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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

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: November 13
Activist
Author
Feminist
Journalist
Politician
Scientist
Screenwriter
Xamar
Democracy
Belief
Race
Incompatible
Liberal
Beliefs
Islam
Simply

More quotes by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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As soon as something like Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian' appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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There are some mosques with facilities for women it's usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn't make it easier.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can't acquire knowledge.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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
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As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I lived in countries that had no democracy... so I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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My conscience is informed by reason. It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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In a sense, my grandmother was living in the Iron Age. There was no system of writing among the nomads. Metal artifacts were rare and precious.... The first time she saw a white person my grandmother was in her thirties: she thought this person's skin had burned off.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali