I was born in 1989 into a traditional Muslim Arab family in Jordan, a society where religion is deeply woven into the cultural and social fabric of everyday life. Like many others raised in such an environment, Islam was not merely a belief system—it was an inherited identity, rarely questioned and widely assumed.

However, as I grew older, I began to experience an internal conflict that I could not ignore. By 2010, the accumulation of events across the Middle East—particularly the rise in jihadist violence, sectarian hatred, and the persecution of religious minorities—forced me to confront difficult questions. I could no longer reconcile what I was witnessing with the moral framework I believed religion should represent. What troubled me most was not only the violence itself, but the realization that such actions were often justified by interpretations of religious texts, including verses from the Quran and Hadith.

This marked a turning point in my life. In 2010, I made the difficult and deeply personal decision to leave Islam. For the next two years, I identified as an atheist. Yet, this was not a period of certainty—it was a time of searching. I was not rejecting the idea of God altogether; rather, I was searching for truth, for meaning, and for a belief system........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)