{UAH} Islam is not a religion of peace”: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

TESTIMONY BY AYAAN HIRSI ALI- Greatest African female intellectual of
this generation. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is living under the shadow of under
several death sentence imposed by Islamic sharia courts in various
parts of the Muslim world, including her native Somalia, Morrocco,
Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan. She lives in the USA where she
recieves round the clock security provided by the USA and Dutch
governments.

Bobby


Islam is not a religion of peace": Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains why Western liberals need to speak up -- and
why Islam needs a reformation now
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Excerpted from "Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now"


On ______, a group of ______ heavily armed, black-clad men burst into
a ______ in ______, opening fire and killing a total of ______ people.
The attackers were filmed shouting "Allahu akbar!"

Speaking at a press conference, President ______ said: "We condemn
this criminal act by extremists. Their attempt to justify their
violent acts in the name of a religion of peace will not, however,
succeed. We also condemn with equal force those who would use this
atrocity as a pretext for Islamophobic hate crimes."

As I revised the introduction to this book, four months before its
publication, I could of course have written something more specific,
like this:

On January 7, 2015, two heavily armed, black-clad attackers burst into
the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, opening fire and killing a
total of ten people. The attackers were filmed shouting "Allahu
akbar!"

But, on reflection, there seemed little reason to pick Paris. Just a
few weeks earlier I could equally as well have written this:

In December 2014, a group of nine heavily armed, black-clad men burst
into a school in Peshawar, opening fire and killing a total of 145
people.

Indeed, I could have written a similar sentence about any number of
events, from Ottawa, Canada, to Sydney, Australia, to Baga, Nigeria.
So instead I decided to leave the place blank and the number of
killers and victims blank, too. You, the reader, can simply fill them
in with the latest case that happens to be in the news. Or, if you
prefer a more historical example, you can try this:

In September 2001, a group of 19 Islamic terrorists flew hijacked
planes into buildings in New York and Washington, D.C., killing 2,996
people.

For more than thirteen years now, I have been making a simple argument
in response to such acts of terrorism. My argument is that it is
foolish to insist, as our leaders habitually do, that the violent acts
of radical Islamists can be divorced from the religious ideals that
inspire them. Instead we must acknowledge that they are driven by a
political ideology, an ideology embedded in Islam itself, in the holy
book of the Qur'an as well as the life and teachings of the Prophet
Muhammad contained in the hadith.

Let me make my point in the simplest possible terms: Islam is not a
religion of peace.

For expressing the idea that Islamic violence is rooted not in social,
economic, or political conditions—or even in theological error—but
rather in the foundational texts of Islam itself, I have been
denounced as a bigot and an "Islamophobe." I have been silenced,
shunned, and shamed. In effect, I have been deemed to be a heretic,
not just by Muslims—for whom I am already an apostate—but by some
Western liberals as well, whose multicultural sensibilities are
offended by such "insensitive" pronouncements.

My uncompromising statements on this topic have incited such vehement
denunciations that one would think I had committed an act of violence
myself. For today, it seems, speaking the truth about Islam is a
crime. "Hate speech" is the modern term for heresy. And in the present
atmosphere, anything that makes Muslims feel uncomfortable is branded
as "hate."

In these pages, it is my intention to make many people—not only
Muslims but also Western apologists for Islam—uncomfortable. I am not
going to do this by drawing cartoons. Rather, I intend to challenge
centuries of religious orthodoxy with ideas and arguments that I am
certain will be denounced as heretical. My argument is for nothing
less than a Muslim Reformation. Without fundamental alterations to
some of Islam's core concepts, I believe, we shall not solve the
burning and increasingly global problem of political violence carried
out in the name of religion. I intend to speak freely, in the hope
that others will debate equally freely with me on what needs to change
in Islamic doctrine, rather than seeking to stifle discussion.

Let me illustrate with an anecdote why I believe this book is necessary.

In September 2013, I was flattered to be called by the then president
of Brandeis University, Frederick Lawrence, and offered an honorary
degree in social justice, to be conferred at the university's
commencement ceremony in May 2014. All seemed well until six months
later, when I received another phone call from President Lawrence,
this time to inform me that Brandeis was revoking my invitation. I was
stunned. I soon learned that an online petition, organized initially
by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and located at the
website change.org, had been circulated by some students and faculty
who were offended by my selection.

