Why We Left Islam (2 page)

Now some of these individuals have chosen to bear witness. The courage of that choice is evidenced by the many who leave Islam and die for doing so. This is in accordance with the commandment of the Prophet Mohammad, who stated that “Whoever changes his religion, kill him.”
⁶
Despite these dangers, these brave individuals have spoken out.

The following letters have been collected over the past five years. Some of the individuals are former radical Muslims, while
others were peaceful and moderate Muslims. This mosaic of stories is but a small representation of the growing multitude that believes that despite the great dangers inherent in speaking out, the danger of remaining silent is far greater. The former risks a life; the latter jeopardizes the future for everyone.

Many Muslims and non-Muslims alike have claimed that the terrorists have hijacked this “religion of peace,” and that Islam does not condone violence. Yet many of these witnesses challenge this notion. Who then shall we believe? Through this collage of stories, we are better able to assess this argument ourselves—deciding between what has come to be a popular belief, and the consistent testimony of these many living witnesses. In this age when radical Islam dominates the headlines, it is important that all of us in the West wrestle with these questions and make ourselves aware of the truth concerning Islam.

One strand of thought that consistently runs through these testimonies is that the only real way to understand the true spirit of Islam is to look at the complete picture formed by the Qur’an, the traditions of Mohammad, and the history of Islam itself. While many in the West continue to wrestle with whether radical Islam’s hatred of the West is inspired by American foreign policy or due to its support for the state of Israel, many radical Muslims see the present
jihad
against the West as a continuation of a battle lost on none other than September 11,
1683
.

On that fateful day, Western forces in Vienna defeated the forces of the Islamic Ottoman Empire.
⁷
Many radical Muslims believe the latest wave of
jihad
against the West is rooted in a far older battle—the foundation of which was laid long before the formation of America and the state of Israel and whose ultimate goal is Islamic global domination. The West must recognize what is at stake in the present global clash of ideologies. Whether it is al-Qaeda, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Hizbullah, or any of the various Islamist groups or movements daily multiplying throughout the world, the goals of radical Islamofacism remain the same.

The first goal is the destruction and subjugation of Israel, America, and the West. This action is carried out through acts of terror, but the subsequent ramifications become both economic
and political. The second goal is the establishment of a worldwide Islamic state known as a caliphate that will enforce Islamic law throughout the world. Even though nations with Judeo-Christian roots universally surpass Islamic nations in terms of freedom and human rights, we are expected to believe Islam provides mankind with a better source of justice and human rights. However, even within the best examples of Islamist nations in the world today, we do not see the promotion of human rights and justice, but instead only oppression and darkness. Consequently, what is at stake is freedom, human rights, and the very dignity of the human race.

If this seems too alarmist, then consider the words of Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, who has said, “Say, ‘Victory is in the air!’ The
kafir’s
[non-Muslim’s] blood will not be spared.”
⁸
Why should the
sheikh’s
words mean anything to us? Who is Sheikh Mubarak Gilani? Gilani is the founder of Jamaat al-Fuqra (Community of the Poor), a terror organization that has been “linked to seventeen fire bombings and ten assassinations in the United States alone.”
⁹

In January 2002, when
Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and then beheaded, Sheikh Gilani became infamous as the cleric with which Pearl was hoping to meet when Pearl met his tragic fate.
¹⁰
The U.S. State Department claims Gilani has said that the goal of his organization is to “purify Islam through violence.”
¹¹
The horrifying reality is that Sheikh Gilani’s network of terror was not started in Afghanistan, but in the 1980s in Brooklyn, New York.
¹²
Gilani immediately began looking for members. In a recruitment video, the
sheikh
clearly established his mission:

We have reached out and prepared [recruits] to defend themselves in a highly specialized training of guerrilla warfare. . . We are at present establishing training camps. . . We are not fighting so that the enemy recognizes us and offers something. We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.
¹³

What should alarm all Americans and people throughout the free world is that Gilani’s training camps are found throughout the United States. In fact, according to extensive research conducted by Paul L. Williams, author of
The Day of Islam
, there is one in Hancock, New York, located on seventy acres, called Islamberg.
There are also other facilities, or
hamaats
as they are called, across the United States: in Deposit, New York; Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane County California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington.
¹⁴

Each of these compounds was set up for young Muslims—many of whom are converts—enabling them to begin a “new life.” However, before becoming a citizen at any of these facilities the recruits must sign an oath that says: “I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah’s sake.”
¹⁵
These training camps have sent scores of American Muslims to Pakistan each year for guerrilla training.
¹⁶
Some local residents who live near the Hancock compound have voiced their concerns to no avail. Neighbors of the compound report the frequent sound of gunfire and small explosions, and armed guards wearing traditional Middle Eastern attire keep any visitors from entering the camp.
¹⁷
Again, this is in upstate New York. It is compounds like these that many rightly fear may be breeding grounds for fundamentalist hatred as that voiced by Sheikh Gilani.

If Islamism continues to grow in numbers and its acidic ideology is left unchecked, then we are indeed without hope. Bernard Lewis, one of the greatest modern scholars of the Middle East, warned that democracy could never develop side by side with Islam: “Their creed and political program are not compatible with liberal democracy.”
¹⁸
If the values of liberal democracy are to survive, then the West must first begin to understand the seriousness of the present war of ideas. These testimonies are offered so that those of us on the outside may begin to truly understand Islam from the inside.

