Free Republic

Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly took the opportunity to once again have Ayan Hirsi Ali on her program to discuss sharia law since the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram remains in the news. Ali, who was born in Somalia explains perfectly why the transformation from the so-called ‘peaceful’ brand of Islam into the more violent strain is as reliable as a chemical formula. It all ends the same way. As peaceful men assemble to listen to well-intentioned, peaceful Muslim preachers, evil and hatred creeps in. This happens not because these preachers start out wanting to go...

Hate to keep reminding you all of the charming deeds of those who follow the “religion of peace,” but someone has to sound the clarion call. Here are some more examples of how “coexist” is working out. According to a report by Pamela Engel writing for Business Insider, “Earlier this month, late at night, insurgents (aka Islamic terrorists) captured more than 200 teenage girls from a school in northern Nigeria, an area of the country that has been infiltrated by the terror group (aka Islamic terrorists) Boko Haram. Its aim is to stop Westernization and create an Islamic state ruled...

the cowardice and hypocrisy of Brandeis University's decision to revoke its commencement invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. ... Brandeis’ relationship with terrorism isn’t just theoretical: "… around 1970 ... Brandeis saw three of its women students posted to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List (Angela Davis, Susan Saxe and Katherine Power), no small feat since only seven women were ever put on that FBI list in all of its history.” ... Katherine Ann Power ... started at the Brandeis University SDS chapter, then migrated to Weather Underground terror and murder. She killed a local Waltham cop, then went into hiding...

Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. ... Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, refused to sign the faculty letter. He said it would have been great for the university to honor "such a courageous fighter for human freedom and women's rights, who has put her life at risk for those values."

When it's not explicitly hostile, Western liberals' attitude to Ayaan Hirsi Ali is deeply condescending. One thinks of Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, pondering the author's estrangement from her Somali relatives: I couldn't help thinking that perhaps Hirsi Ali's family is dysfunctional simply because its members never learned to bite their tongues and just say to one another: "I love you." In Somalia, they don't bite their tongues but they do puncture your clitoris. Miss Hirsi Ali was the victim of what Western hospitals already abbreviate to "FGM" ("female genital mutilation") or, ever more fashionably, "FGC" (the less...

If there were a “Ms. Globalization” title, it might well go to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali woman who wrote the best-­selling memoir “Infidel.” She has managed to outrage more people — in some cases to the point that they want to assassinate her — in more languages in more countries on more continents than almost any writer in the world today. Now Hirsi Ali is working on antagonizing even more people in yet another memoir. “Nomad” argues that Islam creates dysfunctional families — like her own — and adds that these distorted families constitute “a real threat to the...

PATT MORRISON ASKS | AYAAN HIRSI ALI Feminism's Freedom Fighter Ayaan Hirsi Ali has put her life on the line to defend women against radical Islam. October 17, 2009 For five years she's lived under the threat of death from Islamic radicals, and in those five years, she has become an acclaimed and provocative author on matters about Islam and the West. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born into a Somali Muslim family and eventually made her way to the Netherlands as a refugee. There she wrote a screenplay for a short film about women's treatment under Islam. Just over two...

President Barack Obama's speech last week in Cairo to the Muslim world has had wide and diverse reaction -- some ecstatic, some skeptical. In the adulatory category, a Newsweek editor, Evan Thomas, rhapsodized: "Reagan was all about America ... Obama is 'we're above that now' ... Obama's standing above the country, above the world; he's sort of God." So much for journalistic objectivity. Another, more considered view of the speech is Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, who knows more about Islam and Muslims than Obama, and certainly more than the exuberant Evan Thomas. In an exclusive interview on the insightful Newmajority.com blog,...

PALM BEACH — Anyone who believes that Muslims can be assimilated into Western societies is in for a rude awakening, according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali, who spoke at The Society of the Four Arts Tuesday, has reason to suspect Muslims' good will. She was born in Somalia, suffered genital mutilation as a child and was forced into an arranged marriage, according to her official biography. She rejected her Muslim faith and fled to The Netherlands, where she became a member of the Dutch parliament.

