Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Muslim and renowned critic of Islam, has revealed her conversion to Christianity, describing her journey from Islam to atheism and ultimately Christianity.
In a weekend essay published on Remove the herd, Hirsi Ali, known for her best-selling books and outspoken opinions, says her encounter with Bertrand Russell’s 1927 lecture “Why I Am Not a Christian” led her to atheism, providing comfort and a escape from the fear instilled by religious doctrine. She found that Russell’s views on religion, rooted in fear, resonated with her own experiences.
“As I read it, it did not occur to me that one day, almost a century after he handed it over to the South London branch of the National Secular Society, I would be obliged to ‘write an essay with exactly the opposite title. » adds Hirsi Ali, originally from Somalia and survivor of genital mutilation.
Hirsi Ali traces her initial disillusionment with Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks when she questioned the justifications for the attacks in the name of Islam.
During her teenage years in Nairobi, Hirsi Ali says she was influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, who instilled in her a strict interpretation of Islam.
This period was characterized by a strict adherence to religious practices and a deep contempt for non-Muslims, especially Jews. However, his later exposure to atheism through figures like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins contrasted sharply with his earlier beliefs.
Hirsi Ali attributes his move to Christianity to a broader concern with the challenges facing Western civilization. She cites threats from authoritarian regimes, global Islamism and “woke” ideology as catalysts for the search for a unifying force. Christianity, she believes, offers a foundation of values and traditions that defend human life, freedom and dignity, and counteract the divisions she associates with atheism.
In response to his embrace of the Christian faith, conservative Christian philosopher Dr. Robert George wrote about Facebook: “Twenty years ago, under the influence of the writings of Bertrand Russell, she became an atheist. She thought atheism was intelligent and sophisticated – that was supposedly what really intelligent people (the “brilliant,” as Daniel Dennett embarrassingly called himself and his fellow unbelievers) believed. It was the path to a world of rationality and civil liberty. Hirsi Ali is not the first to have taken this wrong path. She now sees that this is indeed a mistake and that there is, if I may quote Scripture, “a more excellent way.”
Hirsi Ali’s embrace of Christianity also stems from a personal quest for spiritual comfort and meaning in life.
Hirsi Ali criticizes atheism for leaving a “god hole”, which she says has led to the rise of irrational ideologies and the erosion of Western values. She argues that Christianity offers a unifying history and founding texts, similar to those of Islam, that can engage and mobilize people.
Speaking at the National Press Club in 2015, Hirsi Ali proposed five amendments to the Islamic religion that Muslims should take seriously if they truly want to bring about peaceful reform of their religion.
She suggested that Muslims should view the Quran and hadith as creations of human effort, potentially divinely inspired but ultimately human in origin. This perspective challenges the traditional view of Muhammad as a moral guide after Mecca, which Hirsi Ali finds problematic.
As a second amendment, Hirsi Ali advocated for a change in the way Muslims prioritize life after death over life before death. She called for a reorientation towards greater valuation of life on earth.
She has also argued that Sharia law is responsible for widespread violence and oppression in Muslim cultures, exemplified by regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Islamic State terrorist group.
As a fourth amendment, it called for the elimination of the principle of “commanding good and forbidding evil.” This principle, according to Hirsi Ali, leads to vigilantism and mob justice, as evidenced by cases where citizens punish individuals for alleged violations of Sharia law or disrespect for Muhammad.
Hirsi Ali also called for an end to the concept of Jihad as holy war, advocating instead to focus on peace.
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