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Is Radical Islam a Threat to the West? - Ayaan Hirsi Ali — Transcript

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0:04[Music]
0:11[Music]
0:22Valley Policy Forum for making this
0:24possible, for taking the initiative to
0:26start an organization like this one that
0:29brings together the community and that
0:31educates them. I think it is absolutely
0:33necessary and urgent in the times that
0:36we live in.
0:44Thank you. I also want to thank Sam and
0:48um Zuhi um and they are fellow fighters.
0:53They have been observers um and in the
0:56trenches fighting radical Islamism for a
0:59very long time. But every time I listen
1:01to them, um, I hear something new and I
1:05learn from them and I really adore them
1:07and I really admire them for what they
1:09do. And again, thank you.
1:12[Applause]
1:21Tonight's keynote is centered around the
1:25question, is Islam radical or otherwise
1:29a threat to the West?
1:35In 2015,
1:38uh, when ISIS was at its height, I
1:41published a book called Heretic:
1:43Why Islam Needs a Reformation.
1:47And there I make a distinction between
1:50Islam on the one hand as a set of ideas
1:53and Muslims as adherence. The 1.9
1:58million Muslims or 1.8 million 1.8 8
2:03billion Muslims um that Zi just
2:07described.
2:10I see one Islam with two faces
2:14and I
2:17categorize Muslims into three groups.
2:24One face of Islam is religious.
2:27Muslims observe the five pillars of the
2:30faith. And I think most of you are
2:32familiar by now with what these five
2:34pillars are. There's the declaration of
2:37the shahada that a Muslim confesses
2:39there is no god but Allah and Muhammad
2:41is his prophet. And in this Islam
2:44literally means submission to the will
2:45of Allah. The founder of Islam, Muhammad
2:48is regarded as the last prophet. And the
2:51declaration or the confession sums up
2:54this submission.
2:56The second pillar of Islam is that a
2:58Muslim is required to pray five times a
3:00day.
3:01The third pillar of Islam
3:04um requires a Muslim to fast for at
3:07least 30 days a year during the month of
3:10Ramadan. A fourth pillar is the one that
3:14compels Muslims to give charity, to pay
3:17arms, to look after the poor, the
3:19orphans, and those who have um who are
3:23underprivileged, who are destitute. And
3:26finally, the fifth requirement is that a
3:29Muslim at least once in his lifetime go
3:32to Mecca, the holy cities of Mecca and
3:34Medina on pilgrimage.
3:37There are other rituals and practices
3:41um and these are practiced by various
3:43sects and factions of Islam. You have
3:46the Shia and the Sunni Muslims and their
3:48various branches. They observe in
3:50addition to these obligations other
3:52rituals uh such as the commemoration of
3:56the prophet or individuals they regard
3:58as matters. They do this on a regular
4:01basis. um often weekly you will see in
4:05Muslim majority countries and among
4:07Muslim communities large prayer
4:09gatherings, Quran recitations and
4:11chants. Uh you may have heard of the Eid
4:14festivals that are celebrated twice a
4:17year after the 30 days of fasting during
4:19the Ramadan and the end of the Hajj or
4:22the pilgrimage cycle.
4:25So everything I just told you about
4:27Islam is religious.
4:30It's spiritual. It is the worship of
4:32God. It's a sense of community and
4:35belonging that expresses and practices
4:39faith.
4:41That is one face, one aspect, one
4:44dimension of Islam.
4:46But Islam has another dimension like a
4:49coin with two sides.
4:52There's a political dimension and that
4:55political dimension is a framework on
4:57which to establish states and military
5:00power. It stipulates a red line between
5:04believers and unbelievers.
5:07It has a foreign and domestic policy, an
5:10economic and social policy, and in every
5:13detail it governs moral law and family
5:17law.
5:19This system of law is called Sharia.
5:23It's God's law. This is what Zudi and
5:26Sams call Islamism.
5:31In Islam, as opposed to other great
5:34religions of mankind such as
5:36Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism and
5:38Buddhism, there is no recognized
5:41separation of politics and religion.
5:46So those are the two faces of Islam.
5:48There's the religious face and there's
5:51the political face.
5:53Two in one.
5:56But what about Muslims? What about the
5:581.9 billion people the quarter of
6:01humanity on the planet?
6:04I find how do you categorize them? I
6:07find the conceptual categorization of
6:09Muslims into moderates versus radicals
6:13unhelpful.
