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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I assume the closest members of my family don’t actually want to kill me, but the truth is that I have shamed and hurt them; they have to deal with the outrage that my public statements cause, and undoubtedly some members of my clan do want to kill me for that.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Assume Close Doubt Family Kill Member Myself Public Statement
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Door Escape Islam Open Prison Religion Stay
Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Compare Drinking History Ideas Reading
What we are now doing with the victory, and I agree with you if you condemn that and I condemn whole-heartedly the trivial bullshit it is to go after a man who makes a scientific breakthrough and all that we as women — organized women — do is to fret about his shirt?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Agreement Himself Organization Shirt Victory Woman
However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Injustice Silence Time
It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Cage Dissolve Mental Time
There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Entrance Facility Religious Woman
I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Angel Believe God Myself
We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Feminism Ourselves Woman
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Death Islam Leaving Myself Pay Price Threat
I’d love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God – much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Artifact Beautiful Building God Love Myself Visit
When 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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Determination Myself Party Policy Success Trouble Writing
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Doubt Human Knowledge Point Stand
Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Family Parents True Yourself
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Civilization Commitment Declare Holy Islam Live People War
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Angel Drama Islam Magic Mom Myself Thinking Version

In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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