Accusing me of "hate speech," the change.org petition began by saying
that it had "come as a shock to our community due to her extreme
Islamophobic beliefs, that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be receiving an
Honorary Degree in Social Justice this year. The selection of Hirsi
Ali to receive an honorary degree is a blatant and callous disregard
by the administration of not only the Muslim students, but of any
student who has experienced pure hate speech. It is a direct violation
of Brandeis University's own moral code as well as the rights of
Brandeis students." In closing, the petitioners asked: "How can an
Administration of a University that prides itself on social justice
and acceptance of all make a decision that targets and disrespects
it's [sic] own students?" My nomination to receive an honorary degree
was "hurtful to the Muslim students and the Brandeis community who
stand for social justice."

No fewer than eighty-seven members of the Brandeis faculty had also
written to express their "shock and dismay" at a few brief snippets of
my public statements, mostly drawn from interviews I had given seven
years before. I was, they said, a "divisive individual." In
particular, I was guilty of suggesting that:

violence toward girls and women is particular to Islam or the
Two-Thirds World, thereby obscuring such violence in our midst among
non-Muslims, including on our own campus [and] . . . the hard work on
the ground by committed Muslim feminist and other progressive Muslim
activists and scholars, who find support for gender and other equality
within the Muslim tradition and are effective at achieving it.

On scrolling down the list of faculty signatories, I was struck by the
strange bedfellows I had inadvertently brought together. Professors of
"Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies" lining up with CAIR, an
organization subsequently blacklisted as a terrorist organization by
the United Arab Emirates? An authority on "Queer/Feminist Narrative
Theory" siding with the openly homophobic Islamists?

It is quite true that in February 2007, when I still resided in
Holland, I told the London Evening Standard: "Violence is inherent in
Islam." This was one of three brief, selectively edited quotations to
which the Brandeis faculty took exception. What they omitted to
mention in their letter was that, less than three years before, my
collaborator on a short documentary film, Theo van Gogh, had been
murdered in the street in Amsterdam by a young man of Moroccan
parentage named Mohammed Bouyeri. First he shot Theo eight times with
a handgun. Then he shot him again as Theo, still clinging to life,
pleaded for mercy. Then he cut his throat and attempted to decapitate
him with a large knife. Finally, using a smaller knife, he stuck a
long note to Theo's body.

I wonder how many of my campus critics have read this letter, which
was structured in the style of a fatwa, or religious verdict. It
began, "In the name of Allah—the Beneficent—the Merciful" and
included, along with numerous quotations from the Qur'an, an explicit
threat on my life:

My Rabb [master] give us death to give us happiness with martyrdom.
Allahumma Amen [Oh, Allah, please accept]. Mrs. Hirshi [sic] Ali and
the rest of you extremist unbelievers. Islam has withstood many
enemies and persecutions throughout History. . . . AYAAN HIRSI ALI YOU
WILL SELF-DESTRUCT ON ISLAM!

On and on it went in the same ranting vein. "Islam will be victorious
through the blood of the martyrs. They will spread its light in every
dark corner of this earth and it will drive evil with the sword if
necessary back into its dark hole. . . . There will be no mercy shown
to the purveyors of injustice, only the sword will be lifted against
them. No discussions, no demonstrations, no petitions." The note also
included this passage, copied directly from the Qur'an: "Be warned
that the death that you are trying to prevent will surely find you,
afterwards you will be taken back to the All Knowing and He will tell
you what you attempted to do" (62:8).

Perhaps those who have risen to the rarefied heights of the Brandeis
faculty can devise a way of arguing that no connection exists between
Bouyeri's actions and Islam. I can certainly remember Dutch academics
claiming that, behind his religious language, Bouyeri's real
motivation in wanting to kill me was socioeconomic deprivation or
postmodern alienation. To me, however, when a murderer quotes the
Qur'an in justification of his crime, we should at least discuss the
possibility that he means what he says.

Now, when I assert that Islam is not a religion of peace I do not mean
that Islamic belief makes Muslims naturally 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
justification 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
apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, and even something as vague as threats
to family honor or to the honor of Islam itself.