6:16That distinction tells us nothing or not
6:18enough to distinguish between those
6:20Muslims who are a threat to our way of
6:22life and the vast majority who are not a
6:25threat at all. Moreover, it's important
6:28to acknowledge that those Muslims who
6:30indeed threaten communities across the
6:33globe pose the greatest harm to fellow
6:36Muslims.
6:38I think a better categorization is to
6:42separate Muslims into three distinct
6:44groups. One, the Mecca Muslims. Two, the
6:50Medina Muslims. And three, the modifying
6:53Muslims who wish to reform Islam.
6:58For several years after the event of 911
7:012001,
7:03after every spectacular Islamist
7:05terrorist attack, we would have a
7:07cacophony of discussion that would erupt
7:10in the Western media posing the
7:12following questions. Why do they hate
7:15us? Why are so many Muslims silent? Why
7:19don't they condemn the attacks?
7:23Western leaders would go on a limb to
7:25persuade the public that the attacks
7:27carried out by the perpetrators invoking
7:30the prophet of Islam and yelling Allah
7:33Akbar had in fact nothing to do with
7:36Islam.
7:38Western academics and media took to
7:41making a distinction between radicals
7:44and moderates.
7:47As we now acknowledge, the spate of
7:50terrorist attacks in the west and
7:52against western interests elsewhere had
7:55something to do with Islam.
7:57The terms moderate and radical are
8:00conceptually useless unless there is
8:03clarity on the question
8:05moderate or radical in relation to what?
8:10What is the story?
8:12Or as is more common these days, what is
8:14the narrative?
8:18To give you an example, here is a quote
8:21from an American Marxist called Freddy
8:24the Boore. I quote him. He says, Freddy
8:28says, "I am a Marxist." Those though I'm
8:32fairly unorthodox at one point, I would
8:35still love to see a Marxist revolution.
8:38You know, an international movement of
8:40workers rising up and taking control of
8:43political and economic systems and
8:45distributing resources and labor based
8:48on need while organized under the
8:50principle of shared ownership of the
8:52productive apparatus of society. End of
8:55quote.
8:57We get Freddy. He has a narrative. He's
9:01committed to a Marxist revolution. We
9:05know and understand on a granular level
9:08what Marxism is. The agenda of wanting
9:11to take control of the existing
9:13political and economic systems to
9:16distribute resources and wealth etc etc.
9:19We get that.
9:21I think Freddy is a fool.
9:25But is he a dangerous fool? And that is
9:28a conversation we have had and we can
9:30have. We can label him and his fellow
9:34Marxists either radical or moderate
9:37because we know and understand the
9:40narrative of Marx and the political and
9:42economic agenda of Marxism.
9:45We can say they are either moderate or
9:48radical in relation to their narrative.
9:53Why then do we hesitate to acknowledge
9:56the narratives that for example of Fisa
9:59Shahazat, the Times Square bomber.
10:04On October 5, 2010, Shahazat was
10:08convicted and sentenced by a federal
10:11judge in the Southern District of New
10:13York to life imprisonment.
10:15When asked by the judge, "Didn't you
10:18swear allegiance to this country?"
10:20Shahazad, a naturalized United States
10:23citizen, replied, "I swear, but I didn't
10:27mean it."
10:29When Fisel Shahazad heard his sentence,
10:33he smiled and he said, "Allah Akbar."
10:38He went on to declare that he would
10:41quote sacrifice a thousand lives for
10:44Allah,
10:46that war with Muslims has just begun and
10:49that the defeat of the United States is
10:52imminent, inshallah. That translates
10:54into God willing.
10:57I think Fisel Shahazad is an even bigger
11:00fool than Freddy the Boore.
11:03But unlike Freddy, we make excuses for
11:06Fisel and his ilk. We say, "Oh, poor
11:10them. They humiliated. They're poor.
11:13They suffer from exclusion. They are
11:15psychologically challenged. Or that they
11:18have been radicalized by bad groups."
11:21And all this may be true and it is in
11:24fact often true
11:27but it still does not tell us anything
11:29about the narrative that fa Shahazad is
11:33committed to to change the world and fix
11:36the injustices he sees or he
11:39experiences.
11:42The point here is not to dispute that fa
11:46Shahad is radicalized. He is but
11:49radicalized into what?
11:52What is the narrative? Where is it from?
11:56Why does it attract so many Muslims?
12:01To answer this question, you actually
12:03have to listen to him and the others and
12:06what they say just the way you would
12:09listen to a Marxist, a follower of
12:12QAnon, a national socialist, a liberal
12:16or a conservative.
