The following is a letter from a Muslim (Saeed) to Ali Sina:

Mr Ali Sina,

I have been following and reading your website since a year now. I honestly don’t know what to think of you. Initially just like every other born Muslim, my faith was based on blind imitation and I followed Islam moderately without much knowledge of it other than what is required to know as the basic tenets of Islam. I was brought up in Pakistan with religious grandparents who always instilled the thought that there shouldn’t be any “why” when religion is concerned. Everything should be followed to the letter as described by Prophet Muhammad through his Hadiths and the Quran and we are not supposed to question it. Thus questions such as “who created god?”, “why is God invisible?”, “what gender he has” shouldn’t even be attempted to ponder on because human logic is fallible, and god didn’t impart us with the brain to comprehend his existence. Islam as taught in school, madrassa’s, and by the society was always portrayed in one dimensional version where the “good” parts were largely emphasized and most of the eye brow raising things (polygamy, double standards, beating of wife, Aisha’s age, killing of non-believers, prophet marriages, muta, discrimination of women, keeping slaves, sex with slaves and captives of war, Prophet's wars with Jews and treatments of prisoners of war) were either totally ignored or were presented in a sugar-coated version.

I find it difficult to imagine that even though the scholars of Islam -- who are aware of all this and well-versed with hadiths, Quran and sira of the prophet -- are so brainwashed that they unintentionally try to ignore all this questionable things, which in today’s era are considered immoral. Islam, I believe, is so staunchly believe by us Muslims to be the ultimate divine revelation that every act of Islam and prophet rightly justifies itself.

Even to my surprise, I was unaware of majority of the teachings regarding the points I mentioned above until I started reading your site. They are simply missing from the teachings of Islam which Muslim commonly preach to the general masses or followed by “moderate” Muslims like us, but only gets visible when you start getting deeper and deeper into the web of Islam.

Like many Muslims who consider themselves moderate, I believe now that there is no phrase such as "moderate" Muslim. You can either be a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Being a Muslim means following the hadiths, Quran and principles of Islam rigidly, which means accepting and following all the things which are left out by “moderate” Muslims deeming to be inapplicable today. Indirectly, it implies that the people truly following Islam today, i.e. true Muslim, are the Mullahs, Taliban and the Islamists (or Muslims we call extremists).

Even before reading your website, some of the inklings of Islam which I was skeptical about I simply blocked them from sinking in, because I was so sure about the validity of Islam that the notion of doubt didn’t even existed. And I can bet you, majority of the Muslims are also in this state, most unaware of the complete image of Islam, but only living in a fantasized sugar-coated image without the absurdities presented by Mullahs, or are brainwashed in the doctrine of Islam to the point that they have no difficulty in accepting an absurd or ruthless act, because it’s the will of God and has the seal of prophet.

Furthermore, it is made more comprehensible by the fact that Prophet Muhammad claimed himself as the "seal of the prophets" and the bringer of the last true religion for all mankind until the Day of Judgment. This gives the Muslims more upheaval on never to reason or doubt what they have been taught, just because they have idea of this supremacy and blind believe that only they are the followers of true and final path and others are astray. I believe this is the reason why the Islamic world is so violent when anything comes against as criticizing Islam or Prophet Muhammad.

When I found your website, the idea of doubting Islam did not even exist. I thought of you as a troll who is trying to get some attention and make himself famous. So, initially I rejected your website altogether and forgot about you. However, being an inquisitive person myself, I started wondering, what would you personally gain by criticizing a religion as strict as Islam when you yourself were a Muslim (thus knows the penalty of apostasy and faith in afterlife), unless you have something really of importance or thought provoking to add. Unlike many Muslims who think that the whole world is against them, and every act of a non-believer is in some way related to causing harm to Islam, I started reading your articles just to see what you have to write.

What you write definitely got me thinking. Some of the points which really sank in were already present in my mind long before, but had no reason to converge together because Islam is true was written in stone.

Your website also made me start digging in more into Islam from a historical scholarly point of view such as biography of Prophet, Hadith and several religious texts/scriptures which i never really bothered to read before or didn’t even care about.
Your articles were always well referenced to legitimate Islamic books and hadiths and my research from your articles led me to read Ibn Ishaq (The Life of Muhammad), Tabaqat of ibn Sad, 23 Years, Martin Ling’s, Quran translation itself, Ibn Warraq, Sources of Quran (Tisdall), Sealed Nectar biography and your own book Understanding Muhammad.

