I Embraced Islam, And It Sucked..
Here's an interesting--and kind of funny--review of My Year Inside Radical Islam, by a guy who converted, and then left Islam after two years:
In 1998, after graduating from college, Gartenstein-Ross took a job with the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation essentially because the group, flush with money from Saudi Arabia and the sole Muslim outpost in town, was looking for an intern. (After 9/11, the FBI shut down Al-Haramain and indicted Gartenstein-Ross' former boss for conspiracy to defraud the United States and for filing a false IRS return by a tax-exempt organization. Gartenstein-Ross was neither involved in nor aware of any of these illegal actions.) This internship encompasses Gartenstein-Ross' "radicalization and the long slow climb out" of Islam, an odd label, considering the entirety of his indoctrination and extrication is less than two years. The book would be better titled My Yearlong Internship at a Charity That I Had No Idea Was Funding al-Qaida. But that would hardly make the front table at Barnes and Noble, would it?
Click here for full review.
So basically, he converted to Islam, found that the people (that he ran with) sucked, and then left the faith. It reminds me a bit of another book written by a convert, Believing As Ourselves. This sister also converted to Islam, found that (some of the) people sucked. But she was able to separate herself from those in the community who made life difficult as a new Muslim, and come out stronger, with the understanding that Islam doesn't ask you to abandon yourself. Interesting contrast.
In 1998, after graduating from college, Gartenstein-Ross took a job with the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation essentially because the group, flush with money from Saudi Arabia and the sole Muslim outpost in town, was looking for an intern. (After 9/11, the FBI shut down Al-Haramain and indicted Gartenstein-Ross' former boss for conspiracy to defraud the United States and for filing a false IRS return by a tax-exempt organization. Gartenstein-Ross was neither involved in nor aware of any of these illegal actions.) This internship encompasses Gartenstein-Ross' "radicalization and the long slow climb out" of Islam, an odd label, considering the entirety of his indoctrination and extrication is less than two years. The book would be better titled My Yearlong Internship at a Charity That I Had No Idea Was Funding al-Qaida. But that would hardly make the front table at Barnes and Noble, would it?
Click here for full review.
So basically, he converted to Islam, found that the people (that he ran with) sucked, and then left the faith. It reminds me a bit of another book written by a convert, Believing As Ourselves. This sister also converted to Islam, found that (some of the) people sucked. But she was able to separate herself from those in the community who made life difficult as a new Muslim, and come out stronger, with the understanding that Islam doesn't ask you to abandon yourself. Interesting contrast.
posted by purvis at 11:22 PM
2 Comments:
THANK YOU for that line!
"Islam does not ask you to abandon yourself." Why do so many sisters think that it does?
If you mean that Islam does not require you to abandon what is good in your culture, family, upbringing and being/character, of course not... and I'm confused as to why this is news to some muslims. Abu Bakr (radhi Allahu anh) had a golden character before he entered Islam, and maintained it after he accepted... is this news?
as for Daveed, confused might be the word. apparently reading and thinking deeply about religion and making religious decisions based on theological and deep-rooted sentiment is not familiar to him, he thinks of religion as some sort of 'culcha' [as one Christian friend said "the building you pray in and the hat you wear on your head"] and not as meaning or spirituality.
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