Anni Cyrus is a hero.
She abandoned the Islamic faith that she was born into and had to desert her homeland so she could be free from harsh religious control.
Her bravery should be an example to us all.
Not only because she left Islam but because…
Anni Cyrus is a hero.
She abandoned the Islamic faith that she was born into and had to desert her homeland so she could be free from harsh religious control.
Her bravery should be an example to us all.
Not only because she left Islam but because she has done it publicly.
Many who do abandon their Islamic faith, do so in their hearts but through fear of retribution still continue to live as if they follow it, they become hypocrites because they are afraid of rejecting it publicly.
This is because the consequences of departing Islam range from rejection by friends and family to death for being an apostate and bringing shame and dishonour to the household.
Anni joins Hearts of Oak to share her story and to explain why she now spends her time speaking out and educating people about Islam.
Aynaz “Anni” Cyrus is the founder of ‘Live Up To Freedom’, she was born in 1983 into an Islamic family in Iran, after the Islamic Revolution removed the Shah and turned the “mini-America” of the Middle East into an Islamic tyranny. Given no choice, Aynaz was labeled as a Muslim by birth. Under Sharia (Islamic Law) she grew up under total Islamic dominance by her father, a Sheikh, and her mother, a Quran teacher.
At age nine, Aynaz rejected Islam completely in her heart and mind. It happened on her 9th birthday when the Islamic state, in a public ceremony, declared the absurdity that she would be, from that day forward by law, an adult woman.
Over the next six years, Aynaz suffered terrible, but legal by Islamic Law, abuses and punishments at the hands of many Islamic males of Iran. After being forcibly sold by her own father into an extremely violent marriage, Aynaz desperately sought escape from her hell as a child bride. Even after being visibly battered one last time, the Islamic courts denied her a divorce from the man who was clearly bound to beat her to death.
So at age 15, facing death by one way or the other, Aynaz got herself smuggled out of Iran, to save h..
