I would like to clarify at the outset that it is the evils of Islam theology, and not necessarily the individual character of Muslim parents, that make raising children in Islam such a troublesome matter.
Muslim individuals, including parents, can be either good or bad human beings. It is the extent to which a person adheres to the many inhumane dictates of Islamic theology that determine whether a person is respectable or not. I personally wish Muslims well, despite my deep antipathy towards Mohammedanism.
Speaking as a former Muslim who is repulsed by the depredations of Islamic theology, I assert that it is a great misfortune to be born into Islam and a great shame for parents to raise children in Islam. The reader may ask, What are the depredations of Islamic theology? In previous articles found HERE, I address Islam’s sanctioning of spousal abuse, its deadly homophobia, its death penalty for apostasy, etc.
There is arguably no greater parental responsibility than that of raising a child with a humane belief system. In fact, it would be far better to raise a child with no particular belief system than to insist that a child adhere to an ethically unsound set of beliefs. And Islam is without doubt a highly unethical ideology.
Furthermore, I would argue that committing one’s life to the practice and promotion of Islam is among the most foolish and self-defeating decisions that a human being can make for themselves and their family. For not only would such a person be practising an untrue, morally abhorrent religion, he or she would essentially be betraying humanity and future generations.
A particularly tragic aspect of raising children in Islam is the intense pressure placed upon Muslims to conform to Islamic rules and traditions. The pressure to obey Islamic dictates is especially concerning as it relates to Muslim girls, when one considers realities such as the permissibility of child marriage (due to the example of Muhammad marrying a six-year-old child and consummating the marriage when the child reached the age of nine (see Sahih Muslim Book 8, Number 3309), the stipulation that a Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man (Quran 2:221), wearing Islamic head and body coverings, and on and on. Girls who refuse to obey such rules face threats of real violence from family members and the Islamic community. Honor killings are all too common within the Islamic community for females who attempt to break from Islamic norms. Brutal Sharia law is well known to be especially strict towards females. Sadly, the Sharia is sourced from the Quran and Muhammad’s Sunnah; therefore, Muslim families essentially enforce an informal version of the Islamic law when punishing those who stray from obedience to Mohammedanism.
Another troublesome aspect of raising children in Islam is the hatred of unbelievers and non-Islamic faith traditions that Islam inculcates in the minds of young persons. This hatred and dehumanizing of unbelievers is crystallized in Qur’anic verses such as those found below, stating that unbelievers are the worst of creatures and Muslim’s the best of peoples:
Qur’an 3:110: You are the best of people that has been raised up for mankind. You command what is right and forbid what is wrong, and you believe in Allah. And if the people of the book had believed, it would have been better for them. Some of them are believers, but most of them are rebellious.
Qur’an 98:6: Indeed, the unbelievers among the people of the book and the idolaters will remain in the fire of Gehenna. They are the most vile of created beings.
Another example of the Islam-inspired hatred that is taught to Muslim children are the Qur’anic passages below aimed at Christians and Jews. Such hateful passages fuel the persecution and bloodshed currently taking place in Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and elsewhere, where the murder of Christians in particular is commonplace and only increasing. Hatred of unbelievers is the undercurrent of Islam and the foundational reason why young boys and men commit the innumerable jihad attacks we see occurring throughout the world in 2023.
Qur’an 3:28: Let not the believers take unbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoever does that has no connection with Allah unless you are guarding yourselves against them, taking security. Allah bids you to beware of him. To Allah is the journeying.
Qur’an 5:51: O you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends of one another. He among you who takes them for friends is of them. Indeed, Allah does not guide wrongdoing people.
Qur’an 9:29: Fight against those do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.
The social strife and violent conflict that Islam naturally creates between Muslims and unbelievers is playing out in Europe and UK in dramatic fashion. In the short span of a few decades, hundreds of large no-go zones have developed throughout Europe, where non-Muslims dare not enter for reasons of safety. And it is in this Islamic cultural milieu that Muslim children are raised to distrust and hate the non-Islamic state and its non-Islamic citizens.
The blind obedience and cult-like sway that Islam has over its adherents is profound, due to fear, false promises of heavenly rewards, and community reprisal for leaving Islam or transgressing against Islamic tradition. It should not be underestimated just how firmly Muslim believers will continue to cling to this cruel ideology. For the reasons mentioned above, Muslim parents continue to deny the fact that it is grave injustice to raise children in Islam. The best hope for the world is that Muslim parents find ways to safely leave Islam with their children and then speak out against the harms and falsehoods of the religion.