I will mention two points here from reading your articles and the several books, which planted the seeds of doubt in my mind.

1) (From chapter Meta physics, Ali Dashti, 23 Years) Our universe as we know of today includes billions of stars, galaxies, planets, intergalactic space, massive black holes and energy. There are more than 170 billion galaxies which we can observe today in our universe. Out of all this 170 billion galaxies, there is one galaxy called the Milky Way which is 100,000 light years in diameters. This Milky Way consists of approximately 100 billion stars, out of which there is one star called the Sun which is the center of Solar System. This solar system is what currently houses our World along with 8(9) other planets which revolve around it. The question is why is our significance in this entire universe so less? If we use our mind we see that our significance compared to the whole universe is probably even less than 1/1 gazillion trillions. (or whatever more than that). If we are the center of attention of God, and his ultimate reason for creating the universe is for us humans to worship him, why did he created this entire big universe to be so massive? Our significance is just like a bunch of ants in a garden of grand stature such as Shalimar gardens. If we think of us as the gardener(creator) of this entire garden, are we going to care about what the ants do, don’t or spend their time on?. Is there anything which the ants do have an impact on this big entire garden of ours? If instead of ants there were let’s say something of more importance of significance such as rabbits which could eat the plants and destroy the garden, then to the gardener they would be of some concern or something to care about. Similarly why is our significance in this world so negligible or even nonexistent? Is there anything we can do in this universe which can change the course of the laws of this universe or have an impact on it? If god only created this entire solar system as the universe, then we can probably have thought that our significance in this universe is huge and their might be some probability of reason for our creation and we are the center of attention to a God. But as god only populated our world with life and as far as we know this entire universe is devoid of any life forms, why would god create the rest of the universe for, if the main purpose is for us to worship him and this universe is a test bed for humans for the afterlife? If we see the image of universe primitive people had they considered earth as the most significant part of the universe which is the center of it. Similarly in religious scriptures there is so much importance given to the earth and sometimes God attention and concern is only directed towards certain parts of the world, there is no mention of the universe we know now today with all the galaxies and stars.

2) 2)(your article which talked about love for fellow beings and love for own species which was also shown when a bunch of buffalo save their own kind from a lion) I love my mother, and she loves me equally. To her I am the pure reason of her happiness. I consider myself as a good son as in I support her with her finances and live with her because she doesn’t work. My mother is religious and prays 5 times a day and recites Quran. I never really prayed, other than Friday prayers. Let’s say after reading your website I become an atheist. But still as I believe I love my mother I stay Loyal and always be loveable, supportive and a good son to her. Let’s say she dies a pious religious Muslim and I die as an atheist. So because of our beliefs she will be sent to heaven while I will be thrown into hell. The question is , will my mother ever be happy in the heaven knowing that her beloved son who was nice to her and supported her and never did any wrong to her is being tortured in hell and burnt in most sadistic ways because he didn’t worship Allah? Similarly, there would be other many close families who would be divided among heaven and hell. Will any sane person would be happy in heaven knowing that their father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, wife, son, daughter, grandparents, or even another human is burning in hell and tortured?

Let’s forget the family members, let’s just think of it as humans, like you said you saw a buffalo saving its herd from lions in one of your articles. If we see a human being suffering – suppose on the street after an accident – our impulsive reaction is to rush and help that person and to help him. How then can we be merry in Paradise knowing countless other humans are being sadistically tortured in hell? How would we feel if we know that some people in the next building are being tortured, dismembered and killed? It is human nature to seek happiness and shun pain, torture and death. Will any sane human being gonna be happy in Heaven knowing that there are fellow humans made of flesh and blood being tortured in hell? If mother Teresa is being burnt in hell, I can bet you even many devout Muslims in heaven would wince.

Now it’s one of my spare time hobby to research religion and specifically Islam. I try to read with an open mind and the more I research the more doubtful and agnostic I become.
Currently I am reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and plan to read Tabari soon.

As i was raised in a Muslim family and as a respect to my family lineage and to be loyal to my religious upbringing, I still follow the tenets of Islam and my culture which is rooted in Islam as practiced in my family (praying Friday, no pork or wine, no fornication) I can’t really say that I have left Islam completely or plan to do so, however you have really gotten me skeptical about religion.

I would really want to share your website and your book among my family members but i am afraid of the consequences. I don’t want to be shun and rejected by them, but i also want them to keep an open mind and research on Islam so they can think open mindedly and decide on the truth themselves.

Saeed