Aysha Khan on Ex-Muslims of North America

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/07

Aysha Khan has been a Project Manager with EXMNA for the past five years, including working on the Normalizing Dissent tour that brought Ex-Muslim perspectives to college campuses throughout the US and Canada. Growing up in a moderate Pakistani Muslim household, Aysha struggled with reconciling the rights and freedoms afforded to her as citizen of a Western secular country, with the restrictive and obsolete “rights” and roles prescribed to her in the Qur’an (especially in the areas of marriage, divorce, travel, inheritance, court testimony, and bodily autonomy). She discovered EXMNA on a Reddit thread and soon connected with other ex-Muslims who supported her through her journey of leaving Islam. In her spare time, Aysha enjoys trying new recipes, reading and generally being an introvert.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Aysha Khan from Ex-Muslims of North America. So, the big question: many councils in the last 15 years have popped up, especially in Germany and the U.K. A lot of this emerged from the online milieu, particularly with the New Atheist movement, Firebrand Atheist movement, Militant Atheist movement. Men typically had more financial freedom and mobility, which is why they were often the faces of it. So, what is the status of this movement in North America now? How is the community looking? What are their concerns?

Aysha Khan: Oh man, that is a hard question to answer. Are you talking about social or political temperature?

Jacobsen: Social temperature, representation, because there’s one of the biggest—probably the biggest—online platforms, Atheist Republic, came from a guy out of Iran. Armin Navabi, there’s a guy there with a tragic upbringing, and there’s that movement coming out of Iran. [Ed. He’s in Vancouver now.] I’ve written with him before. It’s a powerful story. Yet, there are many ex-Muslim women whose stories are told. I don’t think they’re told as much, at least in North America. If so, then it’s happened more recently than at the outset. So, in terms of the social climate around demographics and how community concerns change with demographics, who is coming forward as ex-Muslim or former Muslim?

Khan: That’s a hard question to answer. Ex-Muslims are not a monolith, and neither are ex-Muslims. We have many political leanings, so it’s hard to say exactly what we feel. More recently, EXMNA has moved away from support communities to focus on advocacy work, making it harder to track exactly how individual ex-Muslims feel. In terms of representation, I will say that when I first left Islam formally about ten years ago, the only ex-Muslims I saw were men from South Asia or the Middle East. 

The projects we launched a few years ago specifically focused on highlighting and elevating a diverse array of ex-Muslim voices. We created many documentaries about the journeys of Ex-Muslims, campus tours and social media campaigns. It went quite literally from single digit open ex-Muslims to hundreds and  thousands.

Now, I see more ex-Muslim millennials born outside of Muslim countries, like North America and many more women on the scene. I’ve seen a lot more ex-Muslim women who have YouTube channels, make TikTok videos, harness the power of social media, and are unafraid. I believe we played a pivotal role in that change. 

Ex-Muslim men have enjoyed a certain degree of protection because they are men, but for women, it’s much harder because the social pressure to conform is much greater. So, seeing a young woman, born as part of the Muslim diaspora, come out is very powerful for me. I’m specifically talking about Sarah Haider, our former executive director. Seeing her was inspirational. By reading her book, the person who convinced me the most to leave Islam was Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I read Christopher Hitchens first, which opened my mind a little, but I needed someone I could relate to more, and her book helped usher me through that process.

Jacobsen: How is the advocacy work advancing? Is it more focused on policy, political, or social causes?

Khan: It’s more socio-political causes. We did more policy work in the past, but the pandemic, unfortunately, slowed down much of our efforts. Many organizations felt that pain point, and now we’ve moved, steadily moving towards becoming the experts in the area of ex-Muslim advocacy. So, we’re leaning into meeting with congressional representatives, talking a lot about the plight of ex-Muslims, both in the U.S. and, more importantly, abroad. We enjoy many freedoms here in North America, where we have the protection of the legal system in our favor. That is not the case for ex-Muslims in other parts of the world, especially in Muslim-majority countries. We are working with congressional representatives who have close relationships with Muslim-majority countries where there are high-profile cases and asking them to put pressure on these countries to address the arrest, imprisonment, or exile of prisoners of conscience. We’ve met with Facebook representatives multiple times. This was facilitated by Congressman Huffman who is a champion of free thought. We worked with the congressional representative’s office to get Facebook to recognize that shutting down community groups focused on ex-Muslims and ex-Muslim issues was a violation of free speech. They were bending to the pressure from Islamic countries, who said that these types of groups were ‘blasphemous,’ and the people who were part of them were apostates, and therefore, their membership in it was punishable under their penal codes. We organized a meeting of ex-Muslim atheist organizers from around the world as well atheist organizations here with Facebook to highlight the severity and importance of the issue