If Muslims can be made to see the hideous falsehood of Islam, people have a chance at living in relative harmony with one another despite the various challenges that arise over time. Reflecting on my twenty-five years living as an ex-Muslim, I believe the three most harmful and ironic passages in the entire Islamic canon are these:
Qur’an 5:3: This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed my favor to you, and have chosen Islam as the religion for you.
Qur’an: 16:89: And the day when we raise in every nation a witness against them from their own people, and we bring you as a witness against these. And we reveal the book to you as an explanation of all things, and a guidance and a mercy and good news for the Muslims.
33:21: Indeed in the messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for him who looks to Allah and the last day, and remembers Allah a great deal.
Here is a recent statement from a group of Bangladeshi apostates living in the UK, explaining the reasons why they have abandoned Islam:
One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred entire male populations and enslaved the women and children. He raped the women captured in war after killing their husbands and told his followers that it is okay to have sex with their captives (Qur’an 33:50). He assassinated those who criticized him and executed them when he came to power and became de facto despot of Arabia. Muhammad was bereft of human compassion. He was an obsessed man with his dreams of grandiosity and could not forgive those who stood in his way…
The statement continues:
Muhammad was a narcissist, like Hitler, Saddam or Stalin. He was astute and knew how to manipulate people, but his emotional intelligence was less evolved than that of a 6-year-old child. He simply could not feel the pain of others. He brutally massacred thousands of innocent people and pillaged their wealth. His ambitions were big and as a narcissist he honestly believed he is entitled to do as he pleased and commit all sorts of crimes and his evil deeds are justified.
Walter Sieruk says
A very terrible part of “raising children in Islam” is the is cruel and wicked Islamic child abuse and exploitation to the extreme. Those despicable imams of Hamas brainwashing and using children using a stooges and tools for Islam’s jihad demonically wicked .to use children as Brainwashed Muslim soldiers in the jihad for is totally unconscionable. Those Muslim clerics, as the mullahs, with their Islamic lies and lines to must have kept telling them are completely despicable. Such Koranic lies and lies the say are “We will honor you” and “You will go to paradise” and “We are doing this for Allah.”
That’s some very strange kind of “We.” For the reader might, very well, notice that the imams never, ever, strap bombs vests on themselves and then go out and commit the suicide bombing. All those heinous mullahs do is brainwash other people into actually wanting be becomes mind programmed human bombs. Then they manipulative those people to go out and engages in murderous jihad attacks. In other words they create the delusional and dangerous mindset in other to such a demonic extent the theses people are literally dangerous to self and others. Then all the while those suicide/homicide bombings are going on those same Muslims clerics, who mind program those people in the first place ,site home safe.
This alone shows the real deplorable character of those Muslims clerics . . In addition to all this, there are some good decent people who would be shocked by all this and then stop and wonder and ask “Just how can the Muslim clerics be to very heartless, unfeeling and heinous as the brainwash young and in such deadly ways ,as that ?”
The answer to that question is found in the Bible. For the Bible teaches the there are some men who are so hideously cruel, callous and dangerous because that have had “their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” First Timothy 4:2. [N.K.J.V.] The “hot iron.” in this case is Islam.
bill carr says
“Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time. George Carlin. If one adds in the parts about killing non Muslims and being guaranteed paradise and 72 virgins it apples perfectly to Islam
somehistory says
Perhaps “religion has ” done that. However, there is an Invisible One living in heaven…not the “sky” and He is not a “man.”
Every man born, except for One, has sinned and is not capable of telling the rest of mankind what they should and should not do.
And g carlin’s statement is full of balderdash. Just about as stupid as what mozlums read from their book of evil, unholy, demonic, trashy filth.
PRCS says
“Every man born, except for One, has sinned and is not capable of telling the rest of mankind what they should and should not do.”
1. Sexist.
2.Slnned according to what religion? Hinduism? Buddhism? Sikhism?
Your religion is but one of many.
Jason says
I spend my valuable time looking for the tiniest justification for any good in Islam and the truth is that there isn’t any!
How can any parent with even a hint of decency raise their children believing this disgusting horrible so called religion?
I watch debates and all ya get in the end is quotes from the Koran or hadith as justification?
