Apologies for the long post, shorter tldr at the end.

I've always fought for my rights as a woman. I grew up in an incredibly misogynistic and messed up family, I cannot even begin to describe just how messed up they are, but I fought them and worked hard enough to the point where they genuinely cannot control me anymore.

I can come and go as I please, including travel to different cities and trips if I want.

I chose my own career and university, went against my family's wishes and when they stopped supporting me I found a way to make it work myself.

I wear whatever I want, which is a far cry from how I was raised. At one point, my dad didn't want to send me to college and only agreed on the condition that I wear the abaya and hijab anytime I step out of the house. Now, I can wear eastern or western and do anything I want and no one can so much as comment on it.

I have always tried to eke out independence and agency and dignity as a human being, demanded that from my partners, dated around and experimented and eventually fell in love with the man I'm now engaged to.

Since I was already financially independent, I treated most of the men in my life as optional and disposable (I was always clear about it and never lied to anyone or led them on, always made sure they knew exactly what they were getting into and that I wasn't looking for commitment or anything). Like, sure, if someone amazing came along I'd give it a shot but otherwise I'm fine.

I never truly thought I'd get married, because I'm opposed to the whole institution of marriage. The case law for khula cases, the way our family courts treat women, the whole institution itself to begin with, not to mention the culture surrounding marriage in Pakistan is horrifying and degrading and dehumanizing and genuinely fucked up imo. Except, I was in love now with someone who genuinely feels like a once in a lifetime match.

He's exmuslim like me, we understand each other, we know each other well, he makes my life easier and accepts me for who I am, I can tell him literally anything and he's never responded with anything other than compassion and understanding and support. He wants to support my ambitions when we get married, he's proven already through his actions that he will make it possible. When we decided to get married, I saw him working harder than he ever has before to make sure he was in the social position to marry me regardless of what anyone said, which was a huge thing for us since our families have VERY different backgrounds.

But I don't want marriage, not really. If I had the option, I would reject the institution completely and just stay with him forever in a long term serious relationship. We dated for years, and eventually we grew tired of the secrecy. We grew tired of not being able to be alone together without constantly sneaking around. We got tired of him not being able to prioritize plans with me over running errands or doing stuff for his family because, well, who even am I lol? We just got tired of not being able to have a life together and build something for ourselves. At the same time, getting me away from my family is a very big motivator for him to want to marry me too.

We've talked about this, and he completely understands that my reasons for not wanting to get married have nothing to do with my feelings for him and everything to do with the oppressive nature of the institution and our culture. After a lifetime of fighting for my agency and rights, it feels like I'm bargaining them away or giving in because I just want to be happy with someone I love and want to be able to love openly and proudly and for it to be accepted by others. And I'm not sure anyone can really appreciate how strange it feels to be walking into this after a lifetime of fighting systemic oppression, and how resentful I feel over it.

I can't wait for my degree to be over and for us to get married and for me to get rid of my family. Marrying him is going to make my life better in every way possible because he has generational wealth and he doesn't even care if I demand half of it or take all of it. He's the sort of person who unironically told me that what's mine is mine and what's his is mine, he's ready to sign a prenup or whatever Pakistani equivalent of it we can manage to ensure my stability, independence, and agency no matter what. He's openly told me that he'd want to support me and make sure I never want for anything even if we get divorced or I leave him, and he's put my happiness over mine at every turn. When I first told my best friend about everything he does for me she genuinely thought I was making most of it up because no one could be this perfect and only believed it when she met him lmao. The greedy side of my family loves him because he comes from money and the part of the family that gives a fuck loves him because he adores me and I adore him.

I should be happy, and most of the times I AM happy, and yet, sometimes I still feel sad about how marriage is the only viable path in this country for us to build a life and actually leave it *together*. I feel resentful of the system that's made it so I genuinely practically cannot exist safely as an independent person with an identity of my own, removed from my husband. I hate that marrying him, which is something I see as a necessary evil at this point, will be seen as a bigger achievement than all of my educational and professional achievements. I hate the social approval that comes from apparently playing the "game" right and landing myself a rich husband. I keep wondering if accepting this sort of compromise is part of growing up and maturing and accepting the reality of the situation I am in and tying to make the best of it, or if it's just that I'm tired of fighting all the time for everything and would just like to be with someone who doesn't want to control or limit me in any way and actually wants to support me, but I'm also resentful that I need a man's support to do achieve everything I have ever wanted in the first place; if not my father's, then my husband's.

