, or murdered. Young girls were killed, but before killing them they raped them because, according to the Muslims, this would impede God sending them to Paradise. Minorities became fair game. Many of them were executed for no other reason than belonging to another religion. Baha'is especially suffered the most, for they were regarded as apostates. I followed the news from abroad and I was shocked to see my people had stooped to such depths of barbarity. Someone told me that he knew Khomeini prior to his rise to power. He said that once he saw Khomeini trying to kick a fly out of his room with a flyswatter. This person asked Khomeini why he didn't kill it, to which Khomeini responded that the fly is a creature of God and should not be killed. I wondered what made this man, who would not hurt a fly, murder so many people so heartlessly. He murdered thousands of Iranians. He massacred thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war. How could he do that? The Islamic regime in Iran started torturing people, beating them, stoning women accused of adultery, and made of Iran a giant prison and a huge torture chamber. Is that what Islam was all about? Then came along the Taliban in Afghanistan, who even surpassed the Iranian mullahs in cruelty. Yet all the time I tried to convince myself that this is not the "real Islam." On one occasion Khomeini made a speech in which he called upon the Iranians to kill the enemies of Islam. He condemned those Muslims who would pay attention only to the few verses of the Koran that speak about tolerance. He called those who wanted to present Islam as a religion of peace hypocrites, and told everyone that Allah had ordered Muslims to be harsh with the enemies of Islam and that forgiveness was un-Islamic. He asked why we always talked about a few verses of the Koran that mention forgiveness and tolerance and neglected the entire Koran that tells you to be harsh with the infidels and the "hypocrites." This is a widely published speech and is available on the Internet.' Some Iranians accepted what he told them, and their bigotry and hate increased. The crimes perpetrated by the revolutionary guards and the basijis (a military force created to maintain Islamic rule in Iran) are so heinous that is unbelievable that a human being can commit such cruelties to another human being. At the same time, many Iranians continued to believe that what Khomeini said was not the real Islam. One day I decided that it was time to deepen my knowledge of Islam and read the Koran from cover to cover to find out the real Islam on my own. I found an Arabic copy of the Koran with an English translation. Before that I had read the Koran, but only bits and pieces of it. This time I started to read all of it. I read a verse in Arabic, then I read the English translation moving back to Arabic, and did not go to the next verse unless I was satisfied that I had understood it in Arabic completely. It didn't take me long before I came upon verses that I found hard to accept. One of the first verses that I found puzzling was this one: Allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgiveth anything else, to whom He pleaseth; to set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin most heinous indeed. (IV.48) I found it hard to accept that Gandhi would be burned in hell forever with no hope of redemption because he was a polytheist, while a Muslim rapist and mass murderer could hope to receive Allah's forgiveness. This raised a disturbing question: Why is Allah so desperate to be known as the only God? Why should he even care whether anyone knows him and praises him or not? I learned about the size of this universe. Light, which travels at a speed of three hundred thousand kilometers per second, takes 20 billion years to reach us from the galaxies that are at the edges of the universe. How many galaxies are there? How many stars are there in these galaxies? How many planets are there in this universe? The thought of that was mind-boggling. If Allah is the creator of this vast universe, why would he be so concerned about being known as the only god by a bunch of apes living in a small planet down the Milky Way? Now that I lived in the West, had many Western friends who were kind to me, who liked me, who had opened their hearts and their homes to me and accepted me as their friend; it was really hard to accept that Allah wanted me not to take them for friends. Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah. (111.28) Wasn't Allah the creator of the unbelievers? Wasn't he their god, too? Why should he be so unkind to them? Wasn't it better if the Muslims befriended the unbelievers and taught them Islam by setting a good example? By keeping ourselves aloof and distant from the unbelievers, the gap of misunderstanding would never be bridged. How in the world would they learn about Islam if we did not associate with them? The answer to this question came in a very disconcerting verse: Allah's order was to "slay them wherever ye catch them" (11:191). I thought of my own friends, remembered their kindness and their love for me, and wondered how in the world a true god could ask anyone to kill another human being just because he did not believe in a religion? That seemed absurd, yet this concept was repeated so often in the Koran that obviously there was no doubt about it. In one verse Allah tells his prophet: "0 Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the Unbelievers" (VIII.65). Why should Allah send a messenger to make war? Shouldn't God teach us to love each other and be tolerant toward each other's befiefs? And if really Allah was so concerned about making people believe in him to the extent that he would kill them if they disbelieved, why would he ask us to do his dirty work and why would he not kill them himself? Are we supposed to be Allah's hitmen or mercenaries? Although I knew of jihad and never questioned it before, I found it hard to accept that God would have recourse to such violent measures to impose himself on people. What was more shocking was the cruelty of Allah in dealing with the unbelievers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them. (VIII. 12) It seemed that Allah was not satisfied with just killing the unbelievers. He enjoyed torturing them before killing them. Smiting people's heads from above their necks and chopping their fingertips were very cruel acts. Would God really give such orders? The following is what he promised to do with the unbelievers in the other world: These two antagonists dispute with each other about their Lord: But those who deny (their Lord),-for them will be cut out a garment of Fire: over their heads will be poured out boiling water. With it will be scalded what is within their bodies, as well as (their) skins. In addition there will be maces of iron (to punish) them. Every time they wish to get away therefrom, from anguish, they will be forced back therein, and (it will be said), "Taste ye the Penalty of Burning!" (XXII. 19-22) How could the creator of this universe be so petty as described in these verses? These verses of the Koran shocked me. I was shocked to learn how Allah ordered the killing of people, how he would torture them eternally in such a horrible way for no reason but disbelief. I was shocked to learn that the Koran tells Muslims to kill the disbelievers wherever they find them (I1.191), to murder them and treat them harshly (IX. 123), slay them (IX.5), fight with them (VIII.65), to humiliate them and impose on them a penalty tax even if they are Christians and Jews (IX.29). I was shocked when I learned that the Koran takes away the freedom of belief from all humanity, and says clearly that no other religion except Islam is accepted (III. 85). 