Category talk:Former Muslims/Archive 1

First topic of discussion

I find it rather amusing that Wikipedia lists twenty Muslims who left Islam. Twenty? It seems that for each person that left Islam between ten to twenty thousand persons converted to Islam in America alone in the past decade. It is ironic that after the tragic events of 9-11 Americans rushed to buy anything they could find on Islam with the expectation of learning more about this "strange" religion so they can be on top of the defamation of Muslims during lunch and coffee breaks at work or at BBQs and outings. The result in many cases was that Americans learned the truth about Islam and its intrinsic beauty and thus converted as adherents of this faith that is the fastest growing in the world, including in America. The majority of those converts were well-educated and successful persons, and many of them were women.

Bookstores like Shambala in Berkeley, CA that sells a large selection of books on Islam had difficulty restocking its shelves after 9-11. I know, for i was there. For the first time Costco sold copies of Thomas Cleary's book titled The Essential Koran as well as equal stacks of copies of the Bible, Tsaoism, Buddhism, and others. I was not surprised when I saw in December 2001 that there were only two copies of the Koran left while the other stacks were largely unpurchased. They, too, were gone the next day. I asked if they would be re-stocked and the customer service person told me that he could not even find the book listed in his computer. I was not surprised, what with the undue demonization and vilification of Islam and Muslims in America after the fall of communism (thanks to the Afghanis) and the war that has been waged upon them from Washington and the ink 'n' air media down to the Campus Watch website of the infamous and irrelevant anti-anything-that-is-not-pro-zionist Daniel Pipes, to comic books and the classrooms. It seems that no one wants to be associated with anything that depicts or portrays Islam and Muslims in a favorable light...not even Costco.

Was it a good thing for Islam that the twenty persons listed as apostates decided to abandon belief in Islam? Perhaps. I would surmise that it was not the tenets of Islam that caused their pull out but rather their own personal problems that they could not resolve, or perhaps to allow them the spotlight recognition to pursue greater economic benefit. Is the world a better place due to their withdrawal from Islam? Perhaps, considering the fact that Islam teaches all the things thet these folks apparently claim are absent, such as goodwill, honesty, truth, morality, modesty, respect, caring and compassion, good character and conduct, peace, justice, and that it is the only real guide on how one can live one's live harmoniously within any society.

For myself, how can I adequately thank God Almighty that I am blessed with the reward of being an abiding Muslim and that I am therefore not among those who espouse hatred and infamy towards others of goodwill? By exclaiming "Al Hamdu Lillah". Look it up, folks.

Yousef Salem—Preceding unsigned comment added by Yalemo (talk • contribs)