12:21When I did this in the early 2000s based
12:23on my own history of adherence to
12:27radical Islam, I found that the
12:30narrative begins in the earliest days of
12:32Islam.
12:34In the year 610
12:36at the age of 40, Muhammad who is a
12:40resident of Mecca says that he got a
12:43call by the angel Gabriel or Gabriel
12:47while on retreat in a cave near Mecca.
12:51He says that the angel recites to him
12:53the first revelations of the Quran and
12:56informs him that he is God's last
12:59prophet.
13:01Muhammad then embarks on a decadel long
13:05campaign to persuade the residents of
13:07Mecca to give up their gods and accept
13:10his call to believe and worship the one
13:13God.
13:15For a little over a decade, he manages
13:18to convince a small following of roughly
13:23150 to 200 people, including his wife
13:26Khadijah and his best friend Abu Bakr.
13:30Muhammad and his small band of disciples
13:33used the most peaceful tools of
13:37persuasion.
13:38They spoke gently to those whose hearts
13:41and minds they wanted to capture. They
13:43modeled good behavior like looking after
13:45orphans and imploring the residents of
13:48Mecca to be kind, compassionate, and
13:51peaceful.
13:54But all their endeavors to convert the
13:57people of Mecca to Islam through these
13:59peaceful methods failed.
14:02Muhammad and his followers were mocked.
14:05They were mistreated and they were
14:07forced to leave Mecca.
14:12In the year 62020
14:14620220
14:18In the year 622 AD Muhammad and his
14:22followers migrate to the nearby town of
14:25Yadri later to be known as Medina and
14:29there granted asylum and quite a few
14:32people feel persuaded to accept Islam.
14:36This relocation to Medina is regarded as
14:39perhaps the second most important moment
14:42after the revelation.
14:45It is called the Hijra or immigration
14:48and it marks the beginning of the
14:50Islamic calendar.
14:53In Medina, Muhammad changes his approach
14:57to spreading the faith.
15:00He forms what perhaps today we would
15:03describe as a militia. Over time, he
15:06goes back to Mecca and he forces the
15:09population to either accept Islam or
15:12die.
15:14Those who accept are called believers
15:17and those who reject the call to Islam
15:19are declared mortal enemies.
15:22They are dealt with the utmost gruesome
15:25violence. They're beheaded. They're
15:28flogged. They are burned. Their women
15:31are captured and their belongings taken
15:33away.
15:36It works.
15:39In the 75 years between the time
15:42Muhammad relocates to Medina in 622 AD
15:47and the year 750,
15:50the conquests of that small band of
15:52Muhammad,
15:54he dies in 632 AD. They exceed their
15:58wildest imaginations.
16:03In those 75 years, they conquer West
16:07Asia, North Africa, Central Asia, South
16:11Asia, Eastern Europe, and Southern
16:13Europe.
16:15The victorious, sensational victory
16:19after victory is celebrated.
16:22Islamic rule is established from the
16:25Iberian Peninsula in the west to the
16:28western tip of the Indian subcontinent
16:31in the east.
16:34This is the significance of Medina.
16:37The prophet's approach in Medina paid
16:39off.
16:41The Medina Muslims swept away
16:43communities and empires.
16:46Islam became one of the great religions
16:48and civilizations of the world.
16:51Over 14 centuries on, Muhammad has at
16:55least 1ifth of humanity who identify as
17:00Muslim and see him as their prophet.
17:07Now, if that is not breathtaking, tell
17:10me what is.
17:13The Muhammad of Mecca achieved nothing
17:16with nonviolent attempts at conversion.
17:20Not many people were interested in
17:22revelation
17:24in Medina. He went for revolution,
17:28violent, ruthless, and total. And his
17:32followers were victorious.
17:36So if you want to categorize today's
17:39Muslims into meaningful conceptual
17:42groups and understand what the Islamist
17:45agenda is, you have to immerse yourself
17:49in the Medina narrative.
17:54If you want to answer the question which
17:56categories of Muslims are political or
17:59have an agenda or form a threat locally
18:03or internationally, you have to
18:06understand the story of Medina and how
18:08it resonates to this day.
18:12The people I call Mecca Muslims are
18:15those who narrow their Islamic identity
18:19towards the religious dimension, the
18:22spiritual, the worshipping of God and
18:25the observation of religious rituals.
18:28They tend to avoid politics in general.
