Salam, one question i have is whenever i read the ex shia statements or stories online, except for ebn hussein's story, most of the ex shias come from not so religious families.But for sunnis converting to shia islam, most of them do their research and have know how of the sunni religion.how do ex shias know shiism is wrong when they didnt even practice it properly? is this true for other ex shias on this forum, what are your opinions ?
Salam dear brother,
I partly agree, however, but I believe this goes for both sides, Shia and Sunni, in fact for all religions, how many former priests or cardinals have you heard of, compared to some random Christians?
As for people becoming Sunni like myself:In this very forum we have other Ex-Shia members (not very active though), brother Efendi (owner of Gift2Shias.com) is an Ex-Shia brother from a religious backround, brother Abu 'Ammar on this forum (what's his username?) is from a very religious Shia backround, but yes, many are from not so religious backrounds, but the same goes for Shias, at least according to my experience. Here Husayn's thread (Ex-Shia):
http://forum.twelvershia.net/ex-shias/why-i-left-shiaism/
As for people becoming Shias:My experience is, and I can fill books with true stories of myself having either converted (or at the very least confused) many innocent and ignorant Sunnis to Shiism, may Allah forgive me, that most so called Ex-Sunnis are also from not so very religious families (just look at the "Reborn" series of the AhlulBayt TV youtube channel, absolutely embarassing, even their white reverts. They barely speak about Tawhid and Allah, it's all about the Prophet's cousin and his descendants, as for the Sunnis then most of them are absolute Jahils, I recently watched the one about the famous Pakistani Shia wailing reciter Nouri Sardar. What a miskeen, from a Barelwi-Sufi backround who converted to Shiism because he was fooled to believe that the reports about the fairy tale attack on Fatimah, ra, are mutawatir in Sunni books! Then another Turkish miskeen. Then some random Somali Taxi driver who has clearly no clue about Tawhid and the beliefs of Ahl Al-Sunnah. From their names alone you can tell what mindset they had and from what Quburi backround they are. One guys name is Shaheer GULAMNABI (i.e. Ghulam Al-Nabiyy), names only given by Sufis. Another guy's name is Burak Ilhan, I found his twitter account, endorsing celebrating Aisha's, r.a., death, a miskeen from Turkey of a Sufi backround who admits in his interview that he doesn't know much about his Deen (if he would, he would have never left Tawhid for Rafidism). A sad show really, reminds me of all the Ex-Sufi and jahil Sunnis I met and confused when I was a Shia.
So basically so called Ex-Sunnis who became Shias can be put in one of the two categories:
1. Former khurafi Quburis (in the UK mostly of Barelvi backround): These people are Quburi (grave/saint venerators) from begin with and already nutured on man ykhurafat (superstitions) and shirkiyat (polytheistic practices) that are like oxygen to Imamite Shiism. Also Ghuluww with the Ahl Al-Bayt is common among many so called Sunni groups, hence it is no wonder (and I don't blame them for that, I'd do the same) that the Rafidah prefer the most extremist forms of Sufism (despite the opposition they have with them in matters of 'Irfan, tasawwuf and what not) over more orthodox Sunnism.
I myself in my Shia times met many "Ex-Sunnis", most of them were almost without exception of a strong extremist Quburi backround, i.e. they used to call upon numerous saints, Shaikh/Pir veneration (similar to the exaggerated status of Maraji' in Shiism), so basically all I and my Shia mates needed to do was to replace their saints with the Prophet's (saws) cousin and his offspring.
A perfect example of our age is the Tunisian Sufi from the Tijani order Muhammad Al-Samawi Al-Tijani, the arch-liar who after being exposed in the Mustakillah debates in 2002, barely appeared on TV again. All his so called "evidences" from Sunni books (like in his book "Then I was guided") turned out to be either weak/fabricated reports or distorted reports. Young Sunni students back then (today's Sheikh Othman Al-Khamis) completely annihilated him academically in their refutations of his book (called: "And then you were MISGUIDED"), on our website we have translated refutations of many of his lies:
http://www.twelvershia.net/exposing-tijani/2. Sunni born but absolutely ignorant of their religionAs for Sunnis who studied 3Aqidah, Tawhid etc. i.e. firm in these matters: Even in my Shia times I've never met one of them becoming Sunni (yeah, Shias call many so called "Ex-Sunnis" as "Ex-Salafi/Wahhabis", the reality is that most of them turn out to be former khurafi Sufis like Tijani or worse, former Zaydis like the Yemeni Essam Al-'Emad), in fact every knowledgable Sunni I met in my Shia times knew at least the basics of Islam to understand that Shiism and Tawhid are polar opposites. Of course these kind of Sunnis (even if they were non-Salafis) were branded by us as "evil Wahhabis". I remember once a Sunni telling me something along the lines: "To you Shias, even if a Hindu refutes and disagrees with you, you will call him Wahhabi!" There is definately some truth in that statement.
Anways, these are my two cents, everybody is free to disagree and share his opinion, to me, my experience reflects the reality that is repeating itself whenever I hear of so called "Ex-Sunnis".
Btw: There are some very knowledgable Ex-Shias out there, a brother on an Arab forum who has written numerous books, from a Shia family so religious, till today he managed to hide his identity. Also as some of you might know, I had a live show on Wesal Farsi TV (between 2011-2014), everyday for 2 hour, we covered all the globe, of course our targets were Persian speaking countries. On my show alone I had numerous conversion by Shias from Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz and even Mashhad and Qom. It was not rare, this phenomenon raised even the interest of American think tanks:
https://sonsofsunnah.com/2014/04/18/the-rise-of-persian-salafism/At the end of the day, people convert from all religions, it is not a Hujjah (clear evidence for the correctness of ones belief) in and by itself, however, and here I give credit to Shias: They present they so called Ex-Sunnis MUCH better than us. Their TV channels dedicate entire series to their lives, Sunnis are lacking on this field, in fact we have nothing equal and shy away DESPITE the growing number of Ex-Shias, inshaallah I am planning to change that in the near future inshaallah:
http://forum.twelvershia.net/ex-shias/the-rise-of-the-sunnais-ex-shias-(video)/msg444/#msg444