Facebook is an American company or a company based in the U.S., so we are trying to lean into helping governments and private companies recognize their role in supporting freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion. We worked with various other international freedom oriented organizations to pass a congressional resolutionagainst Blasphemy, the effort for that included organizing the testimony of both Muslim and ex-Muslim victims to state and federal congressional offices. We’re working on furthering that effort in the coming years.

We’ve also offered comments to U.N. reports on freedom of religion and comments to State Department reports to ensure that our plight is considered. In the past we were focused on getting ex-Muslims out of the shadows and I believe have greatly succeeded in doing so. The next phase of EXMNA’s work is now to help influence, shape, and inform policy.

Jacobsen: And looking at Pew Research, the number of Muslims growing up in Muslim homes, raised Muslim, who leave is probably about a quarter. That’s common among many religions, but as the numbers of the population of Muslims in the United States grow, so too will the number of ex-Muslims, probably even more so with the ease with which you have these online groups. So, how do you preemptively reach out to those who might be questioning and looking for answers to their thoughts and feelings?

Khan: Yes, that’s a good question. I would argue that the number is probably greater because that number represents those who identify as ex-Muslims. Even admitting to yourself privately that you doubt. It’s a very scary notion to even admit to yourself that you no longer believe in Islam at all. There may be parts of Islam that moderate Muslims may not agree with and become “cafeteria” Muslims. So, in my opinion, the number of ex-Muslims quoted by Pew may well be conservative. But a lot of our outreach, our target audience, is anyone who understands how restrictive a religion Islam is and understands that it deserves as much criticism as any other religion. And so, a lot of our work happens through social media. We have a fantastic manager for our social media platforms who works very hard at putting together posts and memes. We have a newsletter that we revived. We welcome people to come to our website, ex-Muslims.org, and sign up for it, where we gather articles on people who have experienced persecution for leaving Islam. And also, we offer commentary on a lot of topical issues. We spent ten years focused on mainstreaming ex-Muslim experiences and believe we did a fantastic job. But now we’re looking out on the horizon and trying to think what the next steps are and to leverage that greater awareness to achieve more for ex-Muslims everywhere. We recognize that persuasion and awareness is a huge part of that. So, we are putting efforts into making videos, posts, and memes—even some of those are hilarious and trying to look ahead and see what’s in the zeitgeist and convince as many people as possible about the importance of our cause.

Jacobsen: What are the most effective forms of bringing people into the fold so they feel comfortable and safe within a community, even if it is an online community alone?

Khan: Yes. So, our group focuses on people who have already left Islam and they already identifiy as ex-Muslim atheists. Our mandate doesn’t cover providing support to people who are questioning though we welcome dialogue with them. We are focused on honest critical analysis  of Islam, countering perceptions of what non-Muslims and even Muslim think Islam is versus what Islam actually says. One of our biggest efforts and I daresay most popular effort is running WikiIslam. It houses thousands of articles about a variety of topics where we provide direct references from the Quran, Hadith, and the Prophet’s life, which include his sayings and teachings. In that way we do serve both the questioning and those who have left. We are serving two communities, but our primary and priority community is ex-Muslim atheists. We hope to reach out to questioning Muslims by critiquing Islam, but we don’t offer services for them as we do for ex-Muslim atheists.

Jacobsen: Do you still get many emails from individuals in difficult circumstances, maybe in Pakistan or similar places?