18:30They don't like it when they asked to
18:32take a political stand or to comment on
18:35Islamist terror attacks. They avoid
18:38anything that can throw them into
18:40cognitive dissonance.
18:43I think they are the majority of Muslim
18:46populations across the world.
18:49Think even for instance of the Wahhabis
18:52in Saudi Arabia or the various religious
18:54establishments in the Gulf regions. They
18:58don't challenge the states and how they
19:01are governed.
19:04The category I describe as the modifiers
19:07or the reformers are those who react to
19:11the narrative and the political agenda
19:13of the Medina Muslims by pleading for a
19:17modern Islam that separates politics
19:19from religion
19:21that sets aside Sharia law that supports
19:25the rights of women, tolerance towards
19:28gays and a peaceful pluralistic
19:30coexistence with fellow Muslims. Muslims
19:33and non-Muslims.
19:36They want to hold on to their identity
19:37as Muslims, but they reject the message
19:41and the siren song of the Medina
19:44Muslims.
19:46Zuvi Jasser is a prime example of this
19:48category.
19:51Now, every conceptual framework is
19:53messy.
19:55My categorization, like that of other
19:57researchers, is just a clumsy way of
20:00fitting reality into frames.
20:03There are Mecca Muslims who work with
20:05Medina Muslims like some of the Wahhabis
20:07and Salafis of Saudi Arabia.
20:10There are Medina Muslims who backslide
20:12and very often even leave Islam
20:15together. Once upon a time I was a
20:17Medina Islam, a Medina Muslim and I
20:19left.
20:21There are Medina Muslims who refuse to
20:23use violence because they regard it as
20:25stupid and counterproductive when the
20:28enemy is bigger and stronger.
20:31There are Muslims who set out as
20:33modifiers,
20:35but over time they feel exhausted and
20:37they give up.
20:40My book Heretic that I published in 2015
20:43has all of these categories in detail.
20:46And the work especially of the modifiers
20:47that for me was a call to say recognize
20:50the group of modifiers. They're really
20:52really important.
20:55There are of course within every
20:57political movement those who are in it
20:59for themselves.
21:01There are loads of wannabe medina
21:03Muslims who enjoy the attention and the
21:05prestige, the money and other material
21:08rewards with no intention of ever
21:11realizing any kind of religious
21:13revolution.
21:14They're much like, you know, the wealthy
21:16zip codes in America's coastal pockets.
21:19They fly the Black Lives Matter flag and
21:21the rainbow flags. They put the little
21:23BLM plaques in front of their
21:25properties, but they have no intention
21:27of surrendering their wealth for
21:29redistribution and reparations.
21:34The radical Islamist anti-establishment
21:37movements of the 20th and 21st century
21:41are led and founded on the romantic
21:45story of Medina Islam.
21:48leaders like Taimir, Ibn Kaim, Sai
21:52Rashid, Hassan Albana,
21:55Abu Al-Mudi,
21:57um, Osama bin Laden, Sarawi, all of
22:01these guys and all their students, they
22:05all hark back to that story of Medina.
22:09That's the story they tell. That's where
22:11the romance is.
22:16So if you want to answer the question,
22:19is Islam a threat to America, the west
22:22and other parts of the world and to what
22:24extent? You have to understand the
22:27events of Medina, Muhammad's role and
22:30legacy there and how that story to this
22:34day animates political Muslim political
22:38movements and their leaders.
22:41If you want to capture Freddy the Bo's
22:44Marxist political agenda in a nutshell,
22:47here's what you would say. It's a
22:49perpetual revolution to overthrow the
22:52existing political and economic order
22:54and replace it with redistributive
22:56system of resources and labor. And once
22:58that level of justice is achieved, the
23:00revolution must go on, etc., etc.
23:04If you want to simplify the Medina
23:06agenda, it goes something like this. Da,
23:10jihad, Islamic State, rinse and repeat.
23:17Da is the call to Islam. It's the
23:20propagation. It's the mosque, the
23:22madrasa. It's the setting up of the
23:25infrastructure of money, communications,
23:27technology, every kind of support of the
23:30mission without applying military force.
23:34intimidation, blackmail and other soft
23:37types of coercion are allowed.
23:41Jihad, holy war, and I think Zi did a
23:44fantastic explanation of that is applied
23:48only when the time is ripe. So it's a
23:52question of timing. Muhammad applied
23:54violence in Medina, not in Mecca.
23:58And that is how he realized the Islamic
24:00state.
24:03Once the Islamic State is realized and
24:05Sharia law is established, then
24:10believers are to embark on more and more
24:13conquests of non-Sharia states until the
24:17end of time. The revolution is
24:20perpetual.
24:22Once all the Muslims of the world have
24:24accepted Islam and live under Sharia
24:27law, then peace is attained. The
24:30definition of peace according to Medina
24:33Muslims is that it's when the whole
24:36world has been Islamized.
24:40Medina Muslims have proven themselves to
24:42be determined and resilient.
24:45If you study the founding, the rise and
24:47the struggles of the Muslim Brotherhood
24:49and her offshoots, for example, the
24:51offshoots are al-Qaeda and ISIS, you
24:54can't miss their staying power.
24:57They seem to learn from every adversity
24:59to adapt to the state of gradualism.
25:02They learn from their own mistakes. They
25:05form temporary alliances with
25:07non-Muslims and Mecca Muslims and
25:09establishment Muslims.
25:13It's extraordinary to see how the Medina
25:16Muslims adapt to every
25:20Excuse me, please.
25:24It's extraordinary to see how the Medina
25:26Muslims adapt to every conceivable
25:29technology to their agenda. When I was a
25:33teenager, the Muslim Brotherhood
25:35preachers used cassette tapes for da.
25:38Today, they're masters at social media
25:41and even at AI's chatbots.
25:46It may be that we're also seeing a
25:49convergence between the impatient
25:52militant Medina wings and the
25:54gradualist. So if you look at the
25:56militant, sorry, if you look at the
25:57Medina Islamists, there's a militant
26:00wing, the jihadists, they just want to
26:02use violence exclusively.
26:05But then you have those who engage in
26:06dawa and they're the gradualists, the
26:08ones who say be patient. And I think now
26:10there's a convergence forming.
26:14The militants favor shock and all
26:16violent jihad
26:18to race to the end goal of the Islamic
26:20State.
26:22After the demolition of the only state
26:25they realized in territories seized from
26:28Iraq and Syria in parts of the last
26:31decade, the militants have gone somewhat
26:34quiet.
26:35Hamas is one of the few exceptions, but
26:38that is because the very point of Hamas
26:40is to be perpetually militant.
26:44There are militant groups active in
26:46various parts of Africa and Asia. But it
26:49seems for now, for the moment that the
26:52sensationalist mass attacks of the 2000s
26:56and the 2010s have subsided,
27:00remember, not gone. Peace is always
27:04temporary.
27:06It's a truce, not lasting peace.
27:11The gradualist medina Muslims on the
27:13other hand they seem to be doing well
27:15using da the mosque and the madrasa the
27:19halal systems demographic tools like
27:22birth rates and immigration and working
27:25within the various political systems
27:28that they target to undermine and
27:30eventually replace.
27:34Yuf Alcaradawi
27:36died last year. He was a Muslim
27:38Brotherhood meast star and one of his
27:41talking points was to urge Muslims in
27:44Europe to stop the jihadi attacks, to
27:47pause the jihadi attacks and focus on
27:51the long game of population
27:53displacement.
27:55He told his Muslim audiences that they
27:58could conquer Europe without firing a
28:01single shot.
28:04He said they could do that through
28:06migration. He called it hijra. And a
28:09superior birth rate because the aging
28:13populations of Europe would die out and
28:17they're not having enough babies to
28:18replace them.
28:22The gradualist trick therefore is to
28:25keep the mosque and the madrasa running
28:28in European countries, the babies coming
28:32and to encourage mass migration.
28:38In 2004,
28:40I was talking to my friend and mentor
28:43Fritz Balkstein.
28:45Fritz is now 90 years old. He had served
28:48in the Dutch Parliament and later in the
28:50European Commission.
28:53I said I was worried that Islam was
28:55becoming a serious threat to the West.
28:58He told me he was less worried about
29:01external threats to the West even though
29:04Islam was a serious force to reckon
29:06with.
29:08He said the only serious threat to the
29:10West would come from within.
29:14He was referring to the moral relativism
29:17prevalent in Europe, the uncontrolled
29:20waves of immigrants and the failure of
29:24the West to assimilate those immigrants
29:27along with the rapid demographic decline
29:30and the complacenc among Western elites
29:34to all of these big issues.
29:38I want to end tonight just like Fritz
29:41Bostein.
29:44Islam is a major issue and it will
29:46remain so for decades to come. But the
29:50threat, the real threat to the west is
29:53coming from within. I can now take your
29:56questions.
29:59[Music]

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