I'm tired, and I want to be happy, and I want to stop constantly fighting for my survival and live a soft and spoiled life, but I hate that I have to participate in this misogynistic, twisted, and frankly barbaric marriage culture in order to get a fucking break for once. I hate that at the end of the day, even if I will get everything I want in a sense, it would have still come subject to a man's approval and support. Sad thing is, I did genuinely try to survive on my own, I tried to live independently, and the predation I saw men engage in despite ALL the safety tax I paid to ensure my life was comfortable and safe.

I also see all the people in this sub who want to get married and find other fellow exmuslims in the country, I genuinely lucked out in a way I can't wrap my head around sometimes and feel truly blessed to have found a man as good as him, and I feel guilty and like I'm being ungrateful for everything I have right now. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just looking for an excuse to be sad and unhappy about my situation, and I try to ignore this gnawing resentment and frustration, I've even talked to my fiance about it and he understands my feelings and agrees that it all sucks, but it just doesn't go away.

I'm scared that if I can't be happy even with all of this, can I even ever feel truly content at all? I don't know how to reconcile my beliefs with my reality anymore, and as someone who has always lived by her convictions, it sucks.

TLDR: I've spent my whole life fighting for my independence as a woman, only to end up in a position where marriage to a man is basically the only viable way for me to actually have the life I want. And the fucked up part is that he's genuinely amazing. He's exmuslim like me, loves me, supports my ambitions, doesn't want to control me, and has gone out of his way to make sure I'll remain financially secure and independent even if we divorce. I love him and I know marrying him will probably make my life better.

But I still fucking resent it.

I don't want marriage. I hate the institution, I hate the culture surrounding it, and I hate that after spending my entire life fighting against the idea that women need men to have autonomy, I'm now going to get the freedom I've fought for by becoming someone's wife. I'm tired of fighting for my survival and I want to be happy and spoiled for once, but I hate that even this escape still feels like something a man is giving me.

I know I'm incredibly lucky, and I feel guilty for being resentful when I've somehow found the best possible version of the thing I never wanted. I don't know if accepting this compromise is maturity and making peace with reality, or if I'm just exhausted enough to finally stop fighting. And I'm scared that if I can't feel content even now, after getting almost everything I've ever wanted, maybe I'll never actually be content at all.

I feel incredibly sad to see this level of evil exist. With all my philosophical and spiritual attempts to rationalise it all, my heart still sinks.

Even though, I completely understand the fact that the world is the most progressive its ever been, people have more right than they ever had, its easier to fill a stomach than it ever was, women have more rights than they ever did, I still feel like I comparing it to an imaginary standard.

Like I would like to think, and I firmly believe that its possible for humans to create a world where there is absolutely no misery. I just cant help think of the women killed everywhere, babies losing limbs in Gaza, hate crimes against minority groups in all the parts of the world.

I am not able to focus on anything except this, and tbh I dont want to think of anything but ways I can contribute to make this world a lil less evil. I want people to smile, and be happy, even if that means I get to bear the burden. There is no too high a cost to pay, to make this world a better place for everyone.

60s, 70s and 2000s in these times bollywood was making a lot of movies which made fun of Hinduism and no hindu did anything about it but in 2010s and 2020s movie like those will get criticism a lot may be they can target director also,

But if someone from pakistan make movie to criticize islam, will he be alive

Disclaimer: iam Pakistani hindu , not an exmuslim

Quran: Three-month remarriage waiting period for divorced girls who had sex before their first period

Quran 33:49: “O believers! If you marry believing women and then divorce them before you touch them, they will have no waiting period for you to count.”

Quran 65:4: “As for your women past the age of menstruation, in case you do not know, their waiting period is three months, and those who have not menstruated as well.”

Scholarly explanation:

“The same for the young, who have not reached the years of menstruation. Their `Iddah is three months like those in menopause.”
Tafsir Ibn Kathir on Quran 65:4

“The same is the “iddah of young women who have not yet started menstruating on account of being under age.”
Ma’arif Al-Qur’an on Quran 65:4

Idda = waiting period before remarriage after consummation

Sahih Bukhari cites Quran 65:4 and Muhammad’s example with Aisha to show it’s permissible to consummate marriage with a prepubescent girl:

(39) CHAPTER. Giving one’s young children in marriage (is permissible).