As the new U.S. president, Barack Obama would at first have a honeymoon period with the Muslim world, a continuation, really, of the honeymoon he has already enjoyed as a black man rising to the heights of power in the most powerful nation on earth, America. But Obama has said he is determined to find and kill Osama bin Laden. He has said that the frontier in the war on terror is now in Afghanistan, a hotspot for jihadis since the 1970s, where he wants to send more troops. In other words, he would continue the Bush policy, only with...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is among the bravest people on the planet, hands down. The Washington Post sat down for an interview with her and as always, she's worth pausing and listening to...

AYAAN HIRSI ALI and Irshad Manji are two of the most prominent and outspoken critics of what they and others see as “mainstream Islam.” Brilliant, dynamic women — the overused word “charismatic” is not inappropriate for either one — they have each rebelled against a Muslim upbringing to become public figures with large and devoted followings. Both are successful authors: Ms. Hirsi Ali’s autobiography, “Infidel,” was a New York Times best seller; Ms. Manji’s combination memoir-polemic, “The Trouble With Islam Today,” has been published in almost 30 countries. They are firm and unyielding in their support for the West, feminism,...

In the last few years, it has become popular to say that history is determined largely by sweeping inanimate forces of technology, the environment, gender, class or race. We play down the role of individuals - as if the notion that one person can shape history is old-fashioned. But that's hardly the case. Take Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France. For 60 years, the power of the state in France had steadily increased. Government workers were handed lavish entitlements and retirement packages while French competitiveness diminished in a new globalized world. Abroad, traditional French foreign policy cynically tried to...

What is the price of liberty? She's back! Ayaan Hirsi Ali came back to Holland, and immediately started yet another political and media frenzy. The current drama centres on Ayaan's safety. Former MP and MEP for the liberal party D66, Lousewies van der Laan, has her say. Since criticising Islam for condoning violence against women, she has been on the run from Islamist extremists trying to kill her. The warning note was attached to the body of murdered cineaste Theo van Gogh with a knife. Ayaan has had an eventful year. In the summer of 2006 she had to escape...

As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world. The details of her story bear repeating, as they illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism in the West. Hirsi Ali first fled to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia in 1992 after declining to submit to a forced marriage to a man...

As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world. The details of her story have been widely reported, but bear repeating, as they illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism in the West. Hirsi Ali first fled to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia in 1992 after declining to submit to a...

Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam. Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it. Reason: So when even a hard-line critic of Islam such as Daniel...

And now we come to what may be a truly fundamental test, maybe even a turning point, for that part of the world generally known as the West. The test is this: Are prominent, articulate critics of radical Islam, critics who happen to be citizens of European countries or the United States, entitled to the same free speech rights enjoyed by other citizens of European countries and the United States? Legally, of course they are. In practice, they can say what they want -- and then they can be murdered for doing so. That means that Western governments have a...

The undisputed definition of Islam by all her adherents is “submission to the will of Allah.” This divine will is outlined in the Koran and in the teachings and deeds of Muhammad, as recorded in the Hadith or Sunna. While the Koran is considered to be the true, undiluted word of God revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, the Sunna carry less weight and have always been a cause for disagreement amongst Muslim scholars. Theologians of Islam have, however, reached consensus on the authority of a set of six volumes from the Sunna called the Sahih Sita, or authentic...

Coming to America By Ayaan Hirsi Ali Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007 SPEECHES AEI World Forum (Beaver Creek, Colorado) Publication Date: July 23, 2007 Resident Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali The movie Coming to America tells the story of Prince Akim from a beautiful, peaceful, exotic monarchy called Zamunda in Africa. The king of Zamunda holds a fabulous ceremony for his crown prince Akim (wonderfully played by Eddie Murphy) attended by all the king's men and all the king's horses. After a display of rigid protocol, preceded by a generous sprinkling of petals followed by a wild but well-choreographed dance, Akim...