I had an eye opening experience with Islam while living in Saudi Arabia back in the 90’s. To make the story short, a couple of them tried to convert me. I wasn’t worried about converting, but the incident was touchy since the subject of religion is extremely sensitive there and the wrong word would have led at the very least, to losing my job.
I tried to steer the conversation towards geopolitics, touching on the events going on in Bosnia, thinking that was a more neutral subject but they kept drilling in on me, telling me that Christianity was a gutter religion. Ultimately I asked them what happens if a person is strong in their faith and refuses to convert. Their answer was “then they must be killed”. The matter of fact way they said it is what chilled me the most. I didn’t take it as a personal threat but I closed my mind to Islam that day. Any religion with that message at its root is not one that I will ever recognize as being anything other than twisted, wrong and evil.
Clearly not everyone practices it that way but nevertheless, that experience changed my view forever.