Mr. Sina, thank you for your site.  Many of us in the world understand *exactly* what it is you are doing for the world.  Thank you for your service to humanity.  I have a story here that you may find suitable for your website.  I thank the other contributors of stories also.  They have been a soothing voice of sanity in an increasingly insane world. My story follows: 

My Near-Conversion to Islam, by Umma-Allergic

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I pulled out of my nosedive at the last moment! 

Many young people seem to go through a phase where we become revolted with the hypocrisy of our elders, and the abuses of power in our societies.  In the West, that can lead some of us to make the sometimes fatal mistake of converting to Islam.  I came very close to making that error. 

During the first Gulf War in 1991, I was a committed peace and social justice activist.  I felt so strongly committed to the pacifist tradition, and I was very, very upset at the prospect that my Canadian government might send Canadian forces to join the American war in Iraq .  I helped to organize anti-war protests, and I was very, very distraught and upset at the turn that our country seemed about to take. 

At that time, we had a fairly moderate Islamic community in town, with a beautiful mosque - importantly, all built without Saudi money, and the organizing committee was desperately trying to keep the mosque and an Islamic school running without asking the Saudis for money, since their involvement would change the culture of the school entirely (strict sex segregation, no female officers, teaching a more fundamentalist type of Islam, blatantly preferential treatment for Saudi students, all of which did indeed come to pass when the school finally ran out of money and had to ask the Saudis for help). 

Anyway, the combination of my generally anti-establishment beliefs, my opposition to the war and my romantic views of this local community began to exert a certain force upon me.  I began to develop a certain fascination for all things Muslim.  I suddenly became very aware of this vast part of the world I had never really thought of very much before.  It also struck me that having four wives might be kind of cool... (I'm being honest, here) and that the Islamic world might be happy to have a highly educated and articulate convert like me.  I might be well treated, and make a good life for myself in Islam.  I began to feel called to Allah.  I began to feel in myself a readiness to make the switch, to declare my faith, to become a convert, and to enter a whole other civilization from anything I had ever known before.  I approached Islam with the most open heart and mind possible.  I was ready to embrace it, and ready to become a Muslim. 

Then I read the Koran and the life of Mohammed.  It was absolutely and utterly disgusting.  I was instantly cured.  Islam cannot be considered a religion on par with any others.  It is evil. 

I was raised with certain very strong values.  First and foremost, killing is wrong.  Hitting people is wrong.  Using force, shame and intimidation to manipulate people into believing certain things is wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong!  Political realism is such that killing is sometimes necessary, but it is never by that measure justified!!!  Rather, it sometimes becomes necessary to do horrible things, and one should still hate the fact that the situation has deteriorated to this point, and step away from violence as quickly as is responsibly possible.  It is never right, though sometimes unavoidable. 

This value was nowhere in Islam.  Rather, Islam glorifies certain kinds of violence.  Glorifies it!  Calls it holy!  It was absolutely disgusting.  Islam takes certain kinds of violent killings and says "this is good".  It is evil.  Mohammed was a brigand and a bandit.  He hurt people.  What the hell is this? 

Another thing I was taught from birth was that it is never okay to judge individuals on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, accent, physical or mental disability...  I was raised to strongly reject prejudice as evil and anti-social.  It is never right to define an in-group and an out-group, never right to define an "us" and a "them".  We are all part of one human family, and we are beautiful in our diversity.  Prejudice and bigotry are destroyers of peace. 

On this value, Islam was a total disaster.  The whole reason that Islam can justify and glorify murder is because it defines an in-group and an out-group, an "us" and a "them".  This makes it morally good to kill "them" to protect "us".  Not just politically necessary but still lamentable and at bottom evil...  Islam is so preoccupied with advancing the interests of the in-group and subjugating the out-group that it actually makes the use of violence holy!  It is a sick and twisted cult that creates lovers of death and destroyers of civil society. 