Yet from the moment I first began to argue that there was an
unavoidable connection between the religion I was raised in and the
violence of organizations such as Al-Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic
State (henceforth IS, though others prefer the acronyms ISIS or ISIL),
I have been subjected to a sustained effort to silence my voice.

Death threats are obviously the most troubling form of intimidation.
But there have also been other, less violent methods. Muslim
organizations such as CAIR have tried to prevent me from speaking
freely, particularly on university campuses. Some have argued that
because I am not a scholar of Islamic religion, or even a practicing
Muslim, I am not a competent authority on the subject. In other
venues, select Muslims and Western liberals have accused me of
"Islamophobia," a word designed to be equated with anti-Semitism,
homophobia, or other prejudices that Western societies have learned to
abhor and condemn.

Why are these people impelled to try to silence me, to protest against
my public appearances, to stigmatize my views and drive me off the
stage with threats of violence and death? It is not because I am
ignorant or ill-informed. On the contrary, my views on Islam are based
on my knowledge and experience of being a Muslim, of living in Muslim
societies—including Mecca itself, the very center of Islamic
belief—and on my years of study of Islam as a practitioner, student,
and teacher. The real explanation is clear. It is because they cannot
actually refute what I am saying. And I am not alone. Shortly after
the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Asra Nomani, a Muslim reformer, spoke out
against what she calls the "honor brigade"—an organized international
cabal hell-bent on silencing debate on Islam.

The shameful thing is that this campaign is effective in the West.
Western liberals now seem to collude against critical thought and
debate. I never cease to be amazed by the fact that non-Muslims who
consider themselves liberals—including feminists and advocates of gay
rights—are so readily persuaded by these crass means to take the
Islamists' side against Muslim and non-Muslim critics.

*

In the weeks and months that followed, Islam was repeatedly in the
news—and not as a religion of peace. On April 14, six days after
Brandeis's disinvitation, the violent Islamist group Boko Haram
kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria. On May 15, in Sudan, a pregnant
woman, Meriam Ibrahim, was sentenced to death for the crime of
apostasy. On June 29, IS proclaimed its new caliphate in Iraq and
Syria. On August 19, the American journalist James Foley was beheaded
on video. On September 2, Steven Sotloff, also an American journalist,
shared this fate. The man presiding over their executions was clearly
identifiable as being British educated, one of between 3,000 and 4,500
European Union citizens who have become jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
On September 26, a recent convert to Islam, Alton Nolen, beheaded his
co-worker Colleen Hufford at a food-processing plant in Moore,
Oklahoma. On October 22, another criminal turned Muslim convert, named
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, ran amok in the Canadian capital, Ottawa,
fatally shooting Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was on sentry duty. And
so it has gone on ever since. On December 15, a cleric named Man Haron
Monis took eighteen people hostage in a Sydney café; two died in the
resulting shoot-out. Finally, just as I was finishing this book, the
staff of the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo were massacred in
Paris. Masked and armed with AK-47 rifles, the Kouachi brothers forced
their way into the offices of the magazine and killed the editor,
Stéphane Charbonnier, along with nine other employees and a police
officer. They killed another police officer in the street. Within
hours, their associate Amedy Coulibaly killed four people, all of them
Jewish, after seizing control of a kosher store in the east of the
city.

In every case, the perpetrators used Islamic language or symbols as
they carried out their crimes. To give a single example, during their
attack on Charlie Hebdo, the Kouachis shouted "Allahu akbar" ("God is
great") and "the Prophet is avenged." They told a female member of the
staff in the offices they would spare her "because you are a woman. We
do not kill women. But think about what you are doing. What you are
doing is bad. I spare you, and because I spare you, you will read the
Qur'an."

If I had needed fresh evidence that violence in the name of Islam was
spreading not only across the Middle East and North Africa but also
through Western Europe, across the Atlantic and beyond, here it was in
lamentable abundance.

After Steven Sotloff's decapitation, Vice President Joe Biden pledged
to pursue his killers to the "gates of hell." So outraged was
President Barack Obama that he chose to reverse his policy of ending
American military intervention in Iraq, ordering air strikes and
deploying military personnel as part of an effort to "degrade and
ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL." But the
president's statement of September 10, 2014, is worth reading closely
for its critical evasions and distortions:

Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not "Islamic." No religion
condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISIL's
victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. . . .
ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no
vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.

