The young men and women blowing clouds of grape and mint-flavoured smoke at a Middle Eastern shisha cafe in Sydney could pass for any group of friends.
They are a cluster of ordinary professionals and students, passing hookah pipes to each other, as they sip coffee, banter and glance at their smartphones.
The circumstances under which they know each other are bittersweet. They are members of an underground network of former Muslims across Australia, caught between secularism and Islam. Some fear persecution if their loss of faith is discovered, some fear for their lives.
Melbourne local Aisha* is one of more than 70 members of the network spread across the country.
Aisha was cut off from her family three years ago when things took a dark turn after she removed her hijab.
"I never actually told my parents I was an ex-Muslim because I was scared of their reaction," she said.

"The most that happened was when I took my hijab off, one of my friends put a photo on Facebook and my parents ended up seeing it.

"They were pretty upset and said I was obviously just a baik who would end up dead in the gutters."

She said her parents, whom she described as "moderate, even liberal", turned physically violent and police got involved.

Aisha, in her 20s, was forced to move out of the family home.

"My parents were claiming I was a compulsive liar."

Her identity has been protected because she is still afraid of possible consequences, like most people in this network.

"When you think about it, over a billion people still follow Islam. If it brings them comfort let it bring them comfort. I think the issue is when it starts to infringe on our right to live," Aisha said.

The members we met recounted stories of either being disowned by family, forced into silence, shamed or demonised by community leaders and clerics, and having to pretend they were Muslim to avoid issues.

The abuse can be psychological, verbal, physical, and also financial for those who are dependent.
Staying low-key
For many Australians, it is not unusual to be casually open about their atheism or agnosticism. Thirty per cent of Australians described themselves as having "no religion" in the 2016 census.

But it is different for many who have been raised Muslim.

In the last census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ex-Muslims in the secret group still embedded in their communities chose Islam as their religion because answering the census was a household activity.

Group members who spoke exclusively to the ABC said they led double lives and were afraid of "coming out". Many maintain a Muslim exterior at home, at work, in their communities, and at mosques.

Nadia*, another network member based in Melbourne wore a niqab — the face veil — when she was practising.

She runs an anonymous blog called Nullifidian, where she writes about her experiences being home schooled and raised in a strict Muslim household.

Nadia, in her 20s and also ostracised from family, covers her hair and most of her face in online videos in order to remain disguised and anonymous.





She told the ABC Australian ex-Muslims had a simple wish.

"Ex-Muslims just want to live their life how they need to without fearing disownment, isolation, imprisonment or death," she said.

In one blog post, she explained: "I choose to remain anonymous online because although I live in a western country, I have endured so much abuse and threats from the Muslim community where I live.

"I also choose to remain anonymous because I have previously been doxxed by Muslims who went as far as to try and get me fired by contacting my workplace."


'We were just kids on the internet, we were not activists'

The Australian network is part of a global ex-Muslim network that started online roughly seven years ago on Reddit, a social news aggregator.

Imtiaz Shams is a vocal British ex-Muslim, who moderates the online Reddit community /r/exmuslims, which is one of thousands of subgroups.
He said he has watched the page grow from several hundred subscribers to more than 30,000 currently.
Imtiaz was a crucial part of establishing the network in Australia.

"If you talk about ex-Muslims, you have to talk about the internet," he said.

"When I left Islam, I thought I was the only one in the world.

"For … years, I spent my time building ex-Muslim communities that are like Fight Club style, you know, you have to know someone to get in across the world with my friends.

"We were just kids on the internet, we were not activists.

"When you go on Reddit, every day you come across those stories [and you think], 'Oh my god, I thought I was the only one'."

Group members stay in touch on Whatsapp and Facebook, and meet up in real life. The process of joining the network is rigorous and there are strict verification methods the ABC cannot divulge.

In 2015, Imtiaz established the UK-based group Faith to Faithless, which is a not-for-profit group assisting all ex-religious people, including Mormons and Orthodox Jews.

"There are many, many cases where there have been failings with these social services when it came to people like us," he said.

"And these failings can lead to mental health trauma, being put back into an abusive situations, groups, communities, even cults."

Ex-Muslims told they are taking things 'out of context'

Former Muslims told the ABC they had been accused of being mentally ill, being hurt and lost, of not understanding Islam properly, taking scripture out of context, or just wanting to have sex and drink alcohol.

Some have also been accused of never having practiced true Islam and conflating bad experiences with Muslims with the religion itself.

The Arabic term for apostates is murtad, which is used as a slur. Ex-Muslims are also referred to as munafiqun, which translates to hypocrites, and are accused of trying to undermine the Muslim cause and causing unrest.

"One myth I have come across quite often is that ex-Muslims are weak-minded individuals [who] have been corrupted by western ideas and propaganda," Nadia said.
"This sort of thinking is wrong because it says that ex-Muslims cannot think for themselves, that they are lacking in the ability to reason and think logically."



Where does Islam stand on apostates?

In a Koranic verse, it says there is "no compulsion in religion". In another, it states apostasy is punishable by death and there are several mentions of hellfire as punishment for disbelievers in the afterlife.
There are several hadith — sayings of the Prophet Mohammad — that are broadly agreed to be "authentic" and "correct" by Sunni Muslim scholars that also state leaving Islam is a sin punishable by death.


In 23 Muslim-majority countries, apostasy is a crime. In 13 of those countries, apostates get the death penalty, however in some of those countries, it is not enforced by the state.

While there is some protection given to freedom of religion in the Australian constitution, ex-Muslims still choose to be careful because the price to pay for leaving the faith can be high.
And the community they now fear, they used to call their own.