I am a female university student, 20 years old, and am English. I am of western liberal agnostic background yet became involved in Islam, my experiences in which I relate below. It is a great comfort to me to know that there are people out there who feel like I do. Contrary to the ridiculous cyclical arguments that people who leave or reject Islam "do not understand it", we do, and for that reason we are dangerous.

I am now so weary of the rebuttal of any reasoned critique of Islam, even in the West, with the hysterical kneejerk reaction of "racist!", "out of context!" or "because the Quran says so!" as well as the ignorant complicity of western liberals who confuse such "Islamophobia" with intolerance and racism. Have most liberal PC apologetics, whether muslim or non-muslim, ever READ the Quran and hadith, and if so, was it in a language they understand? Did they honestly ask themselves the implications of what it says??

From the age of 16 I was typically, for a teenage girl, disillusioned with the world and had a great desire to find "truth" and if God existed and what God wanted. I had a few muslim acquaintances and a guy I knew was even a muslim scholar. I was much impressed with the things he told me about Islam and "scientific" discovery, and he gave me a Quran and several books on Islam. When he told me that Neil Armstrong had heard the azaan on the moon and converted to Islam (this is a hoax) I was close to being totally convinced. Perhaps I was gullible, but no more so than many others. For the next 3-4years I read much on Islam -I learnt far more about Islamic practice, the Quran and Islamic history than most people I know from a muslim background, including those who consider themselves practicing. I also took the shahada in private. I feel now the reason I kept this a secret was not only because I did not want to upset my family, but also because I was aware of the consequences of apostasy (in Islam, death). Needless to say I am not keen to tell many people that I am an apostate.