My boyfriend asked me to more Muslim for him, so I read the Quran. And then I left him and denounced Islam.

Sun Feb 4 19:12:09 2024 UTC by Early_Particular_962

I was never a particularly religious person, I would call myself a Muslim because I had been told that was what I was, I never accepted it myself. My partner I would say the same about, he and his family were a little more traditional, in that they’d fast and pray etc. he would otherwise do whatever he wanted anyway, smoke, drink, sex, etc.

as our relationship went on for longer, it was important to him that I be more Muslim, in fact he had discussed with his friend whether he should give me an a ultimatum of doing that or he’d leave me. Retrospectively, I wish he had the balls to do that then. We did talk, and he did say that he would prefer if we were both more Muslim, to which I clearly remember saying, 1) I need to read the Quran myself in a language I can understand 2) not gonna half ass it if I were to, so I’m not there now anyway. 3) who I am as a person, a woman, a feminist, I will always find it hard to worship a male god or a male a prophet.

Time went on, this conversation came up and went because like I said neither of us were religious or practicing in our lives or times. The more he would ask, the more I would bring up things like how he doesn’t himself know what the Quran says cos he’s only ever read it in Arabic, and had it translated back by Islamic teachers, or has been told by other people.

So eventually, I read it in English myself, I found several copies in English translation. Another thing I think is important to mention about me is that I am a die hard feminist, the oppression I grew up with under Islam combined with the country I came from, molded me into a woman who will not allow for misogyny or sexism to slide from anyone in my life, not my parents, family, friends etc. So imagine me, a woman before I am anyone’s daughter, opening up the surah about women and reading that essentially men were made first and then women after to be it’s “mate”. I of course, raised this to him, and asked if he genuinely and truly believed this was the case and the purpose of my being, to which he had nothing to say. I told him this book talks a lot about slaves, which he found pretty shocking himself.

Anyway, I gave it another chance, read some more verses and Hadith’s and it just gets worse. The entire ideology is based on the complete dominance, subjugation and oppression of the female sex by the male. The things I have learned about Mohammed and the Quran will haunt me. So when, I raised this to him again, he tells me stuff about misinterpretation and etc whatever other bullshit Muslims say when they’re faced with facts and figures. I also raised surrah 4:24 about how u can rape ur slaves and he just tells me he doesn’t believe in that, he couldn’t say it was wrong. Just that he didn’t think it was right.

When he could not say the words “Mohammed was wrong” it was over for us. As a woman, and a person alive not in 6th century Arabia I just find it hard to relate to the thing he invented and the people who follow it.

Also I’m in a fairly vulnerable mental health state and have been for awhile, I think learning about the Quran and putting 2+2 together to realize that this was why my life and all the other women in my family’s lives have all been so, so awful, was just the final straw. I am completely broken that this sick ideology destroyed my life, my family, now it stole the love of my life from me, I don’t know how to cope with the fact that he chose a man who lived 1400 years ago that married a girl so young when she went to his house she took her toys. When I insisted our children will not be Muslim, he told me he will teach them good and allow them to question the bad, but that’s awful too! Because you’re leading them to believe something that is so flawed, so they can learn the things I’ve learned? The terrible things I’ve learned? I don’t think he has anyone else to blame, I loved him enough to read that book and he did not love me enough to condemn a 6th century rapist.

How can I cope? Was I wrong? How do I move on? My family have me on suicide watch and they won’t let me go home but all I want is to be alone because no one understands that is the worst thing he could’ve done to me, I’d rather he had cheated.

Edit: I left out we were together for 4 years, met in uni and so in total we’ve known each other for 8 years and were big parts of each others lives as friends and then a relationship, so we knew each other very well, I knew he was somewhat more religious than me and he knew I hadn’t given Islam more thought than “that’s been pretty shit for my life” we’ve been having these discussions for at least 18 months. In that time he never learned a thing about Islam but asked me plenty to do that. And all this is still very recent also, this all went down Monday and Tuesday.

Edit 2: I just want to say I am so grateful and thankful to each and every one of you all for all your kind words. After a life time of gaslighting it is such a relief to know that it was never me or my family, it was always the religion.