Religion, Spirituality and Me: The Atheist Who Sleeps With an Ayatul Kursi Necklace On Every Night

Originally published on Medium in July 2021

It’s been a long time since I have written about religion and faith, and the lack of it, whether this be in articles for medium or my blog, or through Twitter which was my main outlet for discussing religion.

This is a topic I have had saved in my medium drafts for a while, but haven’t had the time to properly sit down and give it the time it needs to be just right.

I don’t want to bore you with the details of my journey from faith to faithless because that can be found in many of my pieces, and this Twitter thread I wrote on the third year anniversary.

The reason I don’t talk so much about it from a personal perspective anymore is that thankfully I have managed to heal from the pains that came with leaving religion. My familial relationships have healed and I no longer feel like my lack of religion affects how my family feel and perceive me. I have now found a way of retaining my Pakistani identity without it having to be inherently tied to Islam and being Muslim. But, the most important thing I gained from the last three years is a strong sense of independence and a willingness to be open to the unexpected.

What I do want to talk about is the pressure of labels and rigidity that can come from being within communities, whether they are religious or not, and the relationship between ethnicity and religion.

Labels, Labels, Labels: Pakistani ≠ Muslim

With this major life decision there was less of a crisis of identity, but more of confusion of who I was. I think this comes from being part of a generation that has so many labels to identify behind and there is almost a pressure to pick one, or that these labels are black and white.

This is something I struggled with for a long time because part of the reason which put me off organised religion, in general, is the need for labels and rules. I am someone who does not like to be pinned down with tags, names, and labels because I like the freedom and fluidity of being labelless. And that’s just for me because I do understand that labels are important for identifying marginalised communities and showing that you exist, it’s why I carried the ‘Ex-Muslim’ label for a while, to simply show that you can be an ‘Atheist/Agnostic Muslim,’ because it was something I did not know and was something I was glad other people were carrying so I could find others like me.

This brings me onto the ‘Ex-Muslim’ label, it’s something I haven’t talked about since I subtly dropped it from my main speech. I am not only ready to discuss it, but I finally have the words to express my opinions on the matter.

To keep it short, I found the online community and personalities to become quite toxic and there were more and more cases of alignments with right-wing and highly conservative views, along with infighting and lack of support for those actually at risk and all kinds of other behavior I just did not want to be a part of.

It was a label I did not want to be waving around because I did not want to be branded as supporter of those with right-wing opinions, or at least tolerating right-wing views. You can have those views, it’s a free world. I just don’t want to be associated with them because there are lines I draw, I can’t and don’t want to be friendly with individuals that hold those kinds of views, whether this is directly, subtly, or indirectly.

It was a place where I no longer felt like I belonged, but also something I did not really need. I had made peace with religion and I don’t feel the need to constantly criticise scripture on social media, instead, I will continue to share the stories of individuals who have been affected by abhorrent blasphemy and apostasy laws.

Initially, this did not stop me from using the label, but what did is that being ‘Ex-Muslim’ was not my whole personality, I have so much more to me. I now will use it in explaining why I am not Muslim because being Pakistani has an inherent tie to being Muslim.

But, I will use them when they are needed because it so important to show that for someone who is Pakistani, that not all atheists/agnostics and secularists are white people, which is incredibly important for those irreligious individuals living in countries where these labels can have them killed. It is to show the diversity of the Pakistani experience, to show that ethnicity and religion are not synonymous and that you can believe or not believe whatever you want regardless of your background.

Which brings me onto the next topic of discussion . . .

I had always been ‘too white’ for Asian spaces but I was also very aware of my ‘brownness’ in white spaces too, but it was this brownness I became more and more aware of after I was no longer Muslim because I was now a minority in Pakistani spaces.

“A minority within a minority you could say.”

I went from a very South Asian and Muslim high school/college backdrop, where I was ethnically in the majority to my four years at university very much being in the minority for the subjects I studied. Even now in the workplace and the industry I work within I am a minority both as a woman and ethnically.

On a whole, I have never been made to feel like I am a minority within either spaces, but that doesn’t mean it did not happen. It also does not stop me from both feeling and noticing it. Especially as someone with anxiety, I am hyperaware of myself so the fact I know I am pretty unique in these scenarios builds up in my head more than anything.

One thing that I do think about is a comment a lecturer made in my first week on my masters. He went around the room asking peoples names and where everyone was from, bearing in mind I was the only non-white student in the room, I said Manchester (I was actually born in Northampton but lived in Manchester most of life, this is so my friends don’t come for me when they read this), and my lecturer responded with ‘that’s exotic.’

Now, I did not think much of it then, I responded with something like ‘it’s not,’ which it isn’t, you associate exotic with abroad not a UK city. It’s only now or talking about that scenario again, I feel like that was not an acceptable comment, especially coming from a middle-aged white man. It’s then I realise, by realise I mean being very aware of how much my ethnicity is tied to my name and then how both are tied to religion.

Overall, I will still use these terms to describe myself when it is relevant but it is not something that I feel like I need to shout from the rooftops anymore because it ends up bringing more grief and difficulty sometimes.

What do (don’t) I believe now?

So to keep it simple, I don’t believe in God and this was from around the age of 17/18 when I began to feel nothing when I was made to pray during Ramadan. So that makes me an atheist by definition, do I deny the existence of anything out there, no because I don’t know, so that makes me agnostic.

No other religions appealed to me because in my mind Islam is like chapter three of the Abrahamic faiths so I see no attraction in Christianity or Judaism. That and my lack of fundamental belief or connection to a higher deity.

I do, however, have an attraction to the occult, astrology and tarot.

Do I believe it to be truth?

No, but I find it fun and interesting to explore, some things I relate to and find to be true to me, but I don’t let it dictate the way I live my life. I have my big three placements tattooed on my arm because the symbols are pretty and I have found many similarities in the descriptions of the signs in my own personality.

As for Islam, I don’t believe in it, there are many things with the religion I don’t agree with, and there are things that are good about it that I still keep in my life. I am always open to exploring religion again, from an alternative perspective, and I have Muslim friends that do share there new interpretations, a lot I agree with.

For example, my good friend Sarah sent me an Ayatul Kursi necklace for my birthday to help with anxiety and nightmares I had been suffering from for a long while. Since the day I got it, I have not taken it off and I have nightmares rarely, now this could be due to the overall decrease in anxiety in my life, could be the necklace, either way, it gives me some peace of mind and it’s a pretty necklace from a good friend.

Another example is that sometimes when I get scared, typically this happens when I am experiencing the odd bout of sleep paralysis I will start reciting the various Kalimahs and other prayers to help me out of it. It’s like a reflex I have never shook off and it brings me that bit of comfort, despite me not uttering them in my daily life for almost three years.

So, where does that leave me…

I still celebrate Eid, read prayers when I am scared and wear a religious symbol around my neck, and have zero belief in a God or any kind of spiritual deity. I don’t like the rules and regulations of organised religion, yet I still keep parts of the one I grew up with, and I think that’s the same for anyone who grew up with any kind of religion.

I am not angry at religion or God anymore, I am angry at governments that rule with religious law which is discriminatory against all marginalised groups including minority sects within that very religion.

I think the term that fits me very well is the one used by Ali Rizvi, I am a Pakistani Atheist [Agnostic] Muslim. Man, I did not make life easy for me and if God is real neither did they!