I am a white, American, ex Muslim convert who left the religion AMA

Let me explain a bit. I have been interested in Islam since I was young. Growing up in America alongside a great many diaspora communities who practised Islam increased this interest. As I got older, the feeling got to the point that after a family trip to Turkey in 2012, I converted. I began going to a largely Pakistani mosque, which was recommended to me by some people I met in high school.

Now at the beginning, I started off seeing Islam in a very positive light. This was in large part due to my ignorance and my desire to join my friends in what was for them an integral part of their lives. I started off doing all the things you might guess; the major lifestyle changes, the arrogant boasts of how "I don't do this now, I am Muslim," the consistent labeling of all things as haram or halal. Meanwhile, I was in semi-regular attendance at Mosque, as I had no license and had to walk. I attended many different halaqas and groups, but many things began to eat at me.

After some time, I began to have supremely negative experiences, which I deemed not only racist but hypocritical. Simultaneously, I began to severely question the nature of Muhammad and the quality of his life. The nature of deity as described in the Quran also bothered me.

I shall also tell you what bothered me the most: Umar ibn al Khattab. He and Khalid bin Walid disturbed me deeply as individuals. They appeared to me in the annals of history to be no more than sex-obsessed, hawkish militants who fought under the guise of piety only to secure their own power and aggrandizement. I have read many Islamic sources for Umar, Muhammad, and his other follower's biographies. Although they try to slant Umar in a positive light, they cannot hide the nature of his rageful countenance, his aggressive demeanor (once, of course, unleashed upon the originator of the object we all despise), which later I found to be the bane of many humans in his needless conquest under the guise of piety. Of course, these critiques may be levelled at Muhammad and his other followers such as Ali as well.

This is only the start of what caused my disdain. The continuance, I shall leave to you to draw out of me should you wish. In short, there were so many contributory chinks in this former Muslim's religious armor that could no longer be brooked, that by 2022 I was quits with it. I attended Masjid for the last time around then.

I shall tell you now, do not think that last time was without guilt. Not with regard to some sense of religious duty, but rather a sense that I was lying to myself. I felt many times that I was not being honest with myself; that I was banging my head against a wall that kept causing me harm and no benefit. As I have later come to conclude, I kept going because of the strong social connections and a desire to learn about the Middle East and Islam, an appetite I still retain, from a perspective I cannot call removed, but at the very least, irreligious.

I do not claim to have a particularly special experience, nor can I claim anything close to the trauma I see daily enshrined upon this subreddit's pages. I have been completely fortunate in that I could leave. I could walk away. Many who may read this cannot. This is, of course, a privilege that mere fortune of circumstance has granted me, and I am grateful for it.

It reminds me much of a quote of Juvenal, which states, "nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia: nos te, nos facimus, Fortuna, deam caeloque locamus." In short, no divinity is absent if prudence is present, but we make fortune a goddess and give her place in the sky. It is the actions resultant of the appetites of a thousand minds which have spun our individual fortunes, and it is our own appetites and actions which create our own, I suppose. One man's prudence in his own life is the cause for another man's woe, and it is to this I attribute much of the circumstances of life. The same can be said vice versa.

Forgive the philosophical meandering, I hope it too shall be a cause for interest sans boredom. Likewise, I hope that my experiences may be of some interest to you, and I shall be glad if anyone takes the time to read this and query any further. You do me great honor (a word I hesitate to use here, as it has been used against so many here in this sub in negative cultural and religious contexts) by doing so.

Forgive me, but I seek here to put forward what amounted to about 15 years of my life and so cannot include everything. Feel free to ask me everything you would like, as I have long wanted some form of discourse along these lines.