This is a list of organisations that aim to support individuals that have renounced Islam sorted by date of founding.
Name | Founded | Region served | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Central Council of Ex-Muslims (ZdE) [1] | 2007 | Germany | First ex-Muslim organisation. |
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) | 2007 | United Kingdom | |
Central Committee for Ex-Muslims [2] | 2007 | Netherlands | Dissolved in 2008. |
Former Muslims United [3] | 2009 | United States | |
Ex-Muslims Initiative [4] | 2010 | Austria | Founded as Council of Ex-Muslims of Austria [5] |
Movement of Ex-Muslims of Belgium [6] | 2011 | Belgium | |
Association of Ex-Muslims of Switzerland | 2012 | Switzerland | Founded by Kacem El Ghazzali. [7] |
Atheist Republic [8] | 2012 | Worldwide/International | Founded by Armin Navabi [8] in Iran as "Iranian Atheists" on Orkut. [9] |
Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan [10] | 2012 | Pakistan | |
Ex-Muslims North Meetup Group [11] | 2012 | Northern England | Based in Bradford. |
Council of Ex-Muslims of Singapore [12] | 2012 | Singapore | |
Muslimish [1] | 2012 | United States | welcomes both ex-Muslims and Muslims [13] |
Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) [1] [14] | 2013 | Canada United States | |
Council of Ex-Muslims of France (CEMF) [15] | 2013 | France | |
Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco (CEMM) [16] | 2013 | Morocco | |
Ex-Muslims of Scotland [1] [17] | 2014 | Scotland | |
Association of Atheism | 2014 | Turkey | First legal atheist organisation in Turkey. [18] |
Faith to Faithless [19] | 2015 | United Kingdom | Founded by Aliyah Saleem and Imtiaz Shams. |
Platform New Freethinkers | 2015 | Netherlands | Supported by the Humanistisch Verbond. [20] |
Ex-Muslims of Norway [21] | 2016 | Norway | |
Atheist Alliance of the Middle East and North Africa [22] | 2016 | MENA | |
Council of Ex-Muslims of Sri Lanka | 2016 | Sri Lanka | |
Iranian Humanist Atheists & Agnostics [23] | 2016 | Iran | |
Ex-Muslims of South Africa [24] [25] | 2016 | South Africa | |
Ex-musulmani d'Italia [26] | 2016 | Italy | Supported by the Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti. [27] |
Council of Ex-Muslims of Jordan [28] | 2018 | Jordan | |
Alliance of Former Muslims [29] | 2017 | Ireland | |
Faithless Hijabi | 2018 | Australia | |
Ex-Muslims of the Netherlands [30] | 2019 | Netherlands | |
Iranian Atheists & Agnostics [31] | Unknown | Iran | |
Council of Ex-Muslims of New Zealand. [32] | Unknown | New Zealand | |
Central Committee for Ex-Muslims of Scandinavia [33] | Unknown | Scandinavia | |
Ex-Muslims of Kerala [34] [35] | 2019 | India | Observes January 9 as ex-Muslim day [36] |
Young Apostates [37] | 2021 | United States | Voice Of Ex-Muslims |
Islam's significance in Germany has largely increased after the labour migration in the 1960s and several waves of political refugees since the 1970s.
Maryam Namazie is a British-Iranian secularist, communist and human rights activist, commentator, and broadcaster. She is the Spokesperson for Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation, One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She is known for speaking out against Islam and Islamism and defending the right to apostasy and blasphemy.
The Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics is the only nationwide association of atheists and agnostics in Italy. It is independent from political parties or lobbies and numbers around 3,000 members.
The Central Council of Ex-Muslims is a German association (Verein) advocating for the rights and interests of non-religious, secular persons of Muslim heritage who have left Islam. It was founded on 21 January 2007 and as of May 2007 had about 200 members, with "hundreds" of membership applications yet to be processed.
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain or CEMB is the British branch of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims. It was launched in Westminster on 22 June 2007.
Irreligion in the Maldives is a social taboo, and irreligious people are systematically socially and legally discriminated against.
Irreligion is present among a minority of mainly young people in Pakistan. Atheists in Pakistan face discrimination, persecution, and prejudice in society. Pakistan is reported by some sources to be among the thirteen countries where atheism can attract capital punishment, but according to the Library of Congress of the United States, "there is no specific statutory law that criminalizes apostasy in Pakistan." On the other hand, the Pakistani government can impose the death penalty for blasphemy.