The so-called 'peace' of Islam and 'tolerance' of other faiths is not universal.  Peace is only for the in-group, and tolerance is only extended to other cultures after those cultures have been subjugated.  At that brings me to a third major value I was brought up with that Islam pathetically violates.  It is wrong to view conflict in terms of winners and losers.  If we only think in terms of winners and losers, we will not be willing to compromise.  We have to be willing to perhaps not 'win' on exactly the terms we had hoped, understanding that the other person we are in conflict with will do the same, and that way we can both compromise and resolve our conflict.  This concept is totally foreign and alien to the culture of political Islam, and that culture has its roots in the Koran and the life of Mohammed. 

This faith is irredeemable.  One billion voices must discredit it. 

I was raised pretty well, I think.  I may be an atheist, and sexually expressive, but I am a million times more ethical than those crowd of mindless drones chanting "Death to Israel, Death to Amerika" outside of their mosques.  I came to Islam with open arms, and open mind and an open heart, but I also brought along open eyes.  I was deeply repelled by that network of chauvinistic beliefs called the Koran.  I have read the holy books of every major faith on earth.  Islam does not belong in that company.  This became instantly obvious to me as I tried to read about this prophet I was preparing to follow. 

The conversion, needless to say, never happened. 

I was raised to value the virtue of tolerance.  However, TOLERANCE CAN ONLY BE EXTENDED TO THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO RETURN THE FAVOUR!!!!  The tolerant can accommodate all cultures except cultures of intolerance.  These either have to be contained by law and kept out of the public sphere, or, very regrettably, broken apart by force if there is any threat that the intolerant sect might start hurting people. 

So with great regrets, I am building my resolve, first for seeking legal ways to keep hateful speech and incitements to violence out of free societies.  I wish I believed that would be enough to stop this dark tide from destroying the world.    

Dear Umma Allergic:  

You are lucky because you are an educated person who likes reading. Not all those who convert to Islam come with open eyes. The majority of converts to Islam are youths who are not very fond of reading. I’d say 99% of the converts have not read the Quran and the biography of Muhammad. They convert because they are fed the syrupy and false version of Islam and truly have no idea what they are doing. If they are women, often they wake up from this nightmare when they have already ruined their lives and the prospects of their happy future. For them the consequences are much direr than for men.  

I am glad you had your close encounter with the Devil and saw how evil Islam is. Now please don’t sit quiet. Our western civilization, this last bastion of freedom for mankind is in grave danger. Please use your erudition and educate others. We are in war. You already know that. The problem is that unlike the Muslims, that are waging this war in full gear against mankind, the non-Muslims are laid back and still unaware what is going on.  

Please champion the cause of freedom and let the world, especially the Canadians know the truth about Islam. We need more people like you. Not just people who say oh, Islam is not for me and go and live their lives, but people who have seen the danger of Islam and know the threat that it represents to our world and freedom and rise to fight it. We must change the public opinion in Canada and make the Canadians realize Islam is not another color in their multicultural mosaic. I am all for multiculturalism, but Islam is not a culture. It is barbarity, it is insanity, it is evil.  

You speak the language of the liberals and you can be of great asset to our noble cause. I have been trying hard to make the leftists know that it would be a gross mistake to take the side of Islam and Muslims in their antagonism to the Right wing conservatism. I must admit that I have had little success with them. It’s like hitting my head against the wall. I had even leftists who used to help in the administration of this site. They all turned against me for their loyalty to their leftist agenda blinded them of the imminent danger of Islam and when they left they sabotaged the site. Only you can make the leftists come to their senses. How much blind of multiculturalism and moral relativism they can get for not to see the danger looming over their own heads? Please speak out.    

This is not a war between Left and Right. This is a war between civilization and barbarity, a war between good and evil, a war between freedom and slavery, a war between human dignity and human rights abuses. This is a war between sanity and total madness. Only you can make the leftists see that Islam is not like other cultures and Muslims are not like other people. Muslims are here to destroy us and slit our throats.  I admire your resolve. Yes, we need to ban Islam. If we want to preserve the freedom of faiths, we must eliminate all doctrines that oppose such freedom and therefore Islam must go.  

Please read this story and be outraged. See how we are losing our freedom slowly but surely. 

In democracies governments are powerless. They can’t do anything unless there is an outcry from bottom up that they can’t ignore. So let us raise the public awareness and make this outcry heard.

Regards 

Ali Sina