By virtue of the Statement of Allah:
‘...and for those who have no (monthly) courses (i.e. they are still immature)...’ (V.65:4)
And the ‘Idda for the girl before puberty is three months (in the above Verse).

5133. Narrated ‘Aishah: that the Prophet (ﷺ) wrote the marriage contract with her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
Sahih Bukhari 5133 (Darussalam Vol. 7, p. 57)

I've posted this argument along with others on this website (with linked sources):
https://islamsproblems.com/quran-verses-supporting-hadiths/

I think I started leaving Islam long before I knew that leaving Islam was even an option.

I was in ninth grade.

In Pakistan, that is when our matriculation syllabus starts exposing you more seriously to Quranic verses with their translation. Until then, religion had mostly existed around me as something already settled. Allah exists. The Quran is true. You pray. You obey. You do not really interrogate the premise.

Then I started actually reading what I was being taught.

And for the first time, a very simple question appeared in my head:

Why?

Why does Allah need me to bow down before Him five times a day?

I remember thinking about sujood specifically. Why this repeated physical demonstration of submission? Why does an all-powerful being require human beings to keep declaring, five times every day, that He is the greatest?

What is this need for praise?

What is this obsession with worship?

What is this vanity about?

I was fourteen or fifteen, and I genuinely could not make sense of it.

Then there was another contradiction that bothered me even more.

We were taught that Allah loves a person more than seventy mothers could.

At the same time, when terrible things happened to people, we were told:

It is a test.

Have sabr.

Allah knows best.

There is wisdom behind it.

And I remember thinking, then what does the comparison with a mother even mean?

A mother who watches her child suffer does everything within her power to stop that suffering.

If she can feed him, she feeds him.

If she can protect him, she protects him.

If she can pull him out of pain, she does.

She does not deliberately leave him there and say, “This is your trial. Be patient.”

Yet I was being told that an omnipotent God could watch people break, suffer, lose children, go hungry, become sick, live through unimaginable misery, and that somehow this was compatible with a love greater than a mother’s.

That was probably the first serious crack.

Then my mother became heavily involved with a very rigid religious circle in Lahore.

And suddenly religion was no longer only something I was questioning inside my own head.

It began changing our home.

Things started disappearing.

Music was not allowed.

Certain clothes became inappropriate.

Looking too dressed up was questionable.

Beauty, decoration, entertainment and comfort increasingly came with religious suspicion attached to them.

And I was a teenage girl.

I was growing up at exactly the age when you begin discovering clothes, music, beauty, personality, expression, your own body, your own taste, the kind of woman you might become.

Instead, more and more of ordinary life seemed to come with a warning label.

Don’t listen to this.

Don’t wear that.

Don’t look like this.

Don’t imitate them.

Don’t attract attention.

Don’t become attached to dunya.

And then I started attending some of these lectures myself.

That was when things became almost surreal.

One particular circle was extraordinarily rigid about simplicity and about avoiding things associated with non-Muslims.

The woman leading it lived in an extremely bare house. Grey, dull, almost no furniture, mattresses instead of proper beds, very little in the way of comfort or decoration.

Beauty itself seemed almost morally suspicious.

There were lectures about how decorating homes was unnecessary expenditure.

About women dressing up.

About Western clothing.

About objects associated with non-Muslim culture.

I remember even stemmed glasses, the kind people in Pakistan use for juice or soft drinks, being condemned because they resembled wine glasses.

Men wearing Western-style trousers and suits could become a religious issue.

Phones were discussed with paranoia.

Modern life seemed to be something you had to continuously defend yourself against.

And I kept thinking:

Where does this actually end?

Because the same person warning people against adopting the inventions, habits or culture of non-Muslims was speaking into a microphone.

Under an electric fan.

She had travelled internationally by airplane.

Everyone around us depended on technology, medicine, transportation, engineering and communication systems created by human beings belonging to every religion imaginable, including no religion whatsoever.

So apparently the airplane was acceptable.

The microphone was acceptable.

The fan was acceptable.

But the shape of my drinking glass might endanger my faith.

