Coming out publicly helps to normalize dissent. It also helps you live a more authentic life.

This post is a companion to my Coming Out series of videos, which you’ll find embedded below.

The Videos

My original intention was to create a single, 10-minute “coming out” video, introducing myself as Reason on Faith. However, there’s so much ground to cover, that what had started out as a single video, has now become a video series with a signature Why I am Leaving Islam and Ahmadiyyat video.  

No doubt, there will still be some noteworthy talking points that I will have missed in these videos. I hope to cover more angles and more issues as I open up the dialogue to live conversations with many of you.

My goal with this platform is to talk about philosophy and religion in the areas that interest me, and where I can provide value. Know that I intend to focus on what I deem to be important conversations. I will be ignoring any baiting by whataboutery practitioners—except perhaps when making an example of those who insist on egregious displays of tone-deafness. I do plan to continue to speak out about the religion with which I’m most familiar. Notwithstanding my own stated preferences on topics of focus, I do still reserve the right to have opinions on other topics for which I don’t claim the same degree of familiarity.

For example, I can and I do disagree with the truth claims of Hinduism and Christianity without needing to get into the weeds with their proponents on reincarnation or the doctrine of atonement.

I don’t need to engage with every heckler who believes that they have won and that I am defeated, simply because I have not stepped into the octagon with them over nuanced mediums like Twitter (that previous remark was sarcasm, if you didn’t catch it).

The first video in this series is longer than it should have needed to be. This is because there are some assumptions about decency that we would normally take for granted, but which we no longer can. As a friend once advised, “We live in dumb times.” It is unfortunate that when discussing religion, some basic disclaimers about human dignity and decency even have to be stated so explicitly. Some people mistakenly assume that if you’ve left a religion, then you must secretly harbor hatred in your heart for your former co-religionists.

Consequently, if you criticize an ideology today such as Islam, some of its most ardent proponents will come after you. They’ll suggest that you’re just a hater and a bigot. Not because there’s a shred of evidence in your statements to support such accusations. No. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Some zealous believers do choose to cast dispersions on their former co-religionists in order to discredit anyone who might place their favorite ideology under the microscope of credible critique. In fact, what’s actually at play here, is an innate human tendency to feel attacked when we naively link our identities to our inherited or professed religious ideologies.

I understand this defensiveness, even though I disagree with it. It’s rather predictable. This is why I express and underscore that we have a shared humanity. I emphasize that there’s an important role to be played by benevolence, compassion, and love—even when we disagree on the details. The bottom line is that we must make an effort to humanize others while we critique their ideas, because it matters that we dialogue without hate. It facilitates educating others and in being educated by others. We could all be wrong. All of us. We must of course, walk this path of knowledge with humility.

Nuance matters. Truth matters. We cannot shy away from talking about what is true, simply because a segment of our society feels comforted by centuries and layers of finely-tuned falsehoods.

To close, please remember that this series is only an introduction. It’s my coming out. If you’re looking for a full treatise on my beliefs, then you’ll find that instead, in my writings. See My Beliefs: A Treatise.

My coming out is also not the end of the dialogue. In the future, I do plan to engage in conversations with others to explore related themes, and to go deeper.

The journey has just begun.

Part 1: Why I am Leaving Islam and Ahmadiyyat

This is the first video in my Coming Out series. Beyond putting a real voice and a real face to Reason on Faith, my goal is to give you a broad strokes overview of my journey with respect to religion. In particular, Islam and Ahmadiyyat.

This video touches on how I started questioning Islam many years ago, and in more recent times, how the claims of Islam and the Qur’an have been challenged with increasing effectiveness. I suggest that it’s high time Muslims revisit the Qur’an. I suggest that this time, they do so with a healthy dose of skepticism, disengaging inherited bias in coming to the text and presupposing that it is both holy and divine.

Having been a devoutly religious Ahmadi Muslim once upon a time, there will always be parts of Islam that I find positive and noble. We can leave a religion—dismissing its theological truth claims—while still acknowledging and living those facets of the philosophy and practices which do continue to resonate with us.

In this video, I also introduce you to ex-Muslim support communities that you can join, such as EXMNA and Muslimish. Finally, I hint at what’s next for the post-religion world that we have an opportunity to create.

This is my coming out message where I reveal my identity and try to touch upon my views and my goals. My emphasis is on believing what is true, and not merely what is convenient or useful. reveal video

Part 2: My Religious Past & Questioning Islam

This is the second video in my Coming Out series. I cover many of the same themes as my first video, with an attempt to go deeper. I explain how I originally dealt with my doubts and even returned to Islam for a few years, having craved community. I was desperately attempting to numb my mind back into belief. Unbeknownst to me, I was following Blaise Pascal’s advice on using habit and ritual to manufacture belief where none was present.

I also explain that ex-Muslim is just a synonym for former Muslim. It does not mean anti-Muslim. The term ‘ex-Muslim’ is provocative, yes. It is so, however, for a very good reason: to help questioning Muslims know that people can and do leave Islam. While this shouldn’t need to be said, sadly, we’re not there yet. You can read more about the need for the ex-Muslim label in my treatise.

In this video, I go into more details about building bridges in discourse with Muslims. I also introduce you to more of the project I call Religion Minus the Bullshit.™

Finally, I close with a message addressing those Muslims—especially Ahmadi Muslims—who feel that they have been selected by Allah Himself, to perform an intervention on me. Do you know anyone who feels that they hath been anointed for such a holy mission? Sigh. Send them this video.

The second video goes a little deeper into my religious past, why I left, and an appreciation for where I’ve come from. I also provide a glimpse of my future plans with activism, which go beyond the critique of religion. reveal video

Part 3: Website Tour and Resources

This is the third video in my Coming Out series. Here, I take you on a tour through some key articles from my website, ReasonOnFaith.org. There’s a special focus on My Beliefs: A Treatise. That article provides a very detailed picture into how I approach matters related to religious belief, labels and co-existence. There are more details in my written treatise than any video could reasonably cover. 

If you really want to understand my message, my thoughts, and my most powerful arguments for why Islam isn’t the ultimate truth, then you’ll also want to familiarize yourself with the other long-form articles from my website, notably, My Beliefs: A Treatise.

I close this third video with a tour of some external resources that you can explore if you’re questioning religion generally, or even just Islam and Ahmadiyyat specifically. 

This third video is a tour of my website and key articles I’ve written. I also suggest resources you can explore if you’re new to questioning religion, Islam, or Ahmadiyyat. reveal video

The verses cited by a passage in My Ordeal with the Qur’an as having no real meaning.