One of the most common arguments used by Islamic apologists today is this:
"If you've left Islam, then just move on. Why keep criticizing and mocking it? Just live your life and do something else."
At first glance, this may sound like a reasonable request. But in truth, this demand goes against basic human nature.
Have you ever heard that human beings are social animals?
As social beings, we don’t live in isolation. We exist in societies bound together by shared laws, norms, and behaviours. These shared elements don’t arise in a vacuum, but they are shaped and reshaped through public discourse: by the promotion of ideas (tabligh) and by the criticism of those ideas (tanqeed).
This process, i.e. offering ideas and challenging them, is the engine behind social reform.
That’s why in democratic and free-thinking societies, the right to both advocate for a belief and to criticize it is fiercely protected. No matter how offended someone might feel, this balance between speech and counter-speech is how better societies are built.
Now back to ex-Muslims.
Even after leaving Islam, we remain part of societies that are heavily influenced by Islamic thought, be it from moderate Muslims or from hardliners. Their religious values, rules, and behaviours continue to shape the laws, education, family structures, and personal freedoms around us.
So, if we don’t criticize harmful Islamic ideas, others will continue to impose those ideas upon us through political means, social pressure, or even violence.
To remain silent would be to allow those ideas to dominate unchallenged.
And if you still say, “Well, just stop engaging entirely,” then what you’re really asking is for us to stop being fully human. You’re asking us to give up our right and our responsibility as thinking, social individuals who participate in shaping the society they live in.
Hassan Radwan