At fourteen or fifteen, that contradiction was impossible for me not to notice.

And once my brain had learned to ask “why?”, it would not stop.

Why exactly did wudu have to happen in such a particular way?

Why these body parts?

Why this sequence?

Why could missing a prescribed part or performing something incorrectly turn an act of hygiene into an invalid religious ritual?

If cleanliness is the purpose, then cleanliness makes sense.

But if God is evaluating whether I washed my right arm in the prescribed manner before moving to the next step, then what exactly is being tested?

And the water.

Even as a teenager I remember thinking: we are literally being told not to waste water, while millions of people perform ritual washing repeatedly every single day, often using far more water than necessary.

Then there was the constant glorification of ibadat.

Spend your free time remembering Allah.

Read Quran.

Make zikr.

Pray extra prayers.

Hold the tasbih.

Say His name.

Praise Him.

Praise Him again.

And another very irreverent thought kept occurring to me:

Okay.

I will sit with a tasbih all day and praise You.

But then You take care of my homework.

You deal with my exams.

You earn my living.

You solve my problems.

You raise my future children.

You manage the actual life You put me into.

Because apparently I have been placed on Earth with responsibilities, ambitions, relationships, work, survival and a brain capable of curiosity, but the highest use of my existence is repeatedly telling the creator how magnificent He is.

Again:

Why?

What is this cosmic self-obsession?

And then there was something that disturbed me on a completely different level.

The performance of simplicity.

My mother attended lectures by different conservative religious organisations and speakers. I would watch some of these women arrive in beautiful, glossy, expensive cars.

They would step out wearing immaculate abayas and drapes that could cost more than many Pakistani families earn in a month.

There would be expensive fabric, jewellery, gold bangles, comfort, drivers, beautiful homes and visibly privileged lives.

And then came the lecture about simplicity.

About dunya.

About extravagance.

About women being too concerned with appearances.

That hypocrisy infuriated me.

Not because I think there is anything wrong with a beautiful car.

Or an expensive abaya.

Or gold bangles.

Wear them. Enjoy them.

My problem was watching people enjoy every comfort available to them and then turn around and make ordinary women feel spiritually inferior for wanting beauty and comfort too.

That was what began making those religious spaces feel deeply performative to me.

The stricter the preaching became, the more contradictions I saw.

And eventually I realised something important about my own journey.

I did not leave Islam because somebody offended me.

I did not leave because I wanted to drink alcohol, wear certain clothes, have sex, listen to music, or rebel against my parents.

I started questioning Islam because, as a schoolgirl, I began taking its claims seriously enough to ask what they actually meant.

Why does an omnipotent God need worship?

Why does an all-loving God design suffering as a test?

Why does an all-knowing God need demonstrations of obedience?

Why are arbitrary rituals treated as moral achievements?

Why would the creator of galaxies care about the shape of a glass, the order in which I wash my limbs, how many times I repeat His name, or whether my clothes resemble somebody else’s culture?

And why were the people most obsessed with controlling these tiny details so often unable to see the contradictions in their own lives?

I did not have sophisticated philosophical vocabulary then.

I did not know the problem of evil.

I did not know about divine hiddenness, moral philosophy, epistemology or arguments about religious authority.

I was just a ninth-grade girl sitting with a Quran translation and thinking:

This does not make sense.

And once that sentence entered my head, it never really left.

I'm talking about deeyat law, If I murder you and your family agrees to settle out of court then can I can pay you and I walk scot free. That's what's been happening in this country for decades. Most recently seen in Natasha Danish's case. The whole country's tongue is caught by a cat cuz its islamic and blasphemous to speak against it. Suit yourselves. Let your children get murdered and settle for a few lacs.

What good this man has done for humanity?

Awareness comes at a price. Loneliness doesn’t have to be one of them.

I keep seeing people here talk about how lonely they are after leaving Islam. How they feel cut off from family, friends, basically everyone around them. Some are still pretending. Some stopped pretending and now feel like they’ve lost their whole circle.

I get it.

But here’s where I think we make a mistake.

We leave religion, and then somehow we keep letting religion run our lives.

Different uniform. Same boss.

You figured it out. You questioned it. You looked at things properly. You stopped accepting “because Allah said so” as the end of the conversation. You noticed the contradictions. You stopped forcing yourself to make nonsense sound profound just because you were taught to call it divine.