Khan: Every day. I recently received an email from a gentleman in southern Iraq who is an atheist. His family suspects he is and has threatened to report him to the authorities. He is asking for help to come to either the U.S. or Canada. These are heartbreaking stories; I receive them multiple times a week, often with awful pictures and links to news articles. It’s terrible. It’s a reminder of how lucky I am to live in a country that respects my right to freedom from religion because most people forget that these issues are two sides of the same coin: freedom of and from religion. Yes, it’s hard work, but it’s extremely rewarding.

Jacobsen: With greater representation of women’s experiences of coming out and joining these communities, is there an ex-Muslim women’s foundation or organization? Is this an idea that might be a good proposal if it doesn’t exist?

Khan: Are you saying this because of the probability of such an organization coming to fruition?

Jacobsen: It seems like a gap. With increased representation of women from various backgrounds, it might be worth considering a solidarity foundation for women coming out of these circumstances from all backgrounds. For instance, I recently interviewed the U.N. Women’s National Committee, Japan president. She mentioned that since Japan is considered a developed country, their funds aren’t focused on Japan, even though Japan has gender inequalities. They gather funds within the country and send them to less developed countries for gender equality efforts. While this makes sense, it’s also disappointing. Could something be similar to providing support, resources, and shared experiences, letting people know they are not alone, especially in a gendered way?

Khan: Yes, we understand the need for it, but we don’t have any plans for that, nor do I know of any organization that exists specifically serving the needs of ex-Muslim atheist women. But yes, it is needed.

Jacobsen: I’ll leave that for the history books. We’ll see.

Khan: Yes.

Jacobsen: What form of advocacy do you find most effective regarding social causes? What ones don’t work? In other words, people reading this don’t do that; it’s a waste of time. What ones do work? People reading this do that.

Khan: Our most talked about and viral work is the videos we create and the humorous memes. It speaks to people’s attention spans; people want something short and digestible. They want you to get to the point, which has been hard because this issue is very close to all of us, is nuanced and fraught with political implications. We want to be able to talk about it intellectually and in great detail, but we are finding more and more that people want quick, easy answers and  bottom line, tell me why I should care with the most direct possible points of evidence. You have to tailor your message; it has to be a soundbite. That’s what’s working, but it depends on who your audience is. Older audience members appreciate the detail and nuance, but for EXMNA, most of our audience or beneficiaries are millennials and younger, so we must tailor our messaging to them.

Jacobsen: Every community has problems. What are the problems within the ex-Muslim community? I’m not taking this as a monolith; I understand.

Khan: Yes, yes, yes, no, I’m trying to think. Yes, I’m pausing because I can’t point to any one thing. We have differences in our takes on the conflict in the Middle East, Gaza, and Israel. We had that with the 2020 election, and we had that with the Black Lives Matter movement, so it’s hard to say what the major pain points or points of contention within the community are. It shows that ex-Muslims are as varied as anyone else. We come from all walks of life, all income levels, and all racial and ethnic backgrounds, and that diversity carries into this community. It’s hard to say. I can’t think of any one single ideological issue that issue that thing ideologically that we all disagree on. We all reject Islam and acknowledge its absurdity, and that’s what binds us together. Everything else is reflective of society at large.

Jacobsen: Are there any attempts to take ex-Muslims as a category of anti-Islam and use it as a political token? Are there any people cynically trying to do that?

Khan: Within the community or outside?

Jacobsen: Outside of the community.

Khan: Oh, yes, for sure. Oh, yes, 100%. We are staunchly nonpartisan. We are wary of the people who reject us and those trying to benefit from us. We welcome partnerships but must be loyal to ourselves and our cause, ex-Muslims. We are not interested in handing it over to any political party or partisan issue. So, yes, we are very wary of people who want to take advantage of our issues or our rejection of Islam. I’m very cognizant of that and try hard to keep it as bay as possible. It’s getting harder and harder because the world is getting more politicized. Issues are becoming more politicized. So we often feel, should we say something about this topic or event? And we often don’t because we can’t please everyone. It’s becoming more and more difficult to explain ourselves in a way that will effectively convey its nuance and context. It’s difficult, and it’s getting more difficult every day, to stay nonpartisan, to focus on ex-Muslims specifically, and not let our work bleed into other areas. We try to maintain a tight focus on ex-Muslim and religious freedom issues.