In short, Islamic State was neither a state nor Islamic. It was
"evil." Its members were "unique in their brutality." The campaign
against it was like an effort to eradicate "cancer."



After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the White House press secretary went
to great lengths to distinguish between "the violent extremist
messaging that ISIL and other extremist organizations are using to try
to radicalize individuals around the globe" and a "peaceful religion."
The administration, he said, had "enjoyed significant success in
enlisting leaders in the Muslim community . . . to be clear about what
the tenets of Islam actually are." The very phrase "radical Islam" was
no longer to be uttered.

But what if this entire premise is wrong? For it is not just Al-Qaeda
and IS that show the violent face of Islamic faith and practice. It is
Pakistan, where any statement critical of the Prophet or Islam is
labeled as blasphemy and punishable by death. It is Saudi Arabia,
where churches and synagogues are outlawed, and where beheadings are a
legitimate form of punishment, so much so that there was almost a
beheading a day in August 2014. It is Iran, where stoning is an
acceptable punishment and homosexuals are hanged for their "crime." It
is Brunei, where the sultan is reinstituting Islamic sharia law, again
making homosexuality punishable by death.

We have now had almost a decade and a half of policies and
pronouncements based on the assumption that terrorism or extremism can
and must be differentiated from Islam. Again and again in the wake of
terrorist attacks around the globe, Western leaders have hastened to
declare that the problem has nothing to do with Islam itself. For
Islam is a religion of peace.

These efforts are well meaning, but they arise from a misguided
conviction, held by many Western liberals, that retaliation against
Muslims is more to be feared than Islamist violence itself. Thus,
those responsible for the 9/11 attacks were represented not as Muslims
but as terrorists; we focused on their tactics rather than on the
ideology that justified their horrific acts. In the process, we
embraced those "moderate" Muslims who blandly told us Islam was a
religion of peace and marginalized dissident Muslims who were
attempting to pursue real reform.

Today, we are still trying to argue that the violence is the work of a
lunatic fringe of extremists. We employ medical metaphors, trying to
define the phenomenon as some kind of foreign body alien to the
religious milieu in which it flourishes. And we make believe that
there are extremists just as bad as the jihadists in our own midst.
The president of the United States even went so far as to declare, in
a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2012: "The future
must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam"—as opposed,
presumably, to those who go around killing the slanderers.

Some people will doubtless complain that this book slanders Muhammad.
But its aim is not to give gratuitous offense, but to show that this
kind of approach wholly—not just partly, but wholly—misunderstands the
problem of Islam in the twenty-first century. Indeed, this approach
also misunderstands the nature and meaning of liberalism.

For the fundamental problem is that the majority of otherwise peaceful
and law-abiding Muslims are unwilling to acknowledge, much less to
repudiate, the theological warrant for intolerance and violence
embedded in their own religious texts.

It simply will not do for Muslims to claim that their religion has
been "hijacked" by extremists. The killers of IS and Boko Haram cite
the same religious texts that every other Muslim in the world
considers sacrosanct. And instead of letting them off the hook with
bland clichés about Islam as a religion of peace, we in the West need
to challenge and debate the very substance of Islamic thought and
practice. We need to hold Islam accountable for the acts of its most
violent adherents
and demand that it reform or disavow the key beliefs that are used to
justify those acts.

At the same time, we need to stand up for our own principles as
liberals. Specifically, we need to say to offended Western Muslims
(and their liberal supporters) that it is not we who must accommodate
their beliefs and sensitivities. Rather, it is they who must learn to
live with our commitment to free speech.

Excerpted from "Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now" by Ayaan
Hirsi Ali. Published by Harper, an imprint of Harper Collins
Publishers. Copyright © 2015 by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Reprinted with
permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, was raised Muslim, and
spent her childhood and young adulthood in Africa and Saudi Arabia. In
1992, Hirsi Ali came to the Netherlands as a refugee. She earned her
college degree in political science and worked for the Dutch Labor
party. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks
and now serves as a Dutch parliamentarian, fighting for the rights of
Muslim women in Europe, the enlightenment of Islam, and security in
the West.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

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