An opinion piece written by a student at the University of California-Berkeley explaining her decision to leave Islam has been pulled from the school newspaper’s website over fears for the author’s safety.
The opinion piece, titled “On Leaving Islam,” recounted the personal story of the narrator (whose name we will withold) growing up a devout (though moderate) Muslim in Pakistan, but later abandoning the faith as she learned more about the world.
“If someone had told me six years ago that I would leave Islam and end up an atheist, I would never have believed him,” the author writes to open the piece. “But now, as a Muslim apostate and atheist, my journey couldn’t have led me any further from what I once knew to be true.”
According to the author, her departure from the faith was driven substantially by her inability to reconcile it with her increasingly liberal personal beliefs.
“I never accepted the male superiority and traditional gender roles that were part of my society,” she says. “For most of my teen years, I felt torn apart by my contradictory beliefs.
On one hand, I was a radical feminist who supported gay rights. But on the other hand, I was a practicing Muslim whose religion was clearly homophobic and placed men above women.” [The Libertarian Republic] Read more
