Muslims in the West are uncritically taken by Islam. Yet, those who have firsthand experience of living with the sharia, think differently.

For 5 years now, I helped maintain a website for Indonesian Muslims leaving Islam by translating articles critical of Islam in English into bahasa Indonesia. Thanks to the internet, these articles made this ‘fastest growing religion’ look more like the ‘fastest sinking religion.’ By only shedding light on the real Islam, the Islam that muslims in the West are able to conceal, the seeds of doubt in the minds of (Indonesian) Muslims have been planted.

Those who left Islam due to our site was after having read that, amongst others :
Muhammad at 53 consummated his marriage to a 9 year old,
Muhammad did NOT change women’s lives for the better,
Muhammad ordered to kill those who have left Islam, his critics & 800 unarmed Medinan Jews, involved in raids & demanded his share of the booty : and that his version of heaven would make any Amsterdam whorehouse madam blush.

The most effective clinch was when one of our contributors highlighted books written by prominent (so-called ’moderate’) Muslims proving exactly our points : that Aisya WAS 9 years old when she was deflowered, that Islam’s heaven WAS about the promise of sex, that Jihad WAS about killing infidels & that prominent Muslims themselves are confused about which is the real Islam [and that from a religion which, above all, claims to be ’clear & concise’].

We survived despite several threaths by Muslims to hack/destroy our site/ destroy internet cafes which do not censor our site. We have had special hate-sites set up to encounter us. Our readers were several times intimidated by email or telephone. Yet our readership has increased steadily.

In August 2007, we achieved our highest readership from 1,500 a day to 5,000 a day with an average of 2.500/day. That is no mean feat in a country where the internet is still a luxury. Going online in an internet cafe can cost some of our regulars their weekly salary (or physical harrasment when you are unlucky enough to have been caught reading our site by a pious Muslim).