Ex-Muslims on the Front Lines in the Battle for Civil Society
By Faith Quintero
A little more than ten years ago, American cartoonist Molly Norris drew a spool of thread, a domino, a teacup, and a few other inanimate objects and gave them names. After Norris’s drawings became public, Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki ordered a fatwa—an order for Muslims to kill her.1 Norris offended Muslims by her whimsical drawings with the headline, “Will the Real Likeness of the Prophet Mohammed Please Stand Up?”2 Her goal was to jump-start an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” event, encouraging participants to draw the founder of the religion. This is forbidden under Islamic law, but not in the United States.3 Norris knew that jihadists wouldn’t be able to kill everyone who participated, and so she thought there was little threat.4 However, al-Awlaki singled out Norris. The FBI then suggested she go into hiding.5
And so she did. Norris was forced to shed her identity and walk away from the life she had built for herself. She has yet to resurface.
Before Samuel Paty was murdered in France by a jihadist on October 16, 2020, the ten-year anniversary of Norris’s pro-free speech cartoons had passed unnoticed. When Norris shed her identity, Americans did not take to the streets in protest. In the wake of Paty’s murder, however, French citizens gathered in major cities to honor the slain teacher and the virtue of free speech he died defending.6
The contrast between the reactions of citizens from each country is stark. Before the fatwa drove Norris into hiding, U.S. President Barack Obama had already ordered the drone strike that eventually killed al-Awlaki, but he failed to support Norris in any way, shape, or form.7 Meanwhile, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, resolved to clamp down on Islamic terrorism, and he awarded the late Paty France’s highest civilian honor, the Légion d’Honneur.8 Buildings in France were bedecked with projected images from Charlie Hebdo, a magazine whose staff was massacred by Islamic terrorists and whose pictures Paty showed to his students.9 Such a bold display of solidarity was missing when CNN gave an update on Norris, four years after al-Awlaki issued the fatwa on her life. CNN’s video blotted out her drawings.
Years before Norris took action, a jihadist murdered Theo van Gogh and threatened his creative partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The pair had worked on a film that illustrated the myriad ways in which Muslim women are subjected to abuse, not despite but because of the religious laws they follow.10 Kurt Westergaard, Geert Wilders, and Salman Rushdie—men who expressed unpopular views about Islam through drawings, a film, and a book, respectively—were also threatened.11
In 2010, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the American cartoonists who created South Park, were threatened after they cleverly implied that the founder of Islam was in their fictional town. Muhammad was represented as a man who wasn’t visible—first, because he remained in a truck; and then, because he was hidden in a bear costume. After the episode aired, members of Revolution Muslim, a since-disbanded organization that advocated rule by a single, global Islamic caliphate, sent the pair a veiled threat, warning that they might face reprisals from Muslims.12 In searching for a middle ground between safety and defiance, Parker and Stone edited the episode. They drew a censor box in place of the would-be bear-suited Muhammad and bleeped out his name. The network that airs the show, Comedy Central, went further, bleeping out more audio, including a speech about intimidation and fear at the end of the episode and didn’t even include Muhammad’s name. Comedy Central also barred the creators from streaming the episode on its website and from airing again at midnight.13
In his article, “Drawings of Mohammed, in Defense of Human Life,” Craig Biddle writes, “Freedom of speech is also the last leg of civilized society. If we lose it, our only means of returning to a state in which we can live as human beings is to take up arms against those who have forbidden us to speak.”14 We need only to look at countries that do limit speech to see how accurate those words are.
The people best-positioned to challenge the tenets of Islam, and to help adherents crack the restrictive mold that contains them, are those whose families originated from traditionally Islamic countries and who have since renounced Islam after some intellectual heavy lifting. Ex-Muslims who speak out against their former faith are often subjected to death threats. Many respond by attempting to reason with believers—and with nonbelievers who do not fully understand the consequences of taking Islam seriously.
