Western democracies are not pushing back on violent Muslims who are seeking to dismantle our way of life, said Yasmine Mohammed, a women’s rights activist and author who was forced to marry an al-Qaida terrorist when she was 19.
“We’re rolling out the red carpet. And if anybody tries to say anything, then that person is demonized as an Islamophobe or a racist or a bigot or whatever, just for speaking up against what any normal, decent human being would be speaking up against,” she said.
Mohammed was talking to John Ivison about the proposed amendment to family law introduced by religious conservatives in Iraq that would reduce the age of marriage in that country to include girls as young as nine-years-old.
She said that is just an example of an Islamic fundamentalism that is rising around the world, including in Canada, that is “completely incompatible” with liberal democracy.
“We can see it happening all across Europe today. Today there’s a (soccer) game going on in Paris where an Israeli team is playing. And 4,000 police officers from across France have to go there to protect the Israeli spectators. This is insanity. This is unheard of. But this is the life that we live in now. And we almost normalize it,” she said.
“Jewish people are being beaten up in New York. They’re being beaten up in Amsterdam. They’re being beaten up in Berlin. They’re getting beaten up in Stockholm. They’re getting beaten up in Paris. (But) we are not pushing back against these people who are intent on dismantling Western civilization.
“They have never minced words. They’ve been very transparent. You can go on YouTube and listen to imams from all across Canada and America and Europe and Australia. They will blatantly tell you how they feel about Christians and Jews and non-Muslims and what they think that Muslims need to do: how they need to rise up against them; how there needs to be a global caliphate; how every human needs to bow to Allah.
“They say these things very openly and very comfortably because they know that there are going to be no repercussions for their actions…We can’t sit there and wait for these folks to join humanity in 2024. We have to push back very strongly, fiercely, and we’re not doing that. We’re certainly not doing that in Canada.”
Mohammed, is an advocate for women’s rights through her organization Free Hearts and Free Minds, which supports ex-Muslims like herself all over the world. She is also the author of a book: Unveiled – How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam.
She said that fundamentalism is on the rise in places like Iraq because the Koran is interpreted as the literal word of God by a majority of Muslims.
“With this law, they want to claw back the age of marriage from 18 down to nine. That’s the fundamentalists that are doing that. Moderate-minded Muslims, open-minded Muslims, liberal-thinking Muslims are in such a minority that when they try to speak up against laws like that, they are demonized. They’re told that they’re Western puppets, that they’re trying to be white, that they are denying their religion and that they’re denying their culture – as if pedophilia is a culture that people would want to continue. Cultures are dynamic but unfortunately religions are not dynamic and this is in the scripture.
“Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, is considered to be the best example for all humanity for all time, so it’s going to be pretty difficult to try to convince Muslim people that what he did to Aisha and what has happened to millions, if not billions, of girls since then over those 1,400 years – the systemic rape of these little girls – how can you convince them that it’s wrong? They won’t accept it because they think that Muhammad is the example of humanity and so they will continue to follow his example.”
In Mohammed’s case, she broke away from Islam, went to university and has been working to help people like her around the world. She compared the split with Islam to “getting out of North Korea.”
“The Islamic law says if you leave Islam, if you renounce the religion, then you have three days to repent. And if you don’t repent, then you’re to be executed. And that execution can be followed up by any believing Muslim. It doesn’t have to be like in a court of law or anything like that. That’s why ‘honour’ violence and ‘honour’ killings are quite common. Even if a girl just decides to wear jeans, or to have a boyfriend, or not marry the man that they’re forcing her to marry. (If they think) that she is straying beyond the restrictions of the religion and the next step is that she is going to leave the religion, they can torture her or sometimes even kill her before she can do that.”
Mohammed said her own mother threatened her when she took off her hijab.
“She said, ‘I’ll make sure that you’re killed before you leave Islam because it looks like that’s the direction that you’re going’. My mom was a devout Muslim – she was the head of the Islamic Studies department at the Islamic school in Richmond, B.C. – so, I knew that it would be very dangerous for my daughter and I to remain in her life.
“I was completely separated from my family, friends, community, anybody I’ve ever known because I needed to save my life and save my daughter’s life. And if anybody knew where we were, then I’d be putting myself in danger. (My daughter’s) father is an al-Qaida terrorist. And although he was in prison in Egypt at the time, I didn’t know where his friends were. It was a very, very scary time.”
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