Hi there! It’s your friendly neighborhood ex-Muslim Abdullah Sameer. As you know my family is Muslim. I recently attended a Janazah or a prayer for a family member who was recently deceased. I’m not going to say who it was.

At the funeral, I was disappointed to hear that they were going to read the Anta Mawlana Fan-Surna Alal Qawmil Kafirin prayer. It’s the end of 2:286 and a popular dua against the disbelieving people.

In my family, we’re all brown and most of us don’t speak Arabic. So the imam and maybe one or two other people at this event understood the dua. One or two meaning me and maybe my brother but the majority of people were just reciting text from the Quran and praying for the deceased.

I found the whole thing so comical in a sense. I mean here we were, a family member had passed away and what were we doing? Talking about an imaginary god. We were praying and pleading so that this particular person may have this many things. Additionally, we were praying that her grave be expanded and that she may get all these blessings and Jannah. Of course, if she were Hindu then she would go to hell but because she was Muslim she’s going to heaven right? 

All of the invocations, the fairy tale talking about you know this and that it just seemed so silly to me. I almost felt like I was inside a comic book watching some ancient ritual of people worshipping some sort of deity that doesn’t really exist. It just seemed so strange to me, so foreign even though I grew up in this culture.

The other thing is women are not allowed to attend part of the Janazah prayer. They are allowed to attend the part at the Masjid but not the actual burial. So many of my family members did not show up because they’re women, which is disappointing. This is something that shocked me when I learned about this in Islam. It’s just a very strange thing to me because in most other cultures both men and women attend the funeral prayer.

 The most disturbing part of the whole experience was this dua at the end: fan-surna alal qawmil kafirin – give us victory or aid us or help us against the disbelieving people. Why would there be a prayer like that in the Quran? And why mention it at the death of someone?

That’s just how the Quran is. Most of the Quran is antagonistic and hateful towards the disbelievers. It’s unfortunate that in this case one of the disbelievers is a family member so they were actually praying against me without even realizing it. Now, of course, I don’t believe that prayer does anything but what is the intent of using such a prayer? And no, this is not from a weak hadith this is directly in the Quran

The Quran has its share of hateful and demeaning duas. It also mentions that if someone dies as a disbeliever, you can’t pray for them. It’s forbidden to make dua for the disbelievers in Sunni Islam because Allah has sentenced them to hell. Once they die you cannot pray for them anymore. This is taken from the supposed incidents when Ibrahim wanted to pray for his father and Muhammad wanted to pray for the munafiq supposedly in the disbelievers that pretended to be Muslim he was forbidden.

The whole thing strikes me as so narcissistic that we think “our people” are the best people and they’re the only ones that get to go to paradise. Everyone else is going to hell. I can’t be a part of that kind of mentality. I was there for the prayer, but I did not engage in the actual ceremonial prayer. I was happy to do everything else that was not religious.

I showed up because I would never skip such an important family occasion simply because I’m not Muslim. Also, my family is liberal and they’re happy to invite me because I’m one of the family members and  I really appreciate that. When my dad died as well my brother and I both got involved in the burial process. It’s part of human nature to grieve for the dead one but what I think is not natural is praying against disbelievers. I just think it’s so stupid and nasty and not something we need in this world today.

We live in a non-muslim country. We are paying taxes to a non-muslim government. We are the minority here so why are we dissing the non-Muslims? This is a non-Islamic country that was kind enough to welcome us and grant us citizenship and made us part of the family. What does praying against them achieve? I hate that. I really detest it and this is one of the worst things about religion. This nasty antagonistic US versus THEM mentality.

The imam knew what he was saying. He’s not a Salafi imam. He’s probably a Tablighi imam because he’s from the Desi community but he knows what he’s saying. They just say it without thinking right just like in many kutwas they make dua for the Mujahideen, right you know Allah help the mujahideen and Kashmir and help the mujahideen and Chechnya and help the mujahideen this and that right I mean seriously

Anyway, this is what we have to deal with. If you liked this article, consider supporting me.  I’ll add you to my special mailing list, you’ll get early access to my videos and my eternal gratitude. Remember, guiding someone away from Islam is better than 10 red camels. You can quote me on that hadith.