Words matter. These are the best Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
I come from a world where the word ‘trauma’ doesn’t exist, because we are too poor. I didn’t have an easy life compared to the average European. But compared to the average African, it wasn’t all that bad.
All my life I have been a nomad.
I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
In Holland I have seen well-meaning, principled people blinded by multiculturalism, overwhelmed by the imperative to be sensitive and respectful of immigrant culture, while ignoring criminal abuse of women and girls.
People ask me if I have some kind of death wish, to keep saying the things I do. The answer is no: I would like to keep living. However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
I talk about a Christianity that is enlightened enough to separate spirituality from the rest of life. Not just church and state, but knowledge and church.
It’s wrong to treat Muslims as if they will never find their John Stuart Mill. Christianity and Judaism show people can be very dogmatic and then open up.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary.
The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will – that is really naive.
A Western woman is not her brother’s or her father’s property. She’s just herself. She can choose her own lifestyle. But in a Muslim family, the honor of the man is between the legs of a woman.
There’s peacetime and there’s wartime, and you don’t need polarization on wartime issues. You need polarization on all other issues.
Every time you take a train, step into your car, walk into the shopping mall, go to the airport – every single time, something could happen. That’s how terrorism works.
Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen.
My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.
The problem is that those of us who were born into Islam and who don’t want to live according to scripture – we don’t have what the Jews have, which is a rabbinical tradition that allows you to ask questions. We also don’t have the church tradition that the Christians have.
Catholics should be proselytizing about a God who is love, who represents a hereafter where there’s no hell, who wants you to lead a life where you can confess your sins and feel much better afterwards. Those are lovely concepts of God.
If we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.
When a ‘Life of Brian’ comes out with Muhammad in the lead role, directed by an Arab equivalent of Theo van Gogh, it will be a huge step forward.
I’d like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.
Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
When I was in Holland, the idea was, all cultures are equal and all are to be preserved. My idea was, no, all humans are equal, but not all cultures are equal.
Even with protection, even with death threats, I can publish, I can travel and I can live the life that I want and not the one my parents want or some imam somewhere thinks I should live.
The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals.
Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.
My conscience is informed by reason. It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.
I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.
When your life is threatened, whether it’s by human beings or by disease or whatever, you come to appreciate life.
The concept of God in Jewish orthodoxy is one where you’re having constant quarrels with God. Where I come from, in Islam, the only concept of God is you submit to Him and you obey His commands; no quarreling allowed.
