First tell us something about your childhood years.

I was born in Pakistan. When I was seven, my parents moved to the USA, I still remember learning English as a child and realising that I was now living in a different culture.

My parents were comparatively liberal Muslims. However, the rules they imposed on me would be considered conservative among Christians. I did not have to wear the hijab, but I was encouraged to dress modestly. So I did not really not lead the life of an average child of my age.

What role did religion play for you as a teenager?

At the beginning of my teenage years, which I see as the time when I became a thinking person, I became aware that I was not acting according to my religion. I wanted to become a better Muslim. At the age of thirteen I decided to wear the hijab. At that time I perceived this as my free choice. It was only later that I realised that I had been in an environment where this was strongly encouraged, hence I had been strongly guided by others in my decision making.

I even became missionary in my time as a bearer of the hijab, I wanted to save the souls of my non-Muslim friends.

But then gradually you started to have doubts…

Yes, when I was 15 or 16. The idea that people can't go to heaven just because Islam was never revealed to them, even though they were otherwise good people, seemed unfair. Much later, in exchange with other ex-Muslims, I learned that for many this point was the beginning of their doubtfulness. But this feeling did not really lead to a loss of faith for me at first. You tell yourself that something does not have to be unfair just because it seems to be unjust. It could simply be that you don’t understand your religion well enough.

But soon, in high school, I was confronted with what I call the standard arguments of atheists, such as the existence of evil in the world, in spite of a good-natured Creator. At first I was shocked that someone could be a disbeliever, I attempted to refute the arguments and promoted my religion. I circumnavigated theological inconsistencies and took a liking to scientific explanations that seemingly supported my faith.

But then it all happened very quickly. I started visiting philosophy forums, and my faith was profoundly shattered. Looking back, I would say that having had to deal with counter-arguments triggered a lot in me. In the atheist scene there is an intense debate about whether one should challenge believers or be rather compassionate. I do not see myself as a militant atheist, but I know that at that time I needed one or two verbal slaps in the face to be ready to question my own persuasions.

I became an atheist before I became an ex-Muslim, that is, I stopped believing in God before I estranged myself from the religion as a whole. This was the far more difficult step, I was sure I’d be stigmatized and lose friends if I spoke openly about my departure from faith in my Muslim environment.

But then a turning point came, and you became a co-founder of the Ex-Muslims of North America. How so?

I didn't know any other ex-Muslims for a long time. Then I met Muhammad Syed. I didn't believe him at first that he was also a non-believer, I had really never met anyone who had turned away from Islam. We decided, this was in 2013, to found the Ex-Muslims of North America, originally as a support group for people in a similar situation. The response was surprisingly large. There were people who drove eight hours to be able to attend our meetings and interact with us and others. We quickly realised that we needed to foster the formation of regional groups.

We have long been conducting a great deal of public relations work to draw attention to the specific problems facing ex-Muslims. We stand up and say: It is perfectly okay to give up one's faith, including Islam. I would not actively use the label "ex-Muslim" myself if the persecution of those who leave Islam weren’t so dramatic.

In 2019 we launched a billboard campaign to offer reassurance to other ex-Muslims. We had planned the slogan "There is no God, but Allah" - with "but Allah" crossed out.  A billboard company tested the slogan on Muslims - and then rejected it. This happened to us with several text versions and dozens of companies. But we didn't let ourselves be discouraged. The campaign then went live with the slogan "Godless. Fearless. Ex-Muslim". Not my favourite variant, but still a strong statement.

How do politicians react to your commitment to apostates?

Historically, godlessness has always been a left-wing issue in the US, and it still is today. But the concerns of ex-Muslims occupy a very strange place. Our concerns receive real attention from only two groups: atheists and xenophobes. 95% of our ex-Muslim supporters position themselves centre-left. But unfortunately we receive hardly any encouragement from this part of the political spectrum.

Part of the reticence may be due to the fact that the USA is still a very religious country. However, membership in religious communities is declining, and faithlessness is slowly becoming socially acceptable in politics as well. And the knowledge about the difficult situation for ex-Muslims is constantly increasing. On the other hand, identity politics is becoming increasingly important.

Representatives of identity politics often regard religiousness as an unchangeable characteristic. Yet by our mere existence we ex-Muslims prove that one’s world view is something dynamic and that you can pursue a whole bouquet of ideas. By the way, it will be exciting to see what influence the gender debate will have on identity politics, which in many respects starts out from the immutability of characteristics, but emphasises fluidity in gender.

A further challenge is the tendency in the West to see the West as being shaped by reason, while the East is seen as a place of cultural tradition and superstition. This is what people on both sides of the political spectrum do, but the left is hardly aware of it. Representatives of the Democrats hardly entertain the idea of defending the rigid dress code of Mormons. Anti-women customs were omnipresent in Victorian culture, but no one is demanding that we should continue to follow them. Regarding the hijab, on the other hand, many on the left argue that veiling is a legitimate element of Muslim culture, that it is part of the tradition and should therefore be considered important today.

Many activists on the left assume that the injustices in Muslim countries are primarily or even exclusively a consequence of Western intervention, which is regarded as a kind of original sin. This reductive explanation only holds if these countries are understood as being shaped by tradition, and not by reason and by inhabitants with their own individual will to act. This is ultimately just as racist as when Muslims on the political right are portrayed as uncivilised barbarians who are incapable of forming functioning societies.

The open racism from the right often leads to a further insinuation on the left: that ex-Muslims only give up their religion because it has such a bad reputation as a result of right-wing hatred. That is outrageously presumptuous, ex-Muslims are simply not perceived as autonomously acting people.

So, political work is extremely challenging, ex-Muslims often do not fit in with either the left or the right, and our two-party system makes it even more difficult to be heard.

What changes would you like to see in the political debate?

We need to rediscover the universal validity of human rights, which the left has long stood up for. Cultural relativism should have brought understanding and nuances into the political debate, but it has also led to a departure from the principle of universal values, especially among people who claim to stand up for minorities. We must overcome this.

Thank you very much for the interview - and see you soon at the Apostasy Day in Zurich!

The interview was first published in Gernan in the spring edition of our magazine "frei denken».

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International and Swiss guests will be talking about their withdrawal from religious communities and sects at the Apostasy Day (9.45am - 10pm auditorium Kunsthaus Zürich). The event is organised by the Swiss Freethinkers. In addition to Sarah Haider participants have the chance to see and hear FEMEN co-founder Inna Shevchenko and Maryam Namazie, who launched the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, and many others. Also on the programme: talks by sociology professor and apostasy researcher Jesse M. Smith and Dieter Rohmann, who assists cult leavers, a political panel on apostasy and two films. Simultaneous translation between English and German is provided.

Sarah Haider will also speak (in English) at an event of the Freethinkers Winterthur on 19 March. 7.30pm Restaurant Obergass, Schulstrasse 1, 8400 Winterthur.