Hello everyone! I wanted to share my story and some details. I was kind of hesitating to you know make a video, but you know what I thought maybe I should do that, because few people thought maybe you know this maybe I'm not a real person, some people thought there was some Jewish conspiracy going on and you know all sorts of ideas out there. So I wanted to make a video to show that I am a real person. You know, I was born.. I was born into a Ismaili family, my dad is a Ismaili; my mom is Sunni and I was raised as an Ismaili and around the age of maybe 18 or so in highschool I found Islam. Some of my friends invited me to read the Quran and I started reading it. I started praying you know what was called namaz or Salah and...and I got really excited I found the Quran and I got really excited about it. I really liked it and I said, hey this is God's message to me. I didn't look into it too critically, I felt like you know I looked into a little bit about the religions and stuff and I felt it's just instinctive, and I felt like this is something, you know, good; something I want to follow God's message and I started praying five times a day and you know eventually I took a deep dive into Islam. I started following it with all my heart and mind, you know. Within like a few days, after that I started University and then I got married and then you know... what else and I started working. So when I was working I tried my best to implement Islam, you know, I would pray even at the office; I would find the stairwell; I would go and pray wherever I could you know and I would get, if I had a prayer room you know I would invite other people to come pray with me and even university you know in the middle of exams I would stop to pray. I would ask them can I please get up, I need to say my prayers for Maghribespecially. And yeah I was following it to the best of my ability, to be honest. I sincerely believed in Islam. I used to give out some DVDs and I made some DVDs of my own with some Islamic videos. I used to go from mosque to mosque videotaping lectures and at conferences and.. and I wanted to promote it because I felt truly in my heart this was the true religion I wanted people to go Jannah, I wanted Allah to be pleased with me and you know I wanted to follow the prophet and so that's what I did! I created a website: lightuponlight.com and you know eventually another one was versebyversequran.com too to promote Islam because I believed in it and there's still a bunch of videos on there, if you go and see of that I videotaped myself.. Some of the lectures and some of the other ones I got permission from others to put online so that's..that's what I was doing and when I started working you know, I would avoid jobs that were involved with ribayou know anything to do with the bank. I wouldn't work for any banks whatsoever, I wouldn't work in the media industry like television or music. Personally I would avoid listening to.. I wouldn't listen to music, I wouldn't let my kids listen to music. I've even put my kids in Islamic school, you know for as much as I could afford it, even though it was expensive here in Canada. But I mean that's what you do, right? If you are a Muslim and you truly believe in all your heart as well you know I used to rent, I didn't have a mortgage because I believed in it. Now, you know the came a point in my life where I started having a little bit out of doubt here and there. Small doubts and eventually you know I was at one year.. two years ago, I had some doubts, I was discussing with a friend online and he mentioned that a lot of the stories in the Quran actually come from Jewish folk tales. I was very surprised about that like Jewish folk tales. I said no no you mean it came from the Bible or the Hebrew Torah and when I looked into it I found out that actually a lot of the stories that from the Talmud which is actually the Jewish commentary and the Jewish stories and basically the rabbis you know commentary of the.. of the traditions and so it doesn't let them have a divine origin and you know I also had a big problem with the story of Dhul Qarnayn you know, this..this tribe of how Dhul Qarnayn, he trapped this tribe of people Yajuj and Majuj, Gog and Magog behind a giant gate built of copper and iron and and I was wondering where is this place. How come we can't find it you know we have Google Earth and all that and how come we can't find it. So that was another doubt and actually I believe left Islam for one day. But then I decided you know what I'm gonna put my doubts aside you know I'm Muslim, I want to go to Jannah, I want to believe in Allah and I became Muslim for one more year. And then last year, so one year ago is when I truly, actually when I truly left Islam for good. I was in a Ramadan and it was out there at a pre-iftar halaqahand the Sheikh was saying you know Allah holds up the sky without any pillars and this brought back on my doubts about you know, if the Quran is truly from the God, the creator of the universe that you know the one that knows all things. Why is describing the world in a way that you know was the seventh century understanding of the world. Like the sky doesn't have, okay we know this sky doesn't have any pillars that you can see.. but there's no need for pillars like we're just a ball in the space. Sky is just this.. just emptiness, it's just emptiness of space so there's no, there's no need for any pillars visible or invisible and you know there's many things like that like the the orbit of the Sun and the Moon. Why Allah describes an orbit of the Sun and the moon. Like we know the orbit of the Moon is around the Earth.. that makes sense, but the orbit of the Sun.. like what orbit would that be? You know I looked into this I found well there is an orbit it's 300 million year orbit. Of the sun around the Milky way galaxy which has nothing to do with humanity whatsoever because it's completely useless but of course at that time you know the Muslims who would have thought that this.. this orbit is a is orbit of the Sun around Earth and even SahihHadid, Prophet Muhammad he asked his companions do you know where the Sun goes at the time of Maghrib and they said you know Allah knows best and his messenger knows best and he said it goes beneath the throne of Allah. Now we know that the Sun is actually still there and it's actually the Earth that's going around the Sun. So you know this one and many other things they didn't add up to me that the creator of the universe is making these mistakes. Or describing it in a way that doesn't make any sense today. Now based on our new information.. A nd it made me wonder, is it truly Allah the creator or is it just coming from a man that lived in the seventh century that believed these things and was was basically writing them as he went. And so you know, the stories in the Quran like like I said Dhul Qarnayn you know where is Gog and Magog There's this supposed to be you know millions and millions of them stuck behind this dam, we haven't found any such giant gate any where in the world I mean even some of the..I think it was Omar who went to look for it and they didn't find it .I mean it doesn't make any sense right.. And so these things my doubts began to grow and grow and eventually I got to the point where I said this can be from God. I don't believe in this anymore and because my doubt became more than my certainty and when I started to look into each one of the claims in the Quran that the Quran is actually from God, like embryology, and the mountains and all of these things including the language I found they just fell down flat. Like for example you know embryology, you know all you have to do is look into these things in detail to see how people...misrepresented Quran to be a scientific thing when actually it's not you know. These..these stories were meant to be like you know kind of to bring you to remember God and to say look how amazing it is that you know the the embryo how it grows. It wasn't meant to be you know scientifically accurate when you look into it you'll find it's actually the idea is flawed. And same thing with the stories in the Quran you know like if they were true stories why is it that we're finding trouble you know verifying these facts. I'll make another video about Dhul Qarnayn in the future. It's a longer topic but in summary. I just don't believe that there's any possibility that this actually came from a divine being, this book, the Quran and when you look into it you'll find many things that don't add up and this is why I had to eventually leave Islam despite all the investment I put into it you know emotional investment, and you know my personality, my friends you know everything was Islam to me. So this was a huge loss you know losing God and some people want to know what I believe now. I personally don't believe there's any God so I'm atheist but you know if someone would ask well where did everything come from, I would say I'm still I'm still learning and I don't think we have all the answers but it is possible, there is a force you know outside of the universe. I don't know if you wouldn't call it necessarily God, you could call it God but you know, a force, a power, a being that made everything.. that made everything into what it is but this.. this being from what I can tell you know either does not care about us or does not know about us, is not interested in us. You know it doesn't answer dua.doesn't like if you just look at the state of the world today all the suffering and all the pain, it does not look like there's any God out there, that cares for us, that is looking out for us and in fact that's what I believe that if there is a creator, either he doesn't know about us or he doesn't care about us and he's just letting all these things happen and which is why I'm.. I'm.. I'm an atheist because.. because I don't believe that the..that there is a God but if there is a creator out there I mean maybe he has no personality, maybe it's just like a force or power you know...