These writers speak candidly, often with sadness. Many who have known Islam from birth believe the terrorists’ interpretation of Islam is correct—that in fact the terrorists who carry out the atrocities we are witnessing on a global scale are following the true model of their Prophet Mohammad. These letters are a conversation, testimonials that reflect the dialogue of what is happening, both within and outside of Islam. These people have agreed to
come forward and to speak, thinking that if truth has ever mattered, it matters most
now
. They firmly believe
this
is the time to expose and acknowledge the root of the problem.

Herein is a group of ex-Muslims, many who feel that they have seen the face of evil and have risen to expose it. They do so in the conviction that no matter how painful the truth, only the truth can set one free. They speak also to other Muslims; urging those from within their communities to end the excuses, justifications, and rationalizations; to stop dividing mankind into “us” and “them”—the Muslims versus the
kafirs
. They speak of freedom to choose one’s faith, and of killings perpetrated in the name of Allah. Furthermore, they urge non-Muslims to speak beyond the politically correct rhetoric, and to offer a critique of Islam that is honest and productive. They want above all to save lives, to end oppression, and to stop the onward march of Islamic fundamentalism.

C
HAPTER
O
NE
MY SISTER

“She finally decided to protest the oppression of women by setting herself on fire in a crowded square in northern Tehran on February 21, 1994. Her last cries were: ‘Death to tyranny! Long live liberty! Long live Iran!’”

O
N SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the world saw the seventh century mentality of fundamentalist Islam gain possession of twenty-first century technology. The results were catastrophic. The violent nature of Islam arrived on American soil—unforgettably and irrevocably. Many Americans, along with other Westerners, hadn’t thought much about Islam before then. September 11 changed all that, bringing Islam home to the twenty-first century Western world. Suddenly, Iran and Iraq didn’t seem so far away after all, and Westerners, especially we Americans, wanted to learn more about this faceless enemy who’d declared war on us in the most barbaric way imaginable. We found ourselves confronted with a deadly force that we’d thought lay half a world away and fourteen centuries in the past. Those terrorist bombings we’d heard of only on television had moved from a faraway Middle East to our own backyard. On September 11, what Islam represents became one of the most important questions facing the Western world, and our first experience with it left a bitter taste in many American mouths.

Parvin Darabi doesn’t just
talk
about the barbarity of radical Islam that Americans experienced that day—she’d
lived
it long before the Twin Towers fell. In this poignant and painful letter, she writes of her sister, Homa, who struggled mightily against the heavy hand of the Islamic government in Iran. Living as a woman carries a heavy price in Iran. Homa was willing to pay it. Now Parvin carries on, and she urges us all to ignore the peaceful rhetoric
of Islam and focus instead on the violent reality of Islamic rule. What Homa Darabi experienced in Iran could one day come to the West if Islamofascist terrorism is not defeated. Homa’s story is a specific example of how an Islamic government works—and why it would never work in the West.

My Sister

My sister, Dr. Homa Darabi, was born in Tehran, Iran, in January 1940, two months premature, to Eshrat Dastyar, a child bride who at age thirteen had married Esmaeil Darabi. Homa was my older sister, my protector, and my role model. Homa had a life full of hope and promise that a tyrannical and fundamentalist Islamic system destroyed.

Indeed, my sister could never have imagined what lay ahead for her as she completed her elementary and high school education in Tehran. She then immediately entered the University of Tehran’s School of Medicine after passing the university’s entrance exam in 1959. It was a marvelous accomplishment and one that made our family proud. Homa was in the first 150 out of thousands of students who took the examination and became one of the three hundred who were accepted (the medical school’s capacity).

A feisty and spirited young woman, my sister became quite active in politics and hoped to bring human rights and equal status for women in Iran. Her dream was most evident during her days in high school and in her freshman year at the university. Yet her quest would not be easy. In 1960, as a result of her efforts, she was arrested and imprisoned for a while, during the students’ protests against the oppressive regime of the Shah. The regime was especially hostile towards students and youth who were beginning to demand more freedom of expression, assembly, and speech.

In 1963, my sister married her classmate, Manoochehr Keyhani, presently a prominent hematologist. Together they brought into this world two intelligent daughters.

Following the completion of her studies at the University of Tehran, Dr. Darabi practiced for two years in Bahmanier, a village in northern Iran, while her husband completed his military
obligation as a physician in the Iranian health corps. In 1968, she and her husband passed the Education Council Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) examination and came to the United States to further their education. She took her residency in pediatrics and later specialized in psychiatry and then in child psychiatry and was licensed to practice medicine in the states of New Jersey, New York, and California. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the mid-1970s.

Due to pressures from her husband and family and her desire to give back to her native country, she returned to Iran in 1976 and was immediately accepted as a professor at the University of Tehran School of Medicine.

She was the first Iranian ever to pass the board in child psychiatry in the U.S. and was the driving force behind the establishment of the Psychiatric Clinic of Shahid Sahami in Tehran.

Although she was a strong supporter of the revolution, my sister opposed the establishment of an Islamic republic. Furthermore, when her party leader took advantage of the new Islamic guidelines and took a second wife, Homa was devastated and totally broke away from all politics. My sister then devoted her time to her profession as a medical doctor.