Why Muslims in the West leave Islam and what can we do about it.

 

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 1:54 AM

 

From: "Tanim@yahoo.com" <Tanim@yahoo.com>To: aawaz-e-dost@yahoogroups.com

 

 

Walaikumassalam,

 

I live in Chicago, Illinois, and I totally agree with all the analysis and observations of brother Abdul Malik Mujahid.

Most of the second generation Muslims don't know much about Islam as their parents don't care, and all these kids only care about baseball stars, basketball stars, movie stars, dating, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc., that is all haram things. When you try to teach them that this is not allowed in our religion, instead of leaving the haram things, they become more inclined to leave Islam.

 

 

And there are so many Muslims who come here from Muslim countries who start drinking and doing haram things. I have seen so many young university students, boys and girls, who came to Chicago, who didn't used to drink before, and some of them used to pray regularly, but when they came here, they became indoctrinated into kuffar society with alcohol and partying. I have even seen some people become buddhist!

 

 

It is true that many people are converting to Islam. In my masjid, MSA, alhamdulillah I have seen 3 people accept Islam. But at the same neighborhood, I have seen dozens of Muslims take up alcohol, partying and other haram things, and utter some statements and beliefs that clearly take them out of the fold of Islam.

 

 

Muslims in the West need to wake up. Especially the parents of young people. I've seen Muslim parents falsely boast that my son and his friends pray 5 times a day, when in reality, they pray perhaps 5 times a year! And they spread these lies that Muslims in America practice their faith very strongly, only so that people from outside Chicago look up to them, when the truth is otherwise.

 

 

The Imam of Islamic Foundation in Villa Park himself expressed his frustrations in at least 2 khutbahs when he said that so many Muslim girls come to him to marry Christian Men! When he asked the men, have you accepted Islam, they say yes in tongue. But when he asks them about what they really believed with regards to Allah and ar Rasul, they said that all the religions are the same! So the Imam refused to marry the girls to the men who said the Shahadah only for formality purposes. But those girls probably went to some other Imam to get married to same Christian boyfriends.

 

 

That is why, in the Quran, we are told to do hijrah (migration) for the sake of Allah as indicated by the Quran in this verse:

 

 

4:97 (Y. Ali) When angels take the souls of those who die in sin against their souls, they say: "In what (plight) Were ye?" They reply: "Weak andoppressed Were we in the earth." They say: "Was not the earth of Allah spacious enough for you to move yourselves away (From evil)?" Such men will find their abode in Hell,- What an evil refuge!

 

 

In this context, oppressed means people who were not able to practice their religion in the location they lived in, whether the society forcefully took them away from religion or just encouraged them to leave the religion.

 

 

Brothers and sisters, please make sincere duwa for me, so that I can inshallah return to Muslim country in a few years after finishing my studies. Ameen.

 

Tanim Taher

 

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To: aawaz-e-dost@yahoogroups.com

From:

Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:48:05 -0700

Subject: [aawaz-e-dost] Why Muslims in the West leave Islam and what can we do about it.]

 

Assalamu Alaikum

 

I am late in responding to this thread, but thought it is an important topic and I should share what I know about it. There are several ex-Muslims who are now Christian missionaries in the Chicago area. There are at least three Churches in Chicago land lead by ex-Muslims and about ten more are under training at a leading missionary school in Chicago . I first came to know about the ex-Muslim phenomena when Dr. Ilyas ba Yunus did his survey of Muslims in Illinois . The late Dr. Yunus was a sociology professor and founding president of ISNA. No one knows how many people leave Islam except the numbers given by Dr. ba Yunus. However, people leaving Islam are from the following four categories:

 

1. New Muslim leaving Islam: Dr. Ilyas Yunus survey told him that 50% people who accept Islam leave the faith within a few years. Many people who accept Islam in prisons do not find much support, Islamic brotherhood and sisterhood when they come out of the prison system. At my invitation he presented his findings to about 50 Muslim leaders and Imams in Chicago land area in a close door settings for us to learn from his findings. Unfortunately he refused to write on that topic, although he told me that his similar research in New York found that about 65% people leave Islam within a few years.

 2. Refugees from Muslim countries. Muslim constitute half of all world refugees. When America accepts refugees from the world, they are assigned to any of the nine agencies in the US . These state department sanctioned agencies then work with 400 other associated entities. All of these agencies are Christian church run with two exceptions. One of them actively engage in conversions. However, other Christian agencies do not try to convert and actually ask Muslims to help these refugees with their needs including Islamic needs. Two efforts to get state department to sanction a Muslim agency to assist these refugees were denied in the past. In Chicago Sister Naazish Yar Khan runs a committee to offer assistance to these refugees in collaboration with Christian groups who do not try to convert them. Some of these refugees are already converted to Christianity before they arrive here.

 

3. immigrant Muslims: there are very active Christian outreach programs to Muslims with publications in Urdu in Devon and in Arabic in Bridgeview area. Once I spoke to a person with very Islamic name who told me that he used to be a Maulana in Pakistan but now has become a Christian. He wanted his name out from Sound Vision’s catalog mailing list. After 9/11 New York Times ran a story that the largest number of people who are changing their names through court system are Muslims adopting Christian names. The report did not talk about conversions.

 

4. Second generation Muslims: Many of the second generation Muslims do not know about Islam enough. Most of them are out of loop from Islamic education. Only about 4,000 students attend Islamic schools and about 9,000 attend weekend schools in Chicago area. The rest have mostly no connection. Many of their parents even don’t care for Islam. They were neither practicing Muslims in their homeland nor they practiced it here so their children had no knowledge of their heritage. Post 9/11 pressure also played a role. Some of you might have heard a true tragic love story on NPRs “this American Life” of a Muslim family where a five grader daughter who temporarily left Islam while her practicing parents were trying to protect her from extra-ordinary pressure by school students and teachers (http://www. thisamericanlife .org/Radio_ Episode.aspx? sched=1163) . According to a recent Gallup survey the young Muslims are the least satisfied with life as compared to any other religious community youth in America ..

 

Recommendations:

 

1. Masjids need to allocate more resources to reach out to those Muslims who are not connected with masjids. Masjids should fund a project for Council to develop a comprehensive database of all Muslims in Illinois . This database can then be shared with the neighborhood masjid to connect with those who are not a part of the community.

 

2. New Muslims support groups must be established in each masjid. To my knowledge there are only three at this moment.

 

3. Half way houses are an urgent need. Half way houses can be a good business since the government pays for the rehabilitation of people. I have visited two such half way houses run as a business by a Muslim. Masjid Dawa has plans to establish one.

 

4. Masjid programs and weekend schools need to have an interfaith comparative syllabus so that our young people are aware of the missionary's’ arguments.

 

5. Masjids need to assist the Muslim refugee assistance program which sister Naazish is working. To my knowledge, Islamic Foundation, villa park and MSI are helping her.

 

6. We need to have at least one part time staffer per MSA or at least a fulltime intern. Five Hillel in Illinois area have more than 30 full time staff including Rabbis and PhDs to guide their students. In the meantime, please stop boasting that Islam is the fastest growing religion. It is not true and it gives a false satisfaction to Muslims while others become very alarmed. No one has ever documented it. As a matter of fact those who have documented the religious growth in the USA have always said the Buddhism is the fastest growing faith in this country. I know it is a lot of work. But alhamdu lillah, Muslim community in Chicago has been growing and becoming stronger. With dua, good thinking and planning, we can do a better job. Peace

 

Abdul Malik Mujahid

 

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