Religious violence in Kashmir. Surveillance crackdowns in Iran. Earth Day reflections on the Qur’an’s flat Earth.

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Welcome Back

From Kashmir’s blood-soaked valleys to the dystopian tech labs of Isfahan, the Unbelief Brief explores how theocrats continue to assert power through both violence and control. Meanwhile, EXMNA Insights dives into Earth Day and how it gives us cause to revisit the Qur’an’s so-called “scientific miracles”—and what they reveal about the divine authorship claim.

Unbelief Brief

A terror attack [[link removed]] near the tourist destination of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir has left at least 28 Indian civilians dead. The assault appears to have been politically motivated, with the militant group The Resistance Front (TRF) [[link removed]]claiming responsibility. Border disputes over Jammu and Kashmir have long been a major point of contention [[link removed]] between India and Pakistan, and TRF declares its mission as resisting Indian governance and “occupation” of the region. Yet the conflict’s deepest roots are religious: the historic divide between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Although TRF presents its objectives in purely political terms, it emerged from jihadist networks [[link removed]] with ties to Pakistan. In its statement following the massacre, the group condemned the influx of “non-locals” (i.e., non-Muslims) into the Muslim-majority territory, accusing them of attempting to claim it as their own. The political grievances ultimately flow from religious ones. If India decides it must save face with a great display of force, as seems likely, it could plunge the region even further into violence.

Secondly, Iran is reportedly “ testing advanced surveillance technology [[link removed]]” to enforce its mandatory hijab laws. Tools at the regime’s disposal include International Mobile Subscriber Identity-Catchers (IMSI-Catchers), data from contactless card readers, and urban surveillance cameras along with access to government databases and the cooperation of telecom operators. According to a report [[link removed]] from Filterwatch, an NGO that monitors digital repression in the country, the pilot program is underway in Isfahan, Iran’s third-largest city. Women—and in some instances, their husbands or fathers—have received threatening text messages after being identified by surveillance systems as violating hijab regulations.

This is a further reminder of the regime’s increasingly dystopian approach to imposing its theocratic, misogynistic doctrine. The Iranian state continues to treat women’s bodies—and by extension, their autonomy—as state property. As an illuminating piece [[link removed]] in The Conversation makes clear, appeals to “social order” and “religious virtue” are simply post-hoc justifications for sex-based domination. That impulse is laid bare in testimonies from women who were raped or sexually assaulted by security forces during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, where in one instance, women’s state-sanctioned captors declared: “There is no God here. We are your God.”

P.S.—The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released a new report on the enforcement of blasphemy laws in Russia. Check it out here [[link removed]].

EXMNA Insights

Earth Day 2025: Why the Qur'an’s Scientific Errors Matter

On April 22nd, the world marked Earth Day 2025 [[link removed]]—celebrating our fragile planet and the scientific advancements that help us protect it—it's worth reflecting on how religious scripture, especially the Qur’an, continues to shape views on the natural world. While many claim the Qur’an to be a book of universal truth, its cosmological, geographical, and astronomical assertions reveal a pre-scientific worldview rooted in 7th-century Arabia, not divine omniscience.

Take the Qur’an’s flat Earth cosmology. In multiple verses, the Earth is described as being “spread out” (Qur’an 15:19 [[link removed]], 20:53, [[link removed]] 88:20 [[link removed]]) or flattened like a carpet—“wal-arḍa farashnāhā” (Qur’an 51:48 [[link removed]]). The Arabic terms madadnāhā and sataḥa used in various places suggest a plane, not a sphere. Elsewhere, the sky is said to be “held up without pillars” (Qur’an 13:2) [[link removed]], a statement reflecting ancient misunderstandings about gravity and the structure of the cosmos.

Additionally, the Qur’an describes a figure known as Dhul-Qarnayn [[link removed]]—widely believed by classical commentators to be a mythologized version of Alexander the Great [[link removed]]—who travels to the “setting place of the sun” and finds it setting in a “muddy spring” (Qur’an 18:86 [[link removed]]). While this imagery doesn’t appear in the original Alexander Romance [[link removed]], the motif of a heroic figure reaching the ends of the Earth does. The Qur’anic retelling appears to reframe or misremember this narrative, embedding it within a cosmology that suggests literal horizons where the sun rises and sets. The moon is described as a “light” and the sun as a “lamp” (Qur’an 71:16 [[link removed]]), without distinguishing between emitted and reflected light—despite modern science confirming that the moon reflects sunlight rather than generating its own. Furthermore, the Qur’an states that night is "wrapped" over the day (Qur’an 39:5 [[link removed]]), reinforcing a geocentric view where the Earth is fixed and the celestial bodies revolve around it. These descriptions reflect not divine insight, but the limited and myth-infused understanding of the natural world held by people in 7th-century Arabia.

Sahih Hadith only compounds the issue. In Sahih al-Bukhari 3191 [[link removed]] and 7424 [[link removed]], Muhammad is quoted as saying that the sun travels to prostrate beneath the throne of Allah every night before asking permission to rise again—an idea flatly contradicted by heliocentric astronomy and the Earth's axial rotation.

These errors aren’t trivial—they challenge the Qur’an’s claim of perfection. If its descriptions of the Earth and cosmos are so fundamentally flawed, how can it credibly speak to moral, ethical, or existential truths? A truly divine text should transcend the limitations of its time. Instead, the Qur’an mirrors the superstitions and scientific ignorance of 7th-century Arabia.

And so, in reaffirming our commitment to science and reason, it's crucial to reject ancient cosmologies masquerading as divine truth.

EXMNA Updates

EXMNA founder Muhammad Syed sat down with Indian ex-Muslim Arif Hussain for a candid, far-reaching conversation on leaving Islam, building secular advocacy, and challenging both religious orthodoxy and modern ideological taboos. From WikiIslam to wokeism, nothing was off-limits.

Watch here! [[link removed]]

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

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