Jacobsen: That’s good. Often, I notice that in social movements, subject matter creep is a constant risk, especially as organizations mature after ten years or so. People never ask this, possibly due to not making the distinction. Although it’s easy, and everyone knows it, it has yet to be done. Do you notice any difference between individuals who are ex-Muslims coming from Sunni backgrounds versus Shia backgrounds versus Quranist backgrounds?

Khan: In what way?

Jacobsen: In terms of, for instance, if someone is coming from Iran versus Saudi Arabia, they’re both coming from fundamentalist contexts where the government has tight control, but they’re coming from a Sunni versus Shia context. Does that colour their ex-Muslim experience, either in the process of leaving or living as someone without Islam?

Khan: Anecdotally, no. Admittedly, there are many Shia ex-Muslims within our community, but we’re all spread across North America. So you’re going to relate to whoever is closest to you. I don’t think so. But if there are, can you? Is there something specific you’re looking to answer? Is it a topic or a viewpoint?

Jacobsen: Yes, I’m curious if theological differences cause or correlate with an inflection on the experience of becoming an ex-Muslim.

Khan: Oh, I don’t think so. Whether you’re Sunni or Shia, or Ahmadi, or the many variants in the variance of Shiism, death is generally agreed upon as the punishment for apostasy and blasphemy against the Prophet. You have time to repent if you blaspheme against God, but none if you blaspheme against the Prophet. So I don’t think so because the punishment is the same and equally severe. But again, I come from a Sunni background, so that’s most of the examples I have in front of me. I don’t think so, but it would be interesting to ask people how that may have colored the process of their apostasy.

Jacobsen: That makes sense, as most people leaving Islam will be Sunni by a vast margin, given the demographics. Let’s close up. How can people get involved by donating time, finances, or expertise or looking at you as a resource?

Khan: Yes, please visit our website, exmuslims.org. Particularly the persecution tracker, where we catalog, monitor, and document instances of ex-Muslim persecution worldwide. We have over 500 entries with detailed accounts of what happened to the person. You’ll be able to sort through incidents, seeing if someone was exiled, murdered, imprisoned, fined, etc., and by country. We’re also revamping it to improve the design and usability which should be released in the next few months.

We have launched an excellent newsletter, and you can sign up for it on our website. You can also find that on our website if you want to become a donor. Volunteers are always welcome to help us think bigger as we move into the next phase of our work, leaning more into advocacy and research. We produced a fantastic Apostate Report a few years ago, which aimed to cover the gap of why people are leaving Islam and what their experiences are. For those advocating for our rights it’s invaluable to understand the motivations involved. As ex-Muslims our motivations are frequently smeared by political and religious actors on all sides of the spectrum, the report helps alleviate those  mischaracterizations. It’s fully downloadable on our website. Follow us on social media—we’re @ExMuslimsOrg on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We post polls, links to articles, and updates on what we’re doing and what we hope to achieve. If you have any ideas on what you’d like to learn about from ex-Muslims, please let us know. We’re always looking for ideas on how we can share information about our cause and the consequences of leaving Islam.

I also want to add that the biggest question we always get from either questioning Muslims or people who want to support the ex-Muslim cause, but are afraid to because they think they’ll be perceived as racist is: do we hate Muslims? No, we don’t. Some of our closest family members and friends are still practicing Muslims. Many of us are still in the closet, living among Muslims. We’re married to Muslims. We have Muslim children. Our issue is with Islam, and it needs to be critiqued. It needs to be dissected in the same way any other religion is critiqued. Any religion that you have rejected – as a Muslim or any other faith – because you believed it to be false, for whatever reason, turn that same critical eye to look at Islam. Think about whether you are a good person because of, or, despite Islam. Regardless of where you lie on the faith spectrum the rights of those who disagree with you should be the exact same ones you enjoy. Essentially, that’s our message.

Jacobsen: Aysha, thank you very much for your time today.

Khan: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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