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Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hirsi Ali in 2016
Born
Ayaan Hirsi Ali

(1969-11-13) 13 November 1969 (age 55)
Mogadishu, Banaadir, Somali Democratic Republic
Citizenship
  • Netherlands
  • United States
Alma materLeiden University (MSc)
Occupations
  • Politician
  • author
Employer(s)Harvard University
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
OrganizationAHA Foundation
Known for
Notable work
Political party
Spouse
​
(m. 2011)​
Children2
FatherHirsi Ali Magan
Member of the House of Representatives
In office
2003–2006
Websiteayaanhirsiali.com

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lady Ferguson[a] (born 13 November 1969)[1] is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician.[2][3][4] She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation.[5] At the age of five, following local traditions in Somalia, Ali underwent female genital mutilation organized by her grandmother. Her father—a scholar, intellectual, and a devout Muslim—was against the procedure but could not stop it from happening because he was imprisoned by the Communist government of Somalia at the time.[6][7] Her family moved across various countries in Africa and the Middle East, and at 23, she received political asylum in the Netherlands, gaining Dutch citizenship five years later.[8] In her early 30s, Hirsi Ali renounced the Islamic faith of her childhood, began identifying as an atheist, and became involved in Dutch centre-right politics, joining the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).[9][10][11]

In 2003, Ali was elected to the lower house of the States General of the Netherlands.[12] While serving in parliament, she collaborated on a short film with Theo van Gogh, titled Submission, which depicted the oppression of women under fundamentalist Islamic law and was critical of the Muslim canon itself.[13] The film led to death threats, and Van Gogh was murdered shortly after the film's release by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Moroccan-Dutch Islamic terrorist, driving Hirsi Ali into hiding.[13] At this time, she became more outspoken as a critic of the Muslim faith. In 2005, Time magazine named Ali as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[14] Her outspoken criticism of Islam made her a controversial figure in Dutch politics. Following a political crisis related to the validity of her Dutch citizenship, she left Parliament and ultimately the Netherlands.[15][16]

Moving to the United States, Ali established herself as a writer, activist, and public intellectual.[17][18] Her books Infidel: My Life (2007), Nomad: From Islam to America (2010) and Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015) became bestsellers.[19] In Heretic, Ali called for reformation of Islam by countering Islamism and supporting reformist Muslims, though previously she had said Islam was beyond reform.[20][21] In the United States, Ali has founded an organisation for the defense of women's rights, the AHA Foundation.[22] She has taken roles at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the American Enterprise Institute, and at Harvard Kennedy School as a senior fellow at the Future of Democracy Project.[23][24][25] Since 2021, she has served as a columnist for UnHerd, a British online magazine; since 2022, she has also hosted The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast.[26][27]

Ali was a central figure in New Atheism since its beginnings.[28] She was strongly associated with the movement, along with Christopher Hitchens, who regarded Ali as "the most important public intellectual probably ever to come out of Africa".[29] Writing in a column in November 2023, Ali announced her conversion to the Christian faith, claiming that in her view the Judeo-Christian tradition is the only answer to the problems of the modern world.[9][30][31] She has received several awards, including a free speech award from the centre-right Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten,[32] the Swedish conservative Liberal Party's Democracy Prize,[33] and the Moral Courage Award for commitment to conflict resolution, ethics, and world citizenship.[34] Critics have accused Ali of being Islamophobic or neo-orientalist and question her scholarly credentials "to speak authoritatively about Islam and the Arab world", saying she promotes the notion of a Western "civilizing mission".[35][36][37] Ali is married to Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson. The couple are raising their sons in the United States, where she became a citizen in 2013.[16][38]


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Britannica. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  2. ^ Applebaum, Anne (4 February 2007). "The Fight for Muslim Women A feisty memoir from a controversial champion of female rights".
  3. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Q&A: the west must stop seeing Muslims only as victims". The Guardian. 16 May 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  4. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali's 'Heretic'". The New York Times. 1 April 2015. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  5. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "You can't change these practices if you don't talk about them"". The New York Times. 24 February 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  6. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'FGM was done to me at the age of five. Ten years". Evening Standard. 18 March 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  7. ^ Harris, Lynn (3 June 2010). "Female genital mutilation in the U.S.: No compromise". Salon. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  8. ^ "Somalia-born critic of Islam admits lying to gain asylum". The Irish Times. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  9. ^ a b Jones, Sarah (29 November 2023). "The Infidel Turned Christian". Intelligencer. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  10. ^ "Outspoken Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali Says She is Now a Christian". NCR. 13 November 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  11. ^ "Dutch MP quits over asylum lies". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  12. ^ Anderson, John Ward (17 May 2006). "Discredited Somali Quits Dutch Politics Advocate for Women Is Critic of Islam". Washington Times.
  13. ^ a b "Slaughter And 'Submission' – CBS News". www.cbsnews.com. 11 March 2005. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference time was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "Controversy Over Dutch Politician Divides The Netherlands – DW – 05/17/2006". dw.com. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  16. ^ a b "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Tackle Islam or face civil war". Politico. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  17. ^ Hayward, Freddie (9 September 2021). "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'If you disagree with the left, you're punished'". New Statesman. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  18. ^ Garner, Dwight (15 January 2012). "Warriors on 2 Sides of Militant Islam". New York Times.
  19. ^ Dominus, Susan (1 April 2015). "Ayaan Hirsi Ali's 'Heretic'". New York Times.
  20. ^ Ayaan Hirsi Ali (27 March 2015). "The Islam reformers vs. the Muslim zealots". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  21. ^ Anthony, Andrew (27 April 2015). "Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – review". The Guardian.
  22. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Feminism's freedom fighter". Los Angeles Times. 17 October 2009. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  23. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Hoover Institution.
  24. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali". American Enterprise Institute - AEI. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  25. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 14 January 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  26. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'Queers for Palestine' shows how stupid our society is". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 29 November 2023. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  27. ^ "Civilization and Its Enemies - Opinion: Free Expression - WSJ Podcasts". WSJ. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  28. ^ Gregory, Elizabeth (17 August 2023). "Richard Dawkins: everything you need to know about the world's most famous atheist". London Evening Standard.
  29. ^ Cite error: The named reference :9 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  30. ^ Khalil, Mohammad Hassan, ed. (2017). "The New Atheism". Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 95–96. doi:10.1017/9781108377263.009. ISBN 978-1-108-38512-1. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
  31. ^ Ali, Ayaan Hirsi (11 November 2023). "Why I am now a Christian". UnHerd.
  32. ^ "Hirsi Ali wins rights award from Danish cartoon paper". Montreal Gazette. Agence France-Presse. 2010. Archived from the original on 22 July 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
  33. ^ "Varför Vill Hon Fortfarande Vara Muslim?". den liberala scenen i svensk debatt. Smedjan.com. 30 August 2005. Archived from the original on 13 March 2012. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
  34. ^ "Biography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali". The Globalist. Archived from the original on 7 April 2008. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
  35. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mahmood was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  36. ^ Yaghi, Adam (18 December 2015). "Popular Testimonial Literature by American Cultural Conservatives of Arab or Muslim Descent: Narrating the Self, Translating (an)Other". Middle East Critique. 25 (1): 83–98. doi:10.1080/19436149.2015.1107996. S2CID 146227696.
  37. ^ Cite error: The named reference Grewal was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  38. ^ "Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Immigration Reform and Assimilation in Europe". Literary Hub. 17 May 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2023.

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