Yousef, it is a weird list to have, "former Muslims". If there was a page for former Christians, it would probably go on for hundreds of pages. I think the only reason that we distinguish these people as "former" Muslims is because they leave the religion but almost always want to talk about it negatively, which brings them a lot of fame in the West. Conversely, Christians who become Muslims don't spend all their time talking about their former religion, but focus on Islam, their new religion. There are many people on wikipedia who are racist, as you can see the comment below about Muhammad, coming from someone who has probably never read anything about him besides what comes from evangelical Christians. There are people added to this list (who I won't bother to remove) who don't belong to this list at all. Barrack Obama was never Muslim, his dad was Muslim but upon his parents separation his Christian mom raised him to be Christian. Also, the Albanian communist leader, he was never Muslim, was raised Communist/Secular and has been that way. George Weah was Christian, became Muslim, then became Christian again after his grandmother died. Religion is not looked at as seriously in West Africa as tribal affiliations are. People change from Islam to Christianity to Islam, follow both and don't care much for the distinction. Especially in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia. But anyways, if it makes you feel better, look at the list of Converts to Islam. There are hundreds, mostly former Christians. Like I said, the "former Muslim" tag is weird, but the thing is that many of these people didn't convert to any new religion, but only left Islam. Taslima Nasrin, Salman Rushdie, Hirsi Ali etc. Fkh82 15:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Christians who are decieved into Islam do not talk about Christianity because the Christian scriptures do not contain as much violence as the Islamic scriptures(Quran, Hadith,Ishaq's Sira and Tabari's Takrikh) . My resource of understanding Islam is the its scriptures, and as far as I'm concerned, the Islamic scriptures were not written by Evangelical Christians. People simply expose to the world the true nature of Islam as derived from its own scriptures, and Muslims begin to panic becuase they know Islam cannot be defended logically. That's why you want to kill whoever wants to expose the disgusting teachings of Islam, which cannot be found in any other scriptures, like you murdered Theo Van Gogh, and just like you want to murder many of the people on the list of former Muslims, like Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq. In fact, you would do it if you could lay your hands on them, but you can't, so you are simply trying to supress the truth by decieving people to believe that Islam is a "religion of peace", but today only idiots will buy this crap. Here, take this quote from Ishaq and Tabari that exposes the true nature of your pirate "prophet": Ishaq:515 “The Prophet gave orders concerning Kinanah to Zubayr, saying, ‘Torture him until you root out and extract what he has. So Zubayr kindled a fire on Kinanah’s chest, twirling it with his firestick until Kinanah was near death. Then the Messenger gave him to Maslamah, who beheaded him.” Politicallyincorrectliberal 11:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes I can see how evil Islam is...while I have not said anything negative about Christianity you have stated that people are deceived into Islam. Some people do not think that God had a son on earth 2000 years ago, and believing that God does not need or have a son is not something someone has to be deceived into. You are showing the true face of the Western world. Talk about how uncivilized another culture/religion is, yet call Islam disgusting etc. Since you keep referring to Muslims as murderous and the like, I would like to point out that White Christians have completely massacred North America, South America, half of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. By the way, this discussion is now completely off topic. My original post was explaining the purpose of this article. I can tell by that reply you do not know anything about Islam at all and your information probably completely comes from answering Islam's website or the religion of peace site you have cited (you might want to check out answering-chrisitianty's site). Ishaq the historian was a collector of oral traditions. He is well known throughout the Muslim world. He collected things that Meccans who were not Muslim attributed to Muhammad. The actual sayings of Muhammad are known as Hadith, and I challenge you to find that supposed quote of Muhammad in any Hadith database anywhere in the world. The problem with many people (like you) is that you have no knowledge at all, but love to talk as if you are a scholar in the subject. Muslims do not change their beliefs anytime something becomes convenient. We don't have Councils of Niceas every few years to completely change our core beliefs. By the way, you may want to check out Converts to Islam, however I'm afraid it may make you cry. To be completely frank, it does not take "deception" to leave a religion that took a Prophet, turned him into a blonde hair blue eyed man to justify racism throughout the world, then gave him the attributes of Roman/Greek mythological gods (among others). Racism and hate are poison, you should get it out of your heart. If you don't like Islam, it is your right no doubt, but do not lie and use false information to prove it. No more 700 club for you!Fkh82 00:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Its probably just different strokes for different folks.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Duhon (talk • contribs)

Nice rant. I almost read it.--Greasysteve13 00:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

For the person who wrote the rant above: either nominate this category for deletion, or build up a list of notable converts to Islam. Either of these would be more productive uses of your time. ::Hornplease 01:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean like Category:Converts to Islam and List of converts to Islam? In any case neither is exhaustive of who left or who joined. Also Islam is unusually strict on apostasy so those who manage to apostate at all is of interest.--T. Anthony 05:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Yousef Salem, your comment about how Islam beautiful and wondeful is nothing more than a long winded rant without substance. Islam is not about love, it's about hate. It's not about life, it's about death. It's not about respect, tolerance or compassion, but about disgrace, intolerance and anger. Muhammad, Islam's lone prophet was the most vile man who ever lived and he conceived his religion solely to satiate his lust for power, sex and money. Also, the statement "Islam is the fastest growing religion" is another lie which Muslims constantly tell themselves and others in order to feel good with themselves. Your statement that "for each person that left Islam between ten to twenty thousand persons converted to Islam" is impossible, because in Africa alone, 6 million(!) Muslims convert to Chrisianity every year. Every day more and more people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike see that Islam is nothing but a cult of death, and turn their backs against it. Islam is not the fastest growing religion. Apostasy from Islam is the fastest growing religion, if you can call that a religion. You are only fooling yourself and the uninformed, but not people like me who know what Islam is all about. Wake up! Politicallyincorrectliberal 19:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually now I think its just the fastest growing religion in the West. Yes its true, Christian missionaries spend a lot of time decieving the poor and uneducated in Africa out of Islam and bribing them with aid. Also, I agree with Yousef Salem that a lot of the people who leave Islam and criticise it, get almost instant fame no matter how shadowy their credibility is. --67.131.225.78 18:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually most of the growth of Christianity is not because of missionaries, but instead is because of African evangelism. Not all critics of islam get fame, however.--Sefringle 04:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The way to handle this: Make new page for this as well

