Muhammad
The following piece, written by “Muhammad,” details growing up under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan and his journey to atheism.
I am Muhammad; but not that one, who was God’s representative. Rather, I am the Muhammad who left the prison of God’s faith and now tries to live as a free man with his new identity as an atheist.
I was born in the southeast of Afghanistan in a region of the Ghalji tribe of Pashtuns, who keep the traditions of their ancestors from before Islam. It was during the first era of the Taliban regime.
I joined the Khost City branch school. The principal of the school was a Talib, and he told me that my name is non-Islamic and should be changed; then he took out a pen and first wrote Muhammad and then my given name. “Now your name has become Islamic.” From that day until the present, “Muhammad” has been my name. I also introduced myself here as Muhammad to hide my identity; thus, this name still holds my identity hostage.
School policies were very religious; the Taliban established a religious uniform for the students. We used to wear black turbans with white clothes. It was forbidden to have collars on our shirts; such designs were aspects of infidels. I was very malnourished because we were poor and didn’t get decent food to eat. Often, I was so weak that the school turban made my head hurt, but any student who did not wear it would be punished during school assemblies in front of all the other students. The punishment was getting whipped with a stick.
We were not allowed to wear our hair the way we wanted; either we cut it or left it long and disorganized, because, according to Islam, we could not have hair like the Westerners. That was considered akin to the imitation of infidels. There was nothing close to rationalism or science in our school curriculum; everything concerned the teachings of Islam.
My mother cannot read, but she was very interested in education. One day, I got tired of being tortured by the religious teacher, who brutalized me often, and I told my mother that I didn’t want to go to school anymore. She told me that if I left school, I would have nothing in the future. School was such a painful environment for me; I was distraught there every day, but I had no other choice.
At the end of the day, we would go to the village mosque where the mullah would recite the prayers and read the Qur’an out loud. My childhood was limited to school and the mosque, and I have no good memories of either place. But our family kept its culture as before. There was a radio in our house where we listened to BBC Pashto; we also had a tape recorder and recorded classic Pashto songs that we used to play at home. Listening to music was considered a major sin to the Taliban, and if anyone was caught listening to music, they were thrown in prison and given severe punishments. But listening to the radio and my ninety-year-old grandmother’s stories taught me far more than the Taliban could.
After the 9/11 attacks in the United States, American troops came to Afghanistan to crush Al-Qaeda; the Taliban regime was overthrown, and all at once everything changed. People came to the city of Khost. People were playing drums, and there was singing. Afghans cut their hair in Western styles and men shaved their beards, trimmed their long hair, and even walked around with bare heads.
At school, the new principal told us we had the freedom to wear our favorite clothes and cut our hair, and wearing a turban was no longer mandatory. Also, a new secular system began in school. Our curriculum changed, and we were taught science and even formed a cultural dance troupe (Attan).
I became an outstanding student and came to Kabul after the fourth grade. I studied at Khushal Khan High School, a school of the Pashtun tribes, and remained there until twelfth grade. Most of the teachers were secular!
By tenth grade, I was appointed as the editor of our high school student magazine, whose patron was an old teacher. He was a materialist introduced me to the ideas of the great Western philosophers. When I read Western literature, history, and philosophy, it really inspired my thinking. Many of my questions were answered.
In February 2010, I went from Kabul to Khost Province. The Taliban in Khost city recognized and arrested me. I was severely tortured; the scars remain on my skull and legs. I was knocked unconscious, and they thought I was dead. Apparently, they tossed me out of the truck onto the road, where I was taken to a nearby hospital. I had two deep cuts on my head, one of my ribs was broken, my knees and legs were a bloody mess, and the rest of my body was seriously damaged. I was unable to walk or talk for three months.
My wounds have since healed, but not my mind. That horrible day continues to haunt me. I was lucky to survive.
My life changed quite a bit after that vicious attack. I became withdrawn in my final years of high school, spending most of my time studying, but I didn’t stay silent forever. I started working with friends against the Taliban and their extremism; our group’s numbers expanded daily. Upon graduating, I went to university and completed my higher education. The university’s curriculum, professors, and policies were completely secular. I connected with many secular friends and was once again engaged in the promotion of secularism and atheistic ideas.
It is very difficult for an Afghan, especially a Pashtun, to become an atheist in Afghanistan. Besides Islam, Pashtuns have a strict social culture, including a more rural lifestyle. Individual life is not much.
If a Pashtun atheist’s family discovers their son or daughter has become an “infidel,” it can have very bad consequences. The nonbeliever will be pushed out by the family; he will be deprived of his family’s heritage and property. If he is not killed, he will be driven away from the village and forced to live elsewhere. If my mother had not been with me, I might have had a similar fate. I was lucky; she always supported me and would not allow my older brothers to scrutinize my convictions or pressure me to conform.
The last years of the republic were interesting. I had just graduated from university and was working as a media manager. As a journalist, I had easy relationships with many different people. I felt secure and could easily foment the ideals of the Enlightenment and secularism with the help of the media. I encouraged people to moderate ideas instead of extremism.
At the beginning of August 2021, half of Afghanistan was occupied by the Taliban, and there was a lot of fear in our society. On August 13, as a precaution, I burned all the books and notebooks in my small library. The next day I burned all the documents and books at the office as well as all the secular ideas relating to an atheist society. It was possible the Taliban would come to Kabul at any moment, seize our office, and kill us for studying blasphemous books.
On August 15, I was sitting in the office early in the morning, when I received information that the Taliban had arrived on the outskirts of Kabul. It was a very disturbing and troubling moment.
I was at the heart of this painful tragedy and didn’t know what to do. There was a lot of traffic in Kabul with everyone running in every direction; all the people were scared of each other, and I was too. I fled the office and my apartment and went to my house; my mother was sick and had been waiting anxiously for me. She told me, “I did not think that I would see you alive again.”
Many members of our enlightenment/atheist group came to Kabul after August 15; everyone was under threat and seeking help from writers, intellectuals, and professors from various European countries as well as the United States. My friends in the European Union referred us to Secular Rescue and said they could help us right away.
On August 15, 2021, Kabul was captured by the Taliban and the Afghan republic collapsed. The next day, we were under the rule of the Taliban regime once again. We’d lost two decades of gains and achievements in one night.
I kept moving around to different places. Our office was ransacked by the Taliban. To them we were the criminals who had rebelled against their God. I kept thinking, “What kind of punishment will be given if the Taliban arrest me? Will I be murdered as an infidel?” I had lost all hope for life and future.
During these extreme moments of despair, Secular Rescue started to provide emergency help to save us. These were incredible, unbelievable moments. Finally, during this most frightening and difficult situation, Secular Rescue provided me with an opportunity to escape to Pakistan, and I took it.
Two years later, I am still living in a safe house, thanks to the ongoing support of Secular Rescue. I am waiting for a free country to give me the chance to emigrate, to save my life, and to start working as a free person again. I long to have my own library again and talk to Afghans in our mother-tongue from a safe place. I long to reactivate the social flow of the nonreligious people of Afghanistan.
Otherwise, the Taliban will turn more of my people into extremists, making Afghanistan into a prison of ignorance and stone-age beliefs.