Having grown up in a Muslim country, I have been exposed to Islam far more than most Western people. I first read the Qur’an more than fifty years ago, and looking back, it was clearly too much to take on at the age of fourteen, no matter how eager or studious I may have been.
Still, it was a beginning. Living in a country where Islam shaped much of everyday life, I was constantly surrounded by it, even though my family leaned more towards Catholicism. Many of my friends were Muslims, most of my schoolmates were Muslims, and every one of my soccer teammates was Muslim. My nanny was also Muslim, and from the age of about four, she spoke to me only in Arabic. Compared to the average Westerner, I was deeply immersed in Islamic culture from a very young age.
As I grew up and moved into adulthood, I saw both the good and the bad. There are many good Muslim people, and over the years I have had quite a few as friends. When I lived in Paris, my closest friend was Muslim. He was a special kind of Muslim, the sort who could drink me under the table. He followed a watered-down version of Islam, one that had been carefully shaped to let him do whatever he pleased.
As the wave of migration grew stronger, especially over the past forty years, I watched entire countries become deeply affected, and in many cases severely strained, by the growing influence of Islam. What began as isolated cultural clashes soon turned into widespread tensions that reshaped public life, law, and national identity. In city after city, I saw neighbourhoods change beyond recognition, with parallel societies emerging that often refused to integrate. What was once presented as diversity gradually revealed itself as division. The ideals of secular democracy, freedom of speech, and gender equality came under pressure, sometimes openly challenged, and sometimes quietly eroded. This was not a peaceful coexistence of cultures, but a slow and sometimes aggressive reshaping of societies that were unprepared to deal with the long-term consequences. I did not come to this view quickly or lightly. It developed over years of observation, reflection, and direct experience.
The evidence gradually led me to see Islam not just as a religion with theological problems, but as a growing international danger. This realisation did not come from abstract theories or media headlines. It came from patterns I could no longer ignore. I saw what had happened in Lebanon, where once-thriving Christian neighbourhoods were steadily taken over, sometimes violently, as political Islam gained ground. I watched in horror as reports emerged from parts of Africa where Christians were openly massacred by militant Muslim groups, often with little international outcry. These were not isolated incidents. They formed a consistent and disturbing pattern. With each new example, the alarm bells in my head grew louder. I was no longer willing to believe the claim that Islam is simply a misunderstood religion. The cost of that belief, measured in lives and freedoms lost, is becoming far too high.
Then came a turning point. The cold-blooded killing of satirical journalists at Charlie Hebdo marked a clear shift. It was no longer just about cultural tension or isolated acts of violence. Now it was war, striking at the heart of free expression. The idea that someone could be murdered for drawing a cartoon shattered any remaining illusions I had about peaceful coexistence. If individuals could justify such despicable acts by pointing to verses in the Qur’an, what else might be justified using the same texts? What lines remained that could not be crossed?
Then came 7 October 2023. Hamas terrorists entered Israel and carried out one of the most brutal massacres in recent memory. Civilians were slaughtered, families destroyed, and once again the world was forced to confront the fact that religious justification for violence is not something confined to history. It is active, present and deadly. These events were not just tragic. They were warnings. They revealed the high cost of ignoring the ideological roots that continue to inspire such acts.
My first book on religion, published shortly after 7 October, included many references to Islam, with entire chapters dedicated to it. Still, that was not enough. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that a deeper and more focused examination was needed. The events unfolding before our eyes were not isolated or unrelated. They pointed to something much larger, something rooted in the very foundations of the ideology. A few chapters could not cover the scope of what needed to be said. A separate work became necessary.
Quietly and behind the scenes, Questions for Islam: A Quest for Truth was born. In my view, the best way to expose Islam was not through sensationalism or anger, but by explaining it clearly.
When you search online for information about Islam, you are overwhelmed by apologetics. The same recycled arguments, the same selective interpretations, the same glossing over of uncomfortable facts. I saw the need to fill that gap. That is why this book is available free of charge. It is a tool for anyone who genuinely wants to understand Islam as it is, not as it is sold. Forget the spin you find on the thousands of Islam apologetics websites. What we need is a truthful, factual account that lays bare the foundations, contradictions and consequences of this belief system.
I decided to structure the book so that standalone questions form its core. There is no need to read it from beginning to end in order. You can simply choose any question that interests you and go straight to the answer. Each entry is self-contained, allowing readers to explore the topics that matter most to them without having to follow a fixed sequence. This approach reflects the way people often search for information today, and it makes the book more accessible to those who want clear answers without wading through chapters of background.
The length of the answers, kept short to match the attention span of today's readers, and the simplicity of the language used, make the book accessible even to teenagers. This generation is the one that matters most, as it will shape the future. By presenting clear, direct explanations without unnecessary complexity, the book aims to reach those who are still forming their views and are open to questioning what they have been told.
Here is an example of a question answered in the book.
If the Qur’an is from God, why does it contain historical and scientific errors?
One of the strongest reasons people give for the Qur'an being divine is that it is said to be perfect in every way. But if that were true, it should not contain mistakes, especially in areas like history or science. When people say it comes from a god who knows everything, then even small errors become a serious problem. If God knows the truth about the world, there should be no confusion in His words.
Yet the Qur’an has several verses that do not match what we now know from science. For example, it says humans were created from a clot of blood, but that is not how human development works. At other times, it says we were made from clay, dust, water, sperm, or even nothing. These different explanations do not fit together. They seem more like old ideas from different traditions, not the clear voice of a god. There is also a verse that says the sun sets in a muddy spring. We now know the sun does not move in that way. It does not sink into a spring. This looks like the view of someone watching the sunset from the ground, not someone who knows how the solar system works.
