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Yasmine Mohammed is an activist, author, and ex-Muslim living in British Columbia, Canada. Her story is an intriguing one, to say the least. She recounts the personal story in the book entitled From Al-Qaeda to Atheism. In January 30, 2018, in an interview for Canadian Atheist, Yasmine and I talked about the life story for her, in brief. We have an extended interview upcoming in In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. Here we reproduce some of the publication in an article interview format.
When I opened the conversation, I noted the fact of Mohammed’s moderate levels of fame with Canada and North America. The reason: she married a member of Al-Qaeda. She was subsequently contacted by CSIS or the Canadian secret service. She described the personal narrative from there.
Mohammed stated, “As is typical, this marriage was coerced/forced. ‘Love marriages’, as they’re termed, are looked down upon. It means the couple was debaucherous enough to know each other prior to marriage.”
As Mohammed’s daughter turned one-year-old, Mohammed’s mother began to bleed from the nose and mouth. She called 911. She did not know if her mother would live or die. The ambulance took her away. However, Mohammed and her daughter went in the ambulance.
She notes. This was the first time that she had ever left the house without her husband by her side. As Mohammed sat in the waiting room, a man and woman, who explained that they were from CSIS, approached her.
“They told me that the man I married, Essam Hafez Marzouk, was an Al Qaeda operative who worked closely with Osama Bin Laden,” Mohammed stated, “In a pre-9/11 world, those words didn’t mean much to me. I knew he had been in Afghanistan before he came to Canada, so I suspected he had some ties to jihadis. Why else would an Egyptian teenager go to Afghanistan? But I had no idea of the extent of his involvement.”
When I queried about an equal partnership in the marriage for her, as a neutrally phrased question, she described the new marriage to her current partner as lucky because her current husband is a “wonderful man.”
In the previous relationships, she recalled being told that she was easy to please because she felt “over the moon if they didn’t abuse me! But I have come a long way. It was a slow process of rebuilding myself brick by brick.”
She took the hard road of self-reconstruction. The initiative to bit-by-bit, or brick-by-brick in her metaphor, to rebuild and remold herself. The notion of faking it until you make it was the beginning and the eventuality – faked and made. She crafted new values more to her authentic self.
“One of the things I faked was that I deserved a decent, loving boyfriend, and I would not accept anything less. My husband, of ten years, is most definitely decent and loving. He is exceptionally kind and he is confident enough to allow me to define my needs in our relationship,” Mohammed opined.
Now, she reacts swiftly to any scent of inequality in the marriage. She will never return to the submissive woman defined by lack of spine and a will co-opted for obeisance to the husband.
The conversation shifted into the more progressive and liberal forms of Islamic upbringing. However, Mohammed had difficulty in a proper response to the question because a progressive Muslim, in her opinion, is not one who follows the religion as closely as a conservative.
Mohammed quipped, “There is no such thing as progressive Islam, there are only progressive Muslims.”
I then recalled an experience with Haras Rafiq, who is the CEO of the Quilliam Foundation. I remember using the term moderate, which came from mainstream media discussions. If extremists exist, then moderates must be the opposite of them. It formed a non-conscious – not critically examined – binary view of the Muslims. He corrected me.
I feel glad about it. He noted the term ordinary, which makes more sense. So, I asked Mohammed about the importance of precision in the use of language in one of the emergent and important conversations now.
“Yes. I think precision is important. ‘Ordinary’ denotes that the type of person you are describing is the norm or the majority. And that is simply not true. If you refer to PEW research, you’ll find that so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims are very far from ordinary-in fact they are more of an anomaly,” Mohammed stated, “The ordinary Muslim is incredibly conservative and would not even consider a ‘moderate’ Muslim to be a Muslim. Anyone who veers from conservative Islam is killed. Ahmadis, Sufis, any other moderate sects of Muslims are killed.”
She reflected on 300 Sufis being killed as they prayed in their mosque.
Next in the discussion was the new initiative called Free Hearts, Free Minds (FHFM) and an, at the time, main focus of the written text, From Al Qaeda to Atheism, of Mohammed. The FHFM campaign works to support ex-Muslims in Muslim majority countries.
Mohammed said, “In a lot of Muslim-majority countries, one could be killed for leaving Islam. As such, people who find themselves denouncing the faith must be very quiet about it. It is an incredibly difficult journey for anyone-but it is 100 times worse when you are in a society that could jail you and execute you for leaving the religion you were born into.”
Some of the other work for FHFM will be connecting ex-Muslims in the Muslim world to have a marriage of convenience. That is, “…If people are going to be coerced into marriages anyway, then at least I can help them to get into a marriage with someone they share values with. There are similar websites for the LGBT community, so I’m hoping to mimic their platforms,” Mohammed explained.
In the conclusion, Mohammed made a call to those who are facing honor violence, female genital mutilation, and other violence to then reach out to the AHA Foundation. She further continued on those in the Muslim majority countries who can “contact me through my website.”
The organization will help them get involved with FHFM and to meet a ex-Muslim life coach to help find inner courage, fortitude, and to provide them with the means by which to fight back against their upbringing. and I will get you involved in my Free Hearts, Free Minds program that will match you up with an ex-Muslim life coach who will help you find your inner strength and will arm you with the tools you need to fight back.
Finally, she stated other organizations such as the Ex-Muslims in North America (EXMNA), Faith to Faithless in the UK, and Muslimish in the US.
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Free Hearts Free Minds is committed to helping ex-Muslims to successfully transition out of Islam and into a happy, healthy life. We will be presenting ex-Muslims from Muslim Majority countries with the opportunity to receive coaching and mental health support. We are working with Jimmy from Integrated Wellness. An ex-Muslim Integrative Coach who has lived through the experience of leaving Islam.
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Image Credits: Pixabay