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Islam is the most horrible thing I have experienced in my life

Islam is the most horrible thing I have experienced in my life

  • Posted by Maryam Namazie
  • On December 12, 2011
  • 35 Comments
  • women

Nazanin, a friend of mine, who now lives in Europe, was imprisoned and raped by the Islamic regime in Iran for opposing veiling. She says: ‘Islam to me is the most horrible thing I have experienced in my life.’

I’ll second that.

Here’s her testimony:

 

35 Comments

J White
What a sad experience to have had. Positively horrifying. There is nothing wrong with religion per se, but it is extremism and theocracy that are the problem. When you can be punished for not adhering to a religious doctrine be prison time, rape or death that is the problem. In the U.S. where I live I am a member of a minority religion, many politicians and political figures would like to have a Christian-based religious government. Stories like this are why this possibility frightens me. Democracy not theocracy, freedom of religion not enforcement of religion. She is very brave for sharing this story. I wish her peace.
...
This is so funny on how ppl trying to hate Islam. May Allah bless you all.
Time for a little Intolerance « Choice in Dying
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UnicornMantears
WEll Lol i am never setting foot in Iran, if this is how they treat women,then hell no! got a sister and a mother who i love very much, and for something like that to even have a minuscule chance of happening then i would rather die. You go girl, tell Islam to go jack off in the woods! horrible nutjob religion =)
Justin Griffith
The wife and I both had a crushingly emotional response to this video. Thank you for sharing this with us. Please keep it up, you are important.
EppSa
Islam is the most beautiful thing I have experienced in my life.
    Upright Ape
    I don't really mind that, if you do not believe that I, for the simple reason of having been raised muslim, am under an obligation to share your view. Except of course, you have to, unless you want to throw out the prophet's hadith and centuries of precedent.
    Martyn Hughes
    My persian cat named 'Belle' is the most beautiful thing in my life. cannot help it. She's lovely!
    Maryam Namazie
    You haven't lived very much then have you?
Upright Ape
What I find amazing is that according to apologists like Rhys, religion likethe can never lose. When followers of a faith do something horrible, their motive cannot possibly be what they themselves say it is, no matter how loud and clear tgey are. The likes of Rhys are the ultimate mind readers. They are the clairvoyants who tell us people would be doing bad things, with or without religion. Only problem is, the followers of religion never get enough of telling us about soup kitchens, working for the homeless, and overseas charities their faith runs. Religion necer stops taking credit for the good things. So which is it Rhys? You cannot have it both ways.
Hector
What language is this?
Eric MacDonald
The most extreme version of a religion is not likely to be the most correct version.
Why not? The most extreme version is very likely to be much closer to the original than versions which evolved later, which is why reform movements in religions almost always go back to the source of the religion, and intensify practice and belief. I should think that the more or most extreme version is most likely the correct version, other things being equal, which they often are.
Ophelia Benson
She lives in Scandinavia - that's Norwegian or Swedish that they're speaking. I know some ex-Muslim women in both places. Sara Mohammed of Glöm aldrig Pela och Fadime (Never Forget Pela and Fadime) for instance - she's fantastic.
Rhys
I cannot believe the naivety of all the other posters. This has absolutely nothing to do with religion it has to do with humanity or lack of humanity. Religion is the justification of atrocities that people would carry out anyway. Your distorted views of Islam are laughable. Islam does not have to lead to acts like this but that is how the minority choose to see it and choose to use the religion. This is no different to segregation, white supremacy, homophobic attacks and the general hate that is spewed by the people of the US on a daily basis. 'Muslims actually believe in GENIES made of SMOKE lol, retards.' in reply to that. That is no different to any religion. All completely based on nothing other than 'faith' in a book. Religion is what the weak hide behind and is the root cause of many of todays problems and is not the solution to a single one.
    JohnR
    "I cannot believe the naivety of all the other posters. This has absolutely nothing to do with religion..." Wow, I cannot believe the naivety of this post. Are you really arguing that people don't act on religious beliefs, much like they might based on any other ideology? Of course they can and in this case you’ve got an entire nation with a belief system based on the writings of a warlord from the early middle ages.
    Ophelia Benson
    and the general hate that is spewed by the people of the US on a daily basis.
    Excuse me? I'm one of the people of the US, and I don't recognize myself in that description. At any rate, it's pretty absurd to accuse someone who grew up in an "Islamic Republic" of having distorted views of Islam. Do you really claim to know more about it than she does?
      Lynn
