Fearing ostracism or worse, many nonbelievers hide their views in the Middle East and North Africa

There’s the Tunisian woman who fasts during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, though not for God. Such are the ways that some of the religiously unaffiliated, or “nones” — people who are agnostics, atheists or nothing in particular — negotiate their existence in the Middle East and North Africa where religion is often ingrained in life’s very fabric. In Muslim-majority countries, they’re in the minarets defining skylines, the headscarves donned by many women, the omnipresent call to prayer that beckons the faithful five times a day, and the references peppering casual greetings.