Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes

The fundamentalists seem haunted by the human body and neurotically debate which fractions of it should be covered, until they declare the whole thing, from head to toe, a gigantic private part.

Gone with you is that bloodline, for better for for worse, and gone is the idiot tradition that meant you cherished mares and she-camels more than daughters and granddaughters.
When a boy was born into the family you rejoiced. Your eyes twinkled, you smiled, and with a burst of energy you would weave impossible numbers of grass mats to give away as gifts. As you wove you would tell us your warrior legends—about courage, resistance, conquest, and sharaf, sharaf, sharaf. Honor, honor, honor.
When we heard news of the birth of a girl in the family you clicked and pouted and sometimes sulked for days. Squatting under the talal tree in Mogadishu, on the huge straw mat, you wove, your fingers orange with henna, working away with your muda needle. You would chase us away and speak of ominous events. Then, when you have been quiet for days, you would tell us endless tragedies of the misfortunes that befall a family of too many girls—gossip, betrayal, bastard children, and a’yb, a’yb, a’yb. Shame, shame, shame.

I cannot think of a system of law that dehumanizes & degrades women more than Islamic Law.

I believe there are three institutions in Western society that could ease the transition into Western citizenship of these millions of nomads from the tribal cultures they are leaving. They are institutions that can compete with the agents of jihad for the hearts and minds of Muslims.
The first is public education. The European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century gave birth to schools and universities run on the principles of critical thinking. Education was aimed at helping the masses emancipate themselves from poverty, superstition, and tyranny through the development of their cognitive abilities.…This public education was geared toward grooming citizens, not preserving the separateness of tribe, the sanctity of the faith, or whatever happened to be the prejudice of the day.

What the media also do not tell you is that America is the best place on the planet to be black, female, gay, trans or what have you. We have our problems and we need to address those. But our society and our systems are far from racist.

Of course, I also encountered hostile reactions in campaigning. People called me names, even spat at me; I received more threats. The most remarkable people, to me, were those who apparently approved of everything I said but nonetheless wouldn't dream of voting for the Liberal Party. It reminded me of Somalia: they wouldn't vote outside their clan.

NOS Journaal, official Dutch newsrail, 8 pm, August 30, 2006. "Met gelijkgezinden kun je alleen maar een kerkdienst* houden, en zoals bekend, houd ik niet van kerkdiensten." "Kerkdienst" means church service of a Christian denomination, such as Mass (liturgy) and cannot be used in Dutch to describe a Muslim prayer service.

I thought, I am feeble in faith because Allah is full of misogyny. He is arbitrary and incoherent. Faith in him demands that I relinquish my responsibility, become a member of a herd. He denies me pleasure, the adventure of learning, friendships. I am feeble in faith, mother, because faith in Allah has reduced you to a terrified old woman—because I don’t want to be like you.

But the more pressing business is what feminists can do to prevent an alien culture of oppression from taking root in the West.

The argument that by criticizing Islam you defame believing Muslims is specious. If I criticize George Washington, I am not defaming Americans; if I deplore Abraham’s lying to Pharaoh about his wife being his sister I am not slandering other Jews—or, for that matter, Muslims, who also recognize Abraham as a Patriarch. But a religion, Islam, based on a book, the Quran, that denies women basic human rights is backward, and to say so is not an insult but an opinion.

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.

It is not only the prohibition against criticizing the Quran and the Prophet that closes the Muslim mind, and not only the life-long socialization of learning by rote. It is also the continuous construction of conspiracy theories about enemies of Islam who are determined to destroy the one, true religion.
The chief enemy is the Jew.

In countries such as Pakistan and Iran, and to a lesser extent in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, after the introduction of Islam, a significant regression occurred in individual freedom, the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and the rights of women.

Beware of zealots of any flavor. Beware of proselytizers of religious utopias. And beware of professors who confuse teaching students how to think with teaching them what to think.

[O]utrage and clear, critical thinking seldom go hand in hand.