In a way these threats motivate me. They have given my voice more legitimacy. - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

As I learned Dutch I began to formulate an almost impossibly ambitious goal: I would study political science to find out why this society, although it appeared to me to be godless, worked when every society I had lived in, no matter how Muslim it claimed to be, was rotten with corruption, violence, and self-centered guile.

This is exactly how minds are opened: through honest, frank dialogue. Tears may be shed, but not blood.

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.