For example, Sarah Haider, cofounder of Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), explains:
[Islam is] political at its very root. . . . And many (Muslims) consider secularism, as a concept, to be blasphemous. . . . This is something that goes back to Mohammed himself. He was a head of state as well as the head of religion . . . So when you’re trying to argue for secularism in a Muslim context, you’re really telling (Muslims) that there was something that their prophet did, who they consider to be a perfect example, that wasn’t quite right. And that is not going to be taken so well.15
Haider explains why debunking the tenets of the faith is more effective than trying to soften its message or reform it:
The Quran is considered God’s literal word . . . a complete manual in the most pure way that you can live your life here on Earth. . . . The same trait that makes Islam less likely to bend to modern wills, is also something that makes it more likely to break. . . . The vast majority of them feel that their faith is 100 percent the true word of God. . . . They have never really encountered pushback either from a logical or human rights perspective or even a scientific one. So . . . when you do approach Islam with a scientific perspective or human rights perspective, it’s easy to brush aside religion.16
Haider is joined by colleagues who challenge Islam with different techniques. For example, Ridvan Aydemir, known online as “Apostate Prophet,” created videos that debunk claims made in Islamic texts and by Islamic scholars. By instilling doubt about the supposedly divine origin of such doctrines, Aydemir aims to challenge those who might bring harm or be harmed as a result of obeying Quranic orders.
For example, in “The Most Ignorant Quran Verse,” Aydemir poses a question: “If you are a Muslim, what would you do if you found out that the Quran has very obvious mistakes . . . would you look for new and incomplete explanations to defend your belief, or would you have the courage to doubt?” He then reads a Quran verse: “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the son of Allah’; and the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the son of Allah.’ . . . May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded?”17 Aydemir points out the oddity of Allah referring to himself in third person. He further debunks that verse by explaining that Jews have never believed that any man is the son of God. Not surprising, a Turkish court recently issued a warrant for Aydemir’s arrest for insulting the religion.18
Yasmine Mohammed founded Free Hearts, Free Minds, “an organization committed to helping ex-Muslims successfully transition out of Islam and into a happy, healthy life.”19 She recognized that ex-Muslims can be at risk of severe harm. So she set up her organization to help “ex-Muslims living in Muslim-majority countries handle the trauma and stress related to leaving Islam in countries where apostasy is punishable by death.”20
Yasmine also campaigns with other women to “use social media to show westerners that the hijab being displayed in popular culture undermines the efforts of women in certain countries who are arrested or killed because they refuse to wear this cloth on their head.”21 To mark a day of support for women trying to liberate themselves from such absurd strictures, she launched “No Hijab Day,” countering “Hijab Day,” launched five years before.22 Recently, she has received death threats for supporting Samuel Paty and his mourners in France.23
Armin Navabi hosts a podcast and maintains the website Atheist Republic, which “advocates against religious and dogmatic teachings that promote violence and oppression.”24 He discusses his liberation from Islam in “The Poison Pill of Islam.”25 He explains why pushing for Islamic reform is a flawed goal and that “the only way to reform Islam, is to get rid of Islam,” because anything else “involves believing in things without evidence.” He has stated that efforts to reform Islam are dangerous because they suggest to the West that a version of Islam exists that is not harmful. He argues that “the reform movement is a sugar coating for the poison pill of Islam” and that “the only solution to fighting any form of delusion, is to provide people with critical thinking skills.” Navabi underlines the importance of debunking Islamic law rather than trying to argue against particular interpretations or implementations:
It’s easier for me to make an argument that hey, where is the evidence for God, than to go make a gymnastic argument—hey maybe this verse that tells you that you can beat your wife, maybe it doesn’t mean you can beat your wife. Try making that argument because it plainly says in black and white that you can beat your wife, that you should beat your wife.26
Many more ex-Muslims do the critical and challenging work of speaking against this evil belief system. They maintain websites and Twitter accounts, write books, and speak on panels about their former faith—to offer support for others who have rejected it, to instill confidence in those who intend to leave, and to plant seeds in the minds of those who haven’t yet considered doing so. Support their work in whatever way you can to help them in the fight to protect free speech and civil society.