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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIWhen I was with the Labor Party, I’d get into trouble because the party bosses determined that some of what I wrote, or proposed to write about, wasn’t conducive to their policies or to electoral success.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
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The mistake that the Bush administration should admit to is not so much that they made the wrong choices. They made the right analysis; they made the right choices. But what they did wrong was the execution of those choices. That was wrong.
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Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.
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If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
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I have had to pay a price for leaving Islam and for speaking out. I have to pay for round-the-clock security because of the death threats against me.
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Women covering their heads is traditional, but now we’re seeing more and more women covering themselves from head to toe. This is said to be for religious reasons but it’s actually the conflation of religion and politics – every political movement has its slogans, flags and dress.
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In 2010, I suggested that if you are a good Muslim with a good conscience, go and look for a better God, and I think that was juvenile of me.
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The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother’s angels and djinns.
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In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.
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I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
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In April 2006, a Dutch court ordered that I leave my safe-home that I was renting from the State. The judge concluded that my neighbors had a right to argue that they felt unsafe because of my presence in the building.
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I would rather clean than beg.
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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.
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Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.
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As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn’t prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn’t have to beg him for financial support.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI