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Ayaan Hirsi Ali | |
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![]() Hirsi Ali in 2016 | |
Born | Ayaan Hirsi Magan 13 November 1969 |
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Alma mater | Leiden University (MSc) |
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Employer(s) | Harvard University Hoover Institution, Stanford University |
Organization | AHA Foundation |
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Notable work | |
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Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Website | ayaanhirsiali.com |
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lady Ferguson (/ɑːˈjɑːn ˈhɪərsi ˈɑːli/; Dutch: [aːˈjaːn ˈɦiːrsi ˈaːli] ; Somali: Ayaan Xirsi Cali: Ayān Ḥirsi 'Alī ;[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]
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