My conclusion is that Muslim men are shit scared of women having a voice.
Rant over!
Walter Sieruk says
Those despicable and deceitful Muslim clerics who indoctrinate, brainwash, impressionable youth into the awful way of thinking that fighting and dying in the jihad for the cause of Islam is a “grand and “thing and wonderful” thing to do are beguiling as they are also evil.
The Bible informs its reader “the counsel of the wicked is deceitful “ Proverbs 13:5. [N.K.J.V.]
PRCS says
(Qur’an 24:31) And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women.
What ‘adornments’ are those little girls (no, they’re not little women ) guarding and who are they guarding them from?
gravenimage says
Good questions, PRCS–we know the grim answers.
Mark Spahn says
Hello, PCRS. I agree with GravenImage that your questions are good, but please answer them. What are these women’s “private parts” (internal organs like spleens?) and how do the guard them? (with armor?) And what are these “adornments”? (jewelry?) Are they guarding them from thieves?
bill carr says
What always amuses and puzzles me is the hijabed girls wearing a tight pair of jeans. I am sure the female posterior is just as attractive to males as their hair is.
PRCS says
I’m reminded of this hijabi in tight jeans:
Ann Coulter Q&A UWO 2010 “Take a camel!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShNJSSiUE-k
see @ 14:28
And she’s definitely displaying two or her ‘adornments’.
tim gallagher says
Good for the author for leaving islam, which I think is a load of barbaric, primitive garbage which seeks to keep Muslims living the primitive life that people used to live in 7th century Arabia. islam should have disappeared into extinction ages ago instead of still fouling up the modern world. The child abuse, mainly the appalling child marriages, is obvious in islam and I think that most Muslims must surely know that there is something clearly wrong with marrying off their young girls. If the Muslim concept of what god is like approves of such clear, inhuman evil, then the religion is a load of garbage. I applaud you, Saleem Smith, and all others who have ditched islam. It deserves to be deserted by all decent people.
gravenimage says
Hear, hear, Tim! Agree with you about the brave and principled Saleem Smith.
tim gallagher says
Thanks, gravenimage. I applaud any Muslims that find the courage to leave islam. There is always that threat of violence, from this vile religious ideology, islam, aimed at apostates, so it would be hard to ditch islam. islam is an ideology that is down in the gutter in so many ways. the idea that there is a god who approves of the atrocious behaviour that islam condones , including child marriage, is, to my mind, absolutely ridiculous. No one should follow this evil version of god, allah.
Mark Spahn says
Hello, Saleem Smith. You write, “a Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man (Quran 2:221)”. In today’s world, one can easily check what Quran 2:221 says:
https://quran.com/al-baqarah/221 .
It does not say what you say it says. It says that one may not marry a man or a woman who is “polytheistic”. This verse allows marriage to someone who is an atheist or a monotheist, whether Muslim or kafir, slave or free.
commonsense says
The consensus of the Ullman (Muslim jurists, clerics, exegetes) is that Jews and Christians are, indeed, polytheists, as the Qur’an (9:30) describes them as ascribing partners to Allah:
“The Jews say Uzair (i.e. Ezra) is the son of God, while the Christians say the Messiah is the son of God. Such are their assertions,by which they imitate the infidels of old. God confound them! How perverse they are!” Thus, marriage to Jews and Christians is haram for Muslim girls and women. Qur’an 2:221, it is important to note, has been abrogated, superseded by Qur’an 5:5 ff: “…Lawful for you are the believing women and the free women from among those who had been given the Book before you…” Note that permission to marry non-Muslim “people of the Book” only applies to Muslim males; no such leeway is given to Muslim women.
commonsense says
Damned spellchecker. Ulema, not “Ullman.”
gravenimage says
Mark, it is regularly the law in Islamic countries that Infidel men are not allowed to marry Muslim women, and this very much includes monotheistic Christians and Jews. This is orthodox Shari’ah. You have been reading here long enough; I’m sure you know this.
Mark Spahn says
Hi, GravenImage. What am I to believe about what Islam teaches? What someone says here? Orthodox Shari’ah? Or the words of the Quran? If you claim that orthodox Shari’ah prohibits marriage between an infidel man and a Muslim woman, how would you prove it if not by quoting a passage from the Quran?
fitzceros says
commonsense has answered your question above, using the quran. their women can’t marry polytheists and jews and christians, according to ‘mohammed’ are polytheists. god cannot have partners.
men can marry those women, of course, since they will be converted and powerless, or at least powerless. so grows the flock. it’s just a way to grow islam.
i mean. practically speaking, where, over all the globe, over all the nationalities, do you see muslim women marrying non-muslim men and not having to run for their lives?