1 was shocked to learn that Allah would relegate those who disbelieve in the Koran to hell (V.10) and calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (IX.28). I was shocked to learn that Allah orders the Muslims to fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left (11. 193). I was shocked when I learned that the Koran says that the nonbelievers will go to hell and will drink boiling water (XIV. 17), that it asks the Muslims to slay or crucify or cut the hands and the feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that "they shall have a great punishment in the world hereafter" (V.33). I was shocked when I learned that the Koran says: "As for the disbelievers, for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowls and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods" (XXII.21). I was shocked when I learned that the Koran prohibits a Muslim to befriend an unbeliever even if that unbeliever is the father or the brother of that Muslim (IX.23, 111.28). I was shocked to learn that the Koran asks the Muslim to "strive against the unbelievers with great endeavor" (XXV.52), and be stem with them because they belong to hell (LXVI.9). I was shocked to learn that the holy Prophet demanded his followers to "strike off the heads of the disbelievers," then, after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" and enslave them (XLVII.4). I was shocked to learn that the book of Allah says that women are inferior to men and their husbands have the right to scourge them if they are found disobedient (IV.34), and that women will go to hell if they are disobedient to their husbands (LXVI.10). I was shocked to learn that the Koran maintains that men have an advantage over the women (11.228); that it not only denies women equal right to their inheritance (IV.11-12), but it also regards them as imbeciles and decrees that their testimony is not admissible in the court (11.282). This means that a woman who is raped cannot accuse her rapist unless she can produce a male witness. Muhammad allowed Muslim men to marry up to four wives and gave them license to sleep with their slave maids and as many "captive" women as they may have (IV.3). I was shocked to learn that the Prophet himself did just that and raped his female prisoners of war. That is why any time a Muslim army subdues another nation, they call them kafir and allow themselves to rape their women. Pakistani soldiers raped up to 250,000 Bengali women in 1971, after they had massacred 3 million unarmed civilians when their religious leader decreed that Bangladeshis were un-Islamic. This is why the prison guards in Islamic regime of Iran rape the women and then kill them after calling them apostates and the enemies of Allah. After reading the Koran I was overtaken by a great depression. It was hard to accept all that. At first I started denying and seeking esoteric meanings to the apparent verses of the Koran. But it wasn't possible. The weight of the proof was too big. I found out that Khomeini was right, that the Taliban believe in the real Islam, that what I used to think of Islam was not the real Islam at all. I found out that Islam teaches nothing but hate, that the whole message of Islam is to believe in a deity without any proof, a deity who despises reason, who loves killing innocent people, who is expert in torture, who is ruthless, and who does not know elementary scientific facts about the universe that he allegedly created. This was hard to swallow, and I did not want to accept what I came to learn. The passage from belief to freethinking and enlightenment has its stages. The first stage is shock, followed by denial. If one can overcome the denial one goes through confusion, guilt, dismay, anger, and finally enlightenment. The majority of Muslims are trapped in denial. They are unable or unwilling to admit that the Koran is a hoax. They desperately try to explain the unexplainable, to find miracles in it, and are not ashamed to bend all the rules of logic to prove that the Koran is right. Each time they are exposed to a shocking statement in the Koran or a shameful act performed by Muhammad, they retreat in denial. This is what I was doing. Denial is a safe place. It is the comfort zone. In denial you are not going to be hurt, everything is okay; everything is fine. Truth is extremely painful, especially if one has been accustomed to lies all one's life. It is like telling someone that his father is a murderer, a rapist, or a criminal. This might be true, yet the child who adores his father will not be able to accept it. The shock is so great that the first thing he will do is deny it. He will call you a liar and he will hate you for hurting him. He will curse you, hold you as his enemy, and may even discharge his anger at you by physically attacking you. This is the stage of denial. It is a defense mechanism. If pain is too big, denial will take that pain away. If a mother is informed that her child has died in an accident, the first thing she will do is to deny it. People who have lost a loved one often believe that this is all a bad dream and that when they wake up everything will be okay. But unfortunately, facts are stubborn and they will not go away. One can live in denial for a while, but he must accept the truth sooner or later. Muslims are cocooned in lies. Because speaking against Islam is a crime punishable by death, no one dares tell the truth. Those who do tell the truth do not go far; they are silenced very quickly. So how would you know the truth if all you hear is lies? On the one hand, the Koran claims to be a miracle and challenges everyone to produce a Surah like it. On the other hand, it instructs its followers to kill anyone who dares criticize it. In such an atmosphere of insincerity and deceit, truth will never be known. The fact of coming face-to-face with the truth and realizing that all we believed were lies is excruciatingly painful. The only mechanism and the natural way to deal with it is denial. Denial takes away the pain. Denial is soothing. Denial is bliss. But denial is hiding one's head in the sand. One cannot stay in denial forever. Sooner or later we have to face the truth and deal with it.