When a page like List of converts to Islam can exist for converts to Islam, then DUH - OFCOURSE a page can exist for famous people who left Islam, e.g.: List of former Muslims. This is the right way to go out about it. Who will bell the cat now? Who will take people out of that category and list it in this new page? If no one will do it, I'll do it myself soon - modeling the page on the List of converts to Islam and then this matter will be nicely dealt with and no one will dare to protest about this matter. Also, we have a category for Converts to Islam, so ofcourse a category for "Former muslims" is no big deal. --Matt57 19:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Should there also be a list of people who left Christianity made? Fkh82 02:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to make an edit to this page?

If you know how, it would be greatly appreciated.--Sefringle 01:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sefringle, you cant make a direct edit to this page. To add new people to a category, to go their page and add something like: [[Category:Former Muslims|Rushdie, Salman]] - to their page and their name will come up in the category. Likewise, to delete a name from the category page, you gotta go to their page and take it out. Do check our your Talk page, I had left a message for you there. --Matt57 19:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

People who were never muslim

Jacques Vergès was the first name I clicked on, he doesn't appear have been muslim at all. If anyone has time, please make sure, there are probably many other fakes. --67.131.225.78 18:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This page says: Vergès chose to move there and convert to Islam Also: [1]. The new question then is, is Verges still a muslim? --Matt57 19:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the same goes for Barrack Obama, he was never Muslim, his father was a non practising Muslim/athiest but Barrack was never one. I don't know why he keeps being added to this list. His interview which is referenced on his article says that his dad never followed any religion and that he was raised Christian since he was a kid. Fkh82 02:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

He wasn't raised with any religion, but became Christian as an adult. His father was an atheist who left when he was 2, and his mom exposed him to many different religions. So his Muslim name is only a name. Arrow740 23:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

WHY is this category being considered for Deletion ?

When you have:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Islam

And:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Converts_to_Islam

Then whats the problem with a category called:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Former_Muslims

?

I will get this Deletion notice taken out ASAP. If anyone has any problems, respond to this post of mine.

--Matt57 23:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Matt, not being telepathic, I won't attempt to divine anyone else's actual reasons for concern. I will note that one possible reason for concern might be that renouncing Islam is a death-penalty offense under Islamic law, and that people have had fatwa death penalties declared against them, or have actually been killed, for statements or actions deemed "disrespectful" to Islam. Under these circumstances, putting this category on such a prominent website might well be seen as increasing the risk of death for those listed on it. The same is not true for a category of converts to Islam. I make this comment not in advocacy but as a possible answer to your question. -- SAJordan 07:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

So are you going to suggest now that Ibn Warraq be deleted because its endangering his life? And all the other people's pages on this Encyclopedia who are being likely of being targetted by terrorists and murderers?Are you trying to say we should give in to terrorists? Thankfully I understand your motivations completely and I know why some people dont want this category here simply because they dont like it and dont agree with the people's viewpoints. Yes, we dont give in to terrorists and so thankfully this category is back. Too bad, sorry. --Matt57 19:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

We need a new page for Former muslims

Now that we got that senseless Deletion notice out of the way: We need a page like List of converts to Islam, for Former muslims. It should be called:

List of people who left Islam

And it should be modelled on the List of converts to Islam, but it should be better than that page.

--Matt57 20:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

So why don't you start it?--Sefringle 05:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well there you go, I made it now: List of people who left Islam. Expect a barrage of campaign to get that page deleted (roll eyes) but I've already put up a warning notice for anyone who tries to get that done, so people, dont even try. --Matt57 06:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I will remove all people for whom leaving Islam is not a defining characteristic. See pending Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_July_23#People_by_former_religion. Andries 13:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)