Irreligion in Nigeria was measured at four percent of the population in 2012, with convinced atheists at one percent. As in many parts of Africa, there is a great amount of stigma attached to being an atheist in addition to institutionalized discrimination that leads to treatment as "second-class citizens."
Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) is a non-profit organization which describes itself as advocating for acceptance of religious dissent, promoting secular values, and aiming to reduce discrimination faced by Ex-Muslims.
Irreligion in Turkey refers to the extent of the lack, rejection of, or indifference towards religion in the Republic of Turkey. Based on surveys, Islam is the predominant religion and irreligious people form a minority in Turkey. Precise estimates of the share of deists, atheists, agnostics, and other unaffiliated people in the population vary, though in survey averages they constitute a larger percentage than Christians and Jews in the country.
Fauzia Ilyas is a Dutch Pakistani speaker, political activist, and the president and co-founder of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. Ilyas, an open atheist and apostate of Islam, fled from Pakistan after receiving threats to her life and faced potential legal charges for blasphemy in Pakistan. Ilyas received asylum in the Netherlands, where she is now a critic of Islam and campaigner for feminism, secularism, and atheist rights in Pakistan.
Islam's Non-Believers is a 2016 documentary produced by Fuuse Films, and filmed and directed by Deeyah Khan. The film documents the lives and experiences of ex-Muslims: people who have left Islam to become atheists, and who often face discrimination, harassment, ostracism and violence for leaving Islam, both in the UK and abroad. The documentary was first shown on the ITV's current affairs series Exposure.
Faith to Faithless is a non-profit organisation in the United Kingdom dedicated to confronting discrimination against atheists and non-religious people, in particular discrimination towards individuals who have left minority religions. It provides support to people leaving religion and helps them to "come out" to friends and family and gives a platform for individuals to speak out publicly and to find mutual support in the wider atheist, secular and humanist communities. Faith to Faithless advocates for individuals and families leaving any religion, and aims to bring discussion and support for ex-religious people into the public domain.
Sarah Haider is an American writer of South Asian ancestry, public speaker, and political activist. She cofounded the advocacy group Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), which seeks to normalize religious dissent and to help former Muslims leave the religion by linking them to support networks. She is the former executive director for EXMNA.
Armin Navabi is an Iranian-Canadian ex-Muslim atheist, author and podcaster, currently living in Vancouver, Canada. In 2012, he founded the online freethought community Atheist Republic, a Canada-based non-profit organisation which now has hundreds of branches called "consulates" in several countries around the world such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, enabling non-believers to interact in societies where irreligion, apostasy, and blasphemy are often criminalised and repressed. As an author, he debuted with the book Why There Is No God (2014), and in 2017 he became a co-host of the Secular Jihadists from the Middle East podcast with Ali A. Rizvi, Yasmine Mohammad and Faisal Saeed Al Mutar. In January 2018, the show was renamed Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment, with Rizvi and Navabi as co-hosts.
Muhammad Syed is a Pakistani-American writer, speaker, and political activist. He created the Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) advocacy group in 2013 which seeks to normalize religious dissent and to help former Muslims leave the religion by linking them to support networks. He is the co-founder, executive director, and currently the president of EXMNA.
Ali Amjad Rizvi is a Pakistani-born Canadian atheist ex-Muslim and secular humanist writer and podcaster who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith. He wrote a column for the Huffington Post and co-hosted the Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment podcast together with Armin Navabi.
Ex-Muslims are individuals who were raised as Muslims or converted to Islam and later chose to leave the religion. These individuals may encounter challenges related to the conditions and history of Islam, Islamic culture and jurisprudence, as well as local Muslim culture. In response, ex-Muslims have formed literary and social movements, as well as mutual support networks and organizations, to address the difficulties associated with leaving Islam and to raise awareness of human rights issues they may face.
The situation for apostates from Islam varies markedly between Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority regions. In Muslim-minority countries, "any violence against those who abandon Islam is already illegal". But in some Muslim-majority countries, religious violence is "institutionalised", and "hundreds and thousands of closet apostates" live in fear of violence and are compelled to live lives of "extreme duplicity and mental stress."
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