hey you can call me "yasser" and iam from Morocco, It all started or as I like to call it, the "domino effect"—from a deep isolation with myself at an early age. Specifically, since sixth grade, when my first questions began to quietly take shape, in the form of an accumulative awareness resulting from personal experiences and thoughts that seemed strange to me at the time: Why am I a Muslim? What is the essence of Islam? Why should I hate Christians and Jews? How did I end up on this religion? Is it merely a geographical coincidence that forced this affiliation upon me, or a choice from God? 

I was a curious child, always asking questions and thinking. But I was surrounded by an environment that killed this curiosity in its cradle: at home, at school, among friends—even children among themselves unconsciously practiced this suppression, using the language of fear: "You will burn in hell," "God will torment you," "You will die a disbeliever or kafeer"... And if there was a place where this suppression was practiced in its most intense form, it was the mosque. To me, the mosque was a graveyard of thought. The moment you stepped in, you had to leave your mind with your shoes at the door. Questions were not welcome, doubt was criminalized, critical thinking was suppressed. Any question outside the allowed framework was answered either with flimsy justifications or with angry rebuke: "This is a whisper from the devil," "Seek forgiveness from God and return to your senses." Later, the absence of my father played a decisive role in fueling this internal rift. I lived with my family in my grandfather's house: ten individuals, including my grandfather and grandmother, two aunts, my mother, father, and three of my siblings. A conservative and religious family, but my father was the most extreme. A religiously fanatic person who imposed a controlling lifestyle heavily influenced by religion. Everything seemed “normal” until my father decided to take my mother with him after getting a job in another city, leaving us in my grandfather’s house. He was gone for years, visiting us once a year, and this absence lasted more than nine years. Imagine nine years of emotional deprivation, fatherly absence, and internal turmoil. I tried repeatedly to find a single rational justification for this absence, but I couldn’t. Even the attempts to justify it by my aunts or grandfather were entirely unconvincing. To me, my father was guilty. And still is. Things could have been different. Financial circumstances were not an obstacle. But my father cruelly chose to impose his social vision at the expense of children who had not even reached fifteen. From that point, I began to understand that "fate" was not an acceptable justification. It was not a sudden circumstance. Rather, it was just a hanger on which we hang our weakness or injustice. And from that time, the first features of the moral “problem of evil” began to form in me, unconsciously: how can all this injustice and pain be justified as "God’s will"? And is it ethical to be demanded absolute acceptance of what is called “fate and destiny”? I started to notice that the pattern my father imposed on us included not only absence, but emotional and material neglect. He did not care about our academic paths, nor our daily needs. He was generous with relatives, stingy with his children, always citing the phrase “those closest to you are most deserving of your kindness,” but we never saw any of that kindness. It was just an illusion wrapped in a biased religious cover. Because of this situation, my brother and I dropped out of school; I was in high school, and my brother in the ninth grade. The psychological reality was collapsing, family support was nonexistent, and my mother was merely an extension of my father's authority—she had no opinion, no authority. She too lived under the same religiously-wrapped patriarchal dominance, which is unfortunately common in our Islamic societies, where freedoms are suppressed, opinions are strangled, and dreams are killed. Despite all that, the defining turning point came later: recently, at 29 years old, I lost my job after four years that brought me nothing but exhaustion, then I was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease "Crohn disease" the second illness after asthma. I underwent two critical surgeries, and from there my perspective radically changed: I began to question the doctrine of “trial.” It is said that if God loves someone, He tests them. But I could not understand what kind of “love” takes the shape of sadism. The first signs of revolt began to appear within me, and the sanctity of this god crumbled. I decided to read, to research, using a critical rational method. At that point, I discovered shocking things. I learned that the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, married Aisha when she was only six years old!, and he was 54. I discovered the rulings of war captives, slavery, incitement to kill and violation of the rights of LGBTQ+ people، the prohibition of adoption, the apostasy law (killing anyone who leaves Islam or is no longer convinced of the religion), and the sanctioning of killing certain animals like the black dog, mouse, and a type of reptile. As for women, in Sharia, she was merely a sexual tool, a commodity bought and sold in a market once called the slave market, treated as a being deficient in mind and religion, described as “foolish,” and that she interrupts prayer like a black dog or donkey. It is permissible to beat her if she refuses her husband’s sexual demands, and the angels curse her all night regardless of her mental or physical state. This is in addition to the contempt for people with disabilities, and the stigmatization of them in some verses, like the blind and the mute. All of this drove me to ask: how did I ever believe in this ideology? Even though I was not a religious extremist, I was drowning in ignorance. Today, I am an irreligious human being, trying to restore my humanity anew. I want to be a different person, I reject this society, I want to convey my message to those I love, but I fear losing them because of my new beliefs. Even my name has become a burden to me. My name “Abdullah” or “slave of Allah” no longer carries the same innocence, but rather has become a reminder of the intellectual slavery I used to live in. And to this day, I live a bitter internal disconnection: I reject this society and feel estranged, but I still love my family despite the differences. I want to deliver my message, express my thoughts, but fear restrains me.

I live in a society that does not tolerate freedom of belief. Just announcing your departure from religion may cost you your life, your friends, your family. Therefore, I truly need help. I am now 29 years old. Without a job, without friends, my life has been an accumulation of wounds and psychological scars. But despite everything, I am still holding on to my humanity, trying to restore what remains. I want a new chance... I want to leave this country...