I have come from a very complex upbringing. I grew up in various cultures and mixed languages. Born in East Africa and raised in both Saudi Arabia and the UK respectively. I learnt the Arabic grammar, poetry, calligraphy, Quran, hadeeth, and core islamic sharia and history.

Since childhood I was interested in drawing everything around me. I drew all the cartoon characters I saw on TV. I was fond of doodling. Yet, everytime I drew someone, I had a teacher or islamic elder telling me how I would roast in Hell for such a disgusting act! Throughout my life I had been wondering why is it such a foul thing ? drawing ? or equally,music for that matter.

Art is dirt, music is the whisper of evil, women are pitfalls for men etc etc. It is a long dark corridor for me with only the pitch black to appreciate.

I know that to draw is simply to express yourself. To drum a beat or play a note on an instrument you are simply being human. The languages of Music and Art are the highest forms of expression for us as species. Yet in islam it is a grand crime. Something that god finds very very offensive. (?)

It later became much clearer to me that the whole thing is simply an idea. An inherited ideology that is not suitable for me.

I must define myself by taking off what has be thrown over my shoulders shortly after birth. I must lift my head, open my eyes and really see.

I am an artist, humanist and secularist. I am a free-thinker, evidence driven twenty-first century rationalist.

I can\'t hate my best friends just because they are of other faiths. I can\'t go on seeing women as less capable than men. I can\'t bear living a life distrusting scientific and well proven facts just because it\'s not convenient or it may upset others.

I am only me. I am reality. Born free to live free and die free.

I am Sultan Aman.