The journey was slow and deeply personal, shaped by education, lived experience, honest doubt, and time
Azhar U Din
In 2017, during my days as a philosophy student in Aligarh Muslims University (AMU), I was 22 years old and deeply inclined toward logic and rational thinking. Philosophy trained me to question ideas that were usually accepted without examination. Subjects like epistemology changed the way I looked at truth, belief, and certainty. Naturally, religion also came under this scrutiny, and slowly it began to lose its unquestioned place in my life.
What pushed this shift further was not philosophy alone, but everyday life. I saw homeless people sleeping on pavements, rickshaw pullers working long hours in extreme heat for very little money, and sharp economic inequalities that people seemed to accept as normal. These scenes disturbed me deeply. They made me think seriously about justice and suffering, and whether the idea of a just God could really be reconciled with such visible inequality.
At that time, I was living in Room No. 29, MMA Hostel, MM Hall. My roommate was strongly influenced by communist ideology, and our late-night discussions revolved around philosophy, power, oppression, and the existence of God. Combined with my exposure to epistemology, these discussions gradually pushed my thinking toward atheism. By the time I completed my studies in Aligarh, atheism was no longer a passing phase; it had become my settled way of understanding the world.
In 2018, a national incident strengthened this position further. The Kathua case involving the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl deeply affected me. Like many others, I was shaken by the brutality of the crime. The fact that it occurred near a religious place raised difficult questions in my mind about divine presence and justice. At that stage, I found it impossible to reconcile such suffering with the idea of a morally intervening God, and my disbelief became firmer.
After completing my Master’s degree in August 2021, I moved to Mumbai in 2022 to begin my PhD. This change of place also brought new people into my life. During this time, I became close friends with Kavi Kumar. By faith, he followed Hinduism, but what stood out was his calm and respectful attitude toward all religions, including Islam. At a time when religious intolerance was becoming more visible in the country, his behaviour quietly stood apart.
Through him, I visited different places of worship, including the ISKCON temple in Mumbai. These visits did not change my beliefs immediately, but they made me pause. Watching people pray sincerely made me wonder why religion continued to matter to so many. I began asking simple questions: if God is one, why are there many religions? Why do people follow different paths? When I asked Kavi, he simply said that people relate to the same truth in different ways. He never argued with me or tried to convince me. His respect for questions left a lasting impression.
In 2023, global events again pushed me back into questioning, especially after seeing the killing of children in Gaza. The issue of God and suffering returned strongly to my mind. In 2024, I began following atheist debates on YouTube, particularly those criticising Islam and the Quran. I checked many of the verses myself. Over time, I noticed that verses were often taken in isolation, without mentioning when they were revealed, why they were revealed, or whom they were addressing.
This disturbed me, because my training in philosophy had taught me that no text, religious or otherwise, can be understood honestly without context. Many YouTube channels ignored the time and situation in which the Quranic verses were revealed. Verses related to war, conflict, or social regulation were presented as timeless commands, without explaining the historical conditions behind them. The spatial and temporal context was missing.
Things became clearer when I started reading the Quran directly. I realised that the Quran was revealed over a long period, responding to real situations of persecution, injustice, conflict, social reform, and moral responsibility. It was not a detached book of abstract commands. Many verses that were criticised online were addressing specific historical conditions, not laying down universal instructions without limits.
What also disturbed me deeply was when some YouTube platforms began comparing Islam with the Jeffrey Epstein case. What shocked me was the way Epstein was indirectly defended using illogical arguments and self-made interpretations of Islamic texts. This felt intellectually dishonest. It appeared less like criticism and more like deliberate distortion. At that point, I unsubscribed from those channels completely.
As I continued reading the Quran carefully, one thing stood out clearly: oppression and injustice were never justified as divine will. Again and again, responsibility was placed on human beings, their choices, misuse of power, and moral failure. The Quran did not deny suffering, nor did it glorify it. It openly condemned injustice and exploitation. This mattered deeply to me because my rejection of belief had always been rooted in the problem of evil.
This approach did not answer every question instantly, but it made the text intellectually honest rather than evasive. Gradually, my certainty in atheism began to weaken. I realised that many atheist critiques I had trusted were selective and incomplete. They asked sharp questions, but often ignored complex answers.
During this period, a personal situation led me to pray sincerely, without resistance or expectation. The resolution of that situation had a deep impact on me. It did not feel dramatic or sudden, but it felt meaningful enough to pause and reassess everything.
Today, after years of questioning, observation, dialogue, and reflection, I identify myself as a proud Muslim. The journey was slow and deeply personal, shaped by education, lived experience, honest doubt, and time.
The writer is from Department of Geography and Disaster Management, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Kashmir
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