The Qur’an also repeats stories from Jewish and Christian texts, but sometimes changes the details in ways that are not supported by history. The story of Noah’s flood, for example, is described as covering the whole earth, just as in earlier religious books. But we now know that such a global flood never happened. Some names, events, and timelines in the Qur'an also do not line up with what we know from archaeology and written records. These changes suggest the Qur’an was shaped by the knowledge and stories available in the region at the time.
Apologists often say these verses are not meant to be taken literally, or that modern science has not yet caught up with the Qur’an’s message. But if that were true, the verses should be clear and timeless. Instead, people need to stretch and twist the meanings to make them fit new discoveries. That is not how a perfect book would work. If a text needs constant reinterpretation to stay relevant, that means it was not clear.
If the Qur'an came from a human source, the presence of errors makes perfect sense. People at the time had limited knowledge, and they often mixed facts with myths and poetry. But if the Qur'an came from an all-knowing God, then these errors should not exist. The mistakes are not just small. They go against the idea that the book was written by someone who understands the universe better than any human ever could. They point instead to a text shaped by the world and knowledge of seventh-century Arabia, not the voice of a divine being.
I have made the book downloadable for free from Google drive.
The link for downloading the EPUB English version of this book is https:// drive.google.com/file/d/1ZgwrTAPOQMqtWblxf5j7FrKLA8I2sMUA
The link to the PDF English version is https://drive.google.com/file/d/ 19TbZsqI_RuV7jPGDkrXjaE81ugZFLG-c
Furthermore, the book will remain a work in progress and more questions are likely to be answered. One that was added early today is:
Was Prophet Muhammad truly illiterate?
Islamic tradition strongly insists that Muhammad was illiterate, meaning he could neither read nor write. This claim is used to support the idea that the Qur’an must be miraculous, since it came from someone who supposedly had no formal education and could not produce such a text on his own. The Qur’an itself refers to him as “al-ummi,” which is often translated as “unlettered,” though the exact meaning of that term is debated.
From a historical and critical perspective, the claim of illiteracy is questionable. First, “unlettered” might not mean illiterate in the modern sense. It could have simply meant someone who had not studied scripture, or someone who was not part of the educated elite. In seventh-century Arabia, literacy was rare but not unheard of. Merchants, including Muhammad, often needed basic literacy for contracts, correspondence, and trade records. As a successful trader, it is entirely possible that he had at least some functional literacy.
There are also inconsistencies in the traditional narrative. Some hadiths mention Muhammad asking for writing materials on his deathbed. Others describe him sending written letters to foreign leaders. While it is possible that scribes wrote these on his behalf, the idea that he was completely unable to read or write becomes harder to defend when placed next to these reports.
The claim of illiteracy serves a theological purpose more than a historical one. It is meant to protect the divine origin of the Qur’an by making it seem impossible that Muhammad could have authored it himself. But from a secular point of view, it is more likely that he had some exposure to reading and writing, and that the claim of illiteracy was either exaggerated or symbolic. In short, there is no solid evidence that he was truly illiterate, and plenty of reasons to suspect that the tradition serves a religious agenda rather than historical accuracy.
Someone pointed out to me yesterday that the claim about the Prophet Muhammad being illiterate is not as clear-cut as it is often presented. So I decided to look into it further. As with many of the claims made within Islam, there seems to be a degree of embellishment. At the very least, the matter is not as straightforward as devout Muslims would like you to believe. The more I examined the sources and the context, the more it became clear that the story may have been shaped to support a particular narrative. This narrative is meant to strengthen the idea of divine authorship by insisting that an unlettered man could not have produced the Qur’an on his own. But when you look more closely, the cracks begin to appear.
I hope you will take the time to read some of the book, but more importantly, I encourage you to share the links with friends and on social media. There are many people out there who are searching for answers about Islam, and this book can help them find the truth. At the very least, it offers a more balanced and honest approach than the countless Islam apologetics websites that claim to provide clarity while carefully avoiding the difficult questions.
To share, simply copy and paste the following:
The link for downloading the EPUB English version of “Questions for Islam: A Quest for Truth” is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZgwrTAPOQMqtWblxf5j7FrKLA8I2sMUA
The link to the PDF English version is https://drive.google.com/file/d/19TbZsqI_RuV7jPGDkrXjaE81ugZFLG-c
To find out if there are translations available, the link is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aEayEVrg68dicTRCzXOmHzjL-Q5s3pu1
General news about the project can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bPVV0YQ-UJ9Jq7GwGj4emydOXgE0K-tj
You can also email the PDF or EPUB files to friends and family.
I have also started a side-project that involves posting on social media some of the questions covered in the book and see how Muslims answer them. Very quickly, this (not yet public) project is proving to be as interesting as the book. Just for my Substack reader, here is the link to it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/199XK5I-mnoT2_t72SX2_afofhF2ooijy Check regularly for updates.
This Questions for Islam project is built on something I have long believed. If you want people to walk away from their religion, the most effective way is to get them to know it better. Encourage Christians to actually read and understand the Bible, and urge Muslims to read and understand the Qur’an. Most do not. They rely on what they are told, often from a young age, and rarely question it. But once they begin to examine their sacred texts with open eyes and a critical mind, many start to see the obvious cracks for themselves.
