Anwar Shaikh

From Philosopedia

Shaikh, Anwar (1 June 1928 - 25 November 2006)

Mohammad Anwar Shaik, whose original name was Haji Mohammad, was an Indian-born Pakistani author born of a religious Muslim family of Kashmiri ancestry in Gujrat, Punjab. Shaikh.

In 1947, during the Partition of India, with religious fervor he killed two Sikhs, a father and his son, later killing another Sikh. But when 25, he began to doubt Islam and became a critic, unable to forget having killed three for religious reasons. He immigrated to the United Kingdom, married a Welsh woman, and became a businessman.

Starting in the 1970s, he wrote many books critical of Islam. Shaikh, who later converted to Hinduism and took the name Aniruddha Gyan Shikha, passed away in Wales, Great Britain. His testimony of leaving Islam (Autobiography of a Dissident - Anwar Shaikh) appeared in Ibn Warraq's book Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out.

Shaikh’s Islam: The Arab Imperialism (1998) starts by pointing out the inherent absurdities in the concept of prophethood. The Prophet started by being politically weak and claiming to be a mortal and humble servant of Allah. Once becoming strong, after his move from Mecca to Medina, “he began changing his tone, until he was able to claim himself to be Allah’s Superior.” Muhammmed’s arrogance is expressed, claims Shaikh, in the arrogance of the religion he invented toward all non-Arabs, especially the Jews. Ibn al Rawandi, in commenting about Shaikh’s work, has written,

The notorious episode of the Jewish tribe of the Banu Quraiza, in which Mohammed is supposed to have overseen the slaughter of 800 Jewish men, is seen by Shaikh as “a pathetic model of ethnic cleansing. The Jews suffered this fate when they refused to become Arabs. We cannot find an example of such extreme nationalism so early in history. Yet the Muslims believe that Islam does not recognise nationalism. They insist that it is a message of international brotherhood.” As regards history this is not quite true, of course. It was routine in the ancient world that when a city was conquered the men were killed and the women and children sold into slavery.

Shaikh edited a humanist journal, Liberty. In Pakistan the Muslim clergy demanded his extradition in order that he might be publicly hanged. In an interview with Ibn Al Warrag in The Radical Humanist (June 1999), Shaikh told how after being born near the city of Gujrat (in present-day Pakistan), he was circumcised and brought up “breathing Islam.” In his twenties, however, he began to be skeptical about Islam. He has detailed his becoming a “liberal humanist” in books which he published at his own expense: Islam: The Arab Imperialism; Eternity; Faith and Deception; and Taxation and Liberty.

Shaikh signed Humanist Manifesto 2000.

{The Freethinker, November-December 1998; "Former Jihadist Dies," 30 November 2006}