Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes About Islam

Quotes about: Islam

• 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

  Doors, Bird, Islam

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2008). “Infidel”, p.382, Simon and Schuster

• Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Race, Islam, Democracy

  CBC News Interview, July 11, 2007.

• The people who believe themselves to be on the left, and who defend the agents of Islam in the name of tolerance and culture, are being rightwing. Not just rightwing. Extreme rightwing. I don't understand how you can be so upset about the Christian right and just ignore the Islamic right. I'm talking about equality.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Christian, Believe, Islamic

  "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'Why are Muslims so hypersensitive?'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. May 7, 2010.

• Infuriatingly stupid analysts - especially people who called themselves Arabists, yet who seemed to know next to nothing about the reality of the Islamic world - wrote reams of commentary [after 9/11]. Their articles were all about Islam saving Aristotle and the zero, which medieval Muslim scholars had done more than eight hundred years ago; about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Zero, Real, Stupid

• We who don't want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Christian, Feminist, Community

  "The Feminist". Interview with Deborah Solomon, www.nytimes.com. May 21, 2010.

• 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

  Leaving, Islam, Pay

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2011). “Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

• My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Islam, Dutch, Vans

• I don't believe in hell and heaven anymore. Or angels. I think Islam is a superstition like every other superstition. But now because it's a superstition, unlike Christianity, that hasn't been tested and hasn't gone through a process of enlightenment, I think it's a dangerous superstition.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Believe, Angel, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Charlie Hebdo, Islam, Trying

  "How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack". Article by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, www.metafilter.com. January 7, 2015.

• I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Differences, Islam, Submission

  "The Refugee Who Rocked Islam: an Exclusive Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Interview with Johann Hari, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 31, 2008.

• The demand that Islam makes of women is to not attract attention to yourself, and if you are in a secular society, that attire does exactly that, and it is a political symbol, no longer religious.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Religious, Secular Society, Political

  "The Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali on reforming Islam". Interview with Brian Bethune, www.macleans.ca. April 13, 2015.

• 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.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Stupid, Islam, Majority

• 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

  War, Believe, Winning

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2010). “Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

• There is one Islam, unreformed, but three sets of Muslims. Medina, Mecca, and. Dissidents, reformers, whatever you want to call them. The first group are the extremists and fundamentalists, the second the great mass of Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace, and the third are reformers.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Islam, Groups, Three

  "The Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali on reforming Islam". Interview with Brian Bethune, www.macleans.ca. April 13, 2015.

• It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own. I was not running away from Islam, or to democracy. I didn't have any big ideas then. I was just a young girl and wanted some way to be me; so I bolted into the unknown.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Girl, Friday, Running

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2008). “Infidel”, p.204, Simon and Schuster

• My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Brother, Thinking, Western Values

• I don't believe there is such a thing as 'moderate Islam.' I think it's better to talk about degrees of belief and degrees of practice.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Believe, Thinking, Practice

• I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  People, Tolerance, Islam

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2008). “Infidel”, p.307, Simon and Schuster

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