      Yes, I do expect someone who grew up in an Islamic Theocracy to have a distorted view of the religion. I expect, and do not blame, someone who was tortured and raped by that government to have a distorted view of the religion that it forces on all of its citizens. A religion which has become distorted in places like Iran since the 1981 Iranian Revolution. Just because an entire nation is forced by its government to follow a certain brand of faith doesn't make it the correct version of that faith. In fact it is more likely that a violent government is going to distort the religion it uses to its own means. Its like saying that a child who grew up in an abusive household with a Christian family that tortured the child for any wrong doing must have the most correct version of Christianity. When even as a non-Christian I know that Jesus' teaching were vehemently the opposite of such punishments. The most extreme version of a religion is not likely to be the most correct version.
        Upright Ape
        Really? How do you know your view of islam is "correct", while the victims view is not? How about the views of the survivors of Holocaust? Would they all have the wrong view of Nazism because that had been too close to it?
        Fin
        Who says what the "correct" version of a religion is? Surely, the followers of the extreme versions would claim that they are more "correct" than others. Or if we're seeking something objective, how about the holy books themselves? ... Except most of the extreme versions are more spot on with the book than the more liberal versions I think you are aiming to label as "correct". Put bluntly, the "extreme" versions are just as valid religious practices as any other. The objection can therefore be extended beyond the particular, singular instance of an extreme variety, and to the similar, although perhaps not quite so extreme varieties. This is the same line of reasoning as objecting to the patriarchal nature of Christianity, based on such data points as the Quiverfull movement, or the furore over female Bishops.
        Dude
        The bible condones torture and beating children.
    Upright Ape
    Rhys, I cannot believe that how vile and idiotic you are. There is no reason to think that this is in any way related to Islam, according to to you? Interesting. Have you read the koran, or any books of the hadith? How many years have you dedicated to studying Islam? How many exams have you taken on the sharia? If the answer to all the above questions is "no" or "none", then you are a smug idiot taking pleasure in trivializing the suffering of e rape victims.
    Martyn Hughes
    Which is it Rhys? 'I cannot believe the naivety of all the other posters. This has absolutely nothing to do with religion it has to do with humanity or lack of humanity.' Or 'Religion is what the weak hide behind and is the root cause of many of todays problems and is not the solution to a single one.' You contradict yourself in your own post.
    Dude
    "segregation, white supremacy, homophobic attacks and the general hate that is spewed by the people of the US on a daily basis." Often, if not always, legitimised by religious scripture or contemporary religious propaganda.
    bdoub
    "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. " Steven Weinberg
jecky
Muslims actually believe in GENIES made of SMOKE lol, retards.
    /r/atheism
    Christians actually believe that a boy was born of a virgin and came back to life even after the story was copied exactly from the Egyptians. Religious people are like children that believe in Santa Claus, except they refuse to listen or stop believing when someone comes along and tells them their parents are the ones putting the presents under the tree.
Forelle
You're both brave women. This is awful.
Aliasalpha
All for not wearing a hat... I really hate humanity some days, who's up for a colonising mission to that new super earth like planet?
    mprno
    Let's just colonize Iran instead. ;)
      Maryam Namazie
      Iranians will get rid of the regime if it loses support from governments helping to prop it up. Best thing we can do is stop any war, military intervention, economic sanctions, and instead call for a political boycott of the regime and let people there do their thing.
        Rafiq Mahmood
        I agree. I have a lot of hope that the focus of secular revolution may well be in Iran. The people were betrayed in their revolution. Shia Islam is one of the most absurd forms of that delusion and the people have lived under he full weight of its ghastly tyranny and have had enough. Sooner or later they will throw off the whole rotten package. Those living under Western supported tyrannies (as Iran was before the sour revolution) can delude themselves that their regimes were corrupt forms of Islam and that things would be a lot better if there were a real golden age of the "true and pure" that the Islamists promise. In Iran the people know what that "new golden age" is really like and will not swallow the same medicine twice. The danger of the "Arab Autumn" is that the Sunni countries have yet to taste the "new golden age" that may so easily come if the Islamists (however "moderate" they claim to be) come to power in the real "Arab Spring". I call what has been happening recently as the "Arab Autumn" because what has actually happened is that a few old leaves who have clung onto their twigs for far too long have at last fallen. The Spring has yet to come when we see what the new buds produce. You are right, Maryam. No more misconceived and harmful military or economic interventions. Support the people with encouragement and demand political isolation. The people will do their stuff. Helping those who seek refuge and support no-strings-attached information sharing.
Martyn Hughes
Poor woman. I admire her for making that interview. There are still too many people in the West - Read the yahoo! comments section on Iran related stories for evidence - that believe that the Iranian people are the same as the regime. That is unfortunate. Testimonies such as this can only help enlighten people to the truth and get more people active in resisting fundamentalisms everywhere.

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Maryam Namazie