By: AYAAN HIRSI ALI
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By: AYAAN HIRSI ALI
I was raised a practicing Muslim and remained one for almost half my life. I attended madrassas,
that is, Islamic schools, and memorized large parts of the Quran. As a child, I lived in Mecca
for a time and frequently visited the Grand Mosque. As a teenager, I sympathized with the
Muslim Brotherhood.
At 22 while my family was living in Kenya, my father arranged my marriage to a member of our
family clan, a man that I had never met. I ran away, made my way to Holland, studied there
and eventually was elected a member of the Dutch parliament. Now I live in the United States.
In short, I have seen Islam from the inside and the outside.
I believe that a reform of Islam is necessary and possible. And only Muslims can make that
reform a reality. But we in the West cannot remain on the sidelines as though the outcome of
this struggle has nothing to do with us. If the jihadists win and the hope for a reformed Islam
dies, the rest of the world will pay a terrible price. The terror attacks in New York, London,
Madrid, Paris and many other places are only a preview for what is to come.
For this reason, I believe that it’s foolish to insist, as Western leaders habitually do, that the
violent acts committed in the name of Islam can somehow be divorced from the religion itself.
For more than a decade, my message has been simple: Islam is not a religion of peace.
When I assert this, I do not mean that Islamic belief makes all Muslims violent. This is
manifestly not the case: There are many millions of peaceful Muslims in the world. What I
do say is that the call to violence and the justifcation for it are explicitly stated in the sacred
texts of Islam. Moreover, this theologically sanctioned violence is there to be activated by
any number of offenses, including but not limited to adultery, blasphemy, homosexuality and
apostasy—that is, to leave Islam.
As someone who has known what it is to live without freedom, I watch in amazement as those
who call themselves liberals and progressives—people who claim to believe so fervently in
individual liberty and minority rights—make common cause with the forces in the world that
manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities.
In 2014 I was invited to accept an honorary degree from Brandeis University for the work I have
done on behalf of women’s rights in the Muslim world. That invitation was withdrawn after
professors and students protested my criticism of Islam. My subsequent “disinvitation,” as it
came to be called, was no favor to Muslims—just the opposite. By labeling critical examination
of Islam as inherently “racist,” we make the chances of reformation far less likely. There
are no limits on criticism of Christianity at American universities…or anywhere else for that
matter. Why should there be of Islam?
Instead of contorting Western intellectual traditions so as not to offend our Muslim fellow
citizens, we need to defend both those traditions and the Muslim dissidents who take great
risks to promote them. We should support these brave men and women in every way possible.
Imagine a platform for Muslim dissidents that communicated their message through YouTube,
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. These are the Muslims we should be supporting—for our
sake as much for the sake of Islam.
In the Cold War, the West celebrated dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Andrei
Sakharov, and Václav Havel, who had the courage to challenge the Soviet system from within.
Today, there are many dissidents who challenge Islam, but the West either ignores them or
dismisses them as ´not representative.µ 7his is a grave mistaNe. 5eformers such as 7aZfT
Hamid, Asra Nomani & Zuhdi Jasser and many others must be supported and protected. They
should be as well known as Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, and Havel were in the 1980s.
If we do in fact support political, social and religious freedom, then we cannot in good
conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. We need to say
to Muslims living in the West: If you want to live in our societies, to share in their material
benefts, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional.
Islam is at a cross roads of reformation or self-destruction.
But so is the West.
I’m Ayaan Hirsi Ali of Harvard University for Prager University.
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