Walter Sieruk says
One of the many awful things about the “dilemma of raising children in Islam” is specifically concerning little girls being force to marry adult Muslim men.
About that vile and heinous form of Islamic little girl child abuse. it has been ,somewhat, explained and exposed by one scholar on Islam, Robert Spencer, wrote that the Islamic tradition records that Muhammad consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) Aisha when she was nine, and the resultant fact that child marriage is accepted in wide swaths of the Islamic world. Child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law.”
Male Muslim marriage of an adult man to a young girl who is really only a child of common in the world of Islam. One of the “reasons” for this female child abuse in Islam is because of the corrupt and perverse wickedness in the hearts of men. This is seen and described in the Bible with reads “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. [N.K.J.V.]
Furthermore, another “reason” girl/child marriages occur with middle aged and even old men is because the founder and prophet of Islam Muhammad married a child. Muslims throughout history as well as in current times actually view Muhammad as a “perfect man” and a “great example for them to follow.”
This well might prove the old saying to be true .The saying is that “Evil is always looking for an excuse.”
It’s also wise to remember prophet Muhammad did likewise engaged in brutal, ruthless murderous warfare. As do Muslims today such as the jihadist Muslim of ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah Hamas and so forth. Many that old saying, just sited above, also explains the excuse for Muslim terrorism in the world today.
Jesus Himself taught “By their fruits you will know them.” Matthew 7:20. Which might explain the vile child “marriage” of Muhammad and his violent and deadly behavior .Likewise also explains the twenty- first century Muslims who in child marriages and blood and murderous violence of Islam .As they see the prophet Muhammad d as their example of who to follow.
With all this about the fruits of Islam along with fruits history reveals about the life of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad .It thus further appropriate to make known that it might be in keeping with teaching of Jesus that Muhammad could well have been an actual prophet . Nevertheless the very most important thing to understand is the Muhammad was not a prophet send by God. Instead Muhammad was a lying deceptive false prophet send by Satan to start a false religion to lead many people astray.
For Jesus taught “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15.
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic practice of an adult male Muslim having a marriage with a little girl who is only a child is part of Islam since all Muslim admire the prophet of Islam, Muhammad and attempt to live like him and he did marry a 9 year old girl.”.
Nevertheless this heinous Islam tradition is accepted as “normal “in most of the Islamic world. Therefore, this may serve as an example of how the influence of Islam is able to warp the cogitation of the human mind to the extent that a person who is a Muslim might not be able to understand the obvious difference between right and wrong.
Such an awful thing as not having the discerning mental power to seethe clear difference is described in the Bible. For in Isaiah 5:20. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…” [N.K.J.V.]
saturnine says
“This day I have perfected your chicken and completed my flavor to you, and have chosen KFC as the chicken for you.” – Col. Sanders
saturnine says
“Oh, and Death to Chick-fil-A!”
gravenimage says
🙂
gravenimage says
An Ex-Muslim Examines the Dilemma of Raising Children in Islam
………………………………
Great piece, Saleem–and very troubling. Much traditional Islamic child rearing is child abuse, from FGM to grooming little girls for child marriage to teaching toddlers to behead their stuffed animals to telling them to bully Infidels on the playground.
And all of this serves to extend the horrors of Islam into the next generation.
PMK says
All of these ‘depredations’ of Islamic theology are being taught to children by their parents. Whether or not the Muslim parent practices jihad against others, he or she is still teaching these ‘values’ to Muslim children. There cannot be any ‘good’ Muslim parenting as long as this theology is accepted by them and passed down to their children..
PRCS says
And it IS a theocracy.
A brutal, totalitarian theocracy.
European pagan says
Children and Islam…
I know a woman, Indonesian, from a practicing Muslim family. They always ‘had to be afraid’ of Allah, because if they don’t follow the 1000000000 rules, they can go to hell. She hated this fear. She left Islam, married a nonmuslim and moved to Germany. There is hope, because there are people who use their brain, no problem which country or family.
Jim Austin says
Devout Moslem parents prefer to raise their children as bomb platforms.