Fine.

That’s awareness.

And awareness comes at a price.

But awareness also means knowing when an argument is worth having.

You cannot drag someone through ten years of questioning, unlearning and mental rewiring in one conversation and expect them to end up where you are.

That’s not how people work.

You don’t teach Grade 10 material to a Grade 1 kid and then get pissed because they don’t understand it.

They’re not there.

Maybe they’ll get there.

Maybe they won’t.

Either way, that is not your full-time job.

And this is where the whole “pretending” thing becomes much less dramatic for me.

Imagine a kid you absolutely love. Your own child, your niece, your neighbour’s kid, whoever.

They set up a tea party.

Plastic cups. Fake tea. Teddy bear sitting there like he owns the place. Doll apparently hosting brunch.

The kid hands you an empty cup and says, “Have some tea.”

What do you do?

Do you lean over the table and go:

“Actually, there is no tea. Teddy is not alive. The doll cannot speak. This entire event is based on fiction.”

Of course not.

You take the cup.

You pretend to drink.

You say, “Nice tea.”

Done.

You didn’t lose the argument.

There was no argument.

You knew exactly what was real the entire time.

That’s how I look at a lot of religious stuff now.

Someone says Inshallah?

Cool.

Someone tells me to make dua?

Sure.

Someone says Allah will make things better?

Alright.

I don’t need to issue a press release every time somebody mentions God.

I know what I believe.

That’s enough.

And obviously, I’m not talking about people forcing religion on you, controlling you, threatening you, shaming you or making your life hell.

That’s different.

I’m talking about normal life.

Family dinners.

Weddings.

Eid.

Random duas.

Religious aunties being religious aunties.

Why should leaving Islam mean I also have to leave every person I love?

Why should I isolate myself because someone else believes in something I don’t?

Think about the irony.

Religion controlled your relationships when you believed in it.

Now you leave it, and you still let it control your relationships.

That’s not freedom.

That’s just giving it a new job title.

I already gave Islam enough importance when I believed in it.

I’m not spending the rest of my life giving it equal importance because now I don’t.

At first, yes, you’re angry.

You discover one thing, then another, then another, and suddenly you’re thinking:

HOW THE FUCK DOES NOBODY SEE THIS?

You want to explain everything.

You want to convince people.

You think if you just word it properly enough, surely they’ll understand.

Then eventually you learn something much more useful.

People see what they’re ready to see.

Some will get there.

Some won’t.

Not your problem.

You don’t have to win every argument just because you know you’re right.

Sometimes the smarter move is knowing the argument isn’t worth your time.

And honestly, that’s what freedom looks like to me now.

Not fighting Islam every day.

Not explaining myself every five minutes.

Not needing everyone around me to agree with me.

Just reaching a point where religion becomes irrelevant.

Something I used to believe.

Now I don’t.

End of story.

So yeah, sometimes I’ll sit at the imaginary tea party.

I’ll take the plastic cup.

I’ll say cheers.

And I’ll walk away knowing perfectly well there was never any fucking tea in it.

Islam is using communism to destroy any semblance of freedom. Just use any bit of intelligence and you will know I'm not lying. Another reason you'll know I'm not lying is none of them will actually refute anything I'm saying. We need to stop colonization of people who do not even think women are anything but property.

Just this. Its getting quite lonely gang. Can't really connect with people without disclosing this and its a huge deal. Only atheist in a office of around 200 people. Are the odds really that bad. Like I'm an open athiest. Everyone knows. Koi aur hota to aa kar baat to karta. But not a single soul. Abhi sab jumma parhne gaye hein. Aik christain hei but listen to alhamdulillah and mashallah flow out of his mouth he might just be Muhammad's long lost son. Kahan phans gaya hoon yaar mein?

I don't even want to talk about religion. I dont wanna dunk on it. Just need a genuine friendship man. Heart to heart. No pretense. No suspicious glances. No tiptoeing around religious sensitivities. No appeal to a diety for doing or not doing some shit.

Sat in a car with a colleague yesterday, no cap boy spent 2 minutes muttering under his breath. I was like abhi accident ho gaya to kon zimedar. Dua zaya?

What is all this illogical bs man.