Ayaan Hirsi Ali Talks to the Philadelphia Inquirer

Here. (ht LGF)

"So I said," Hirsi Ali confides, " 'You know what, darling Europeans? I'm going to tell you about Muhammad!' "

True to her gloves-off approach, Hirsi Ali talked about how Muhammad, who had nine wives, fell in love with his wife Aisha when she was 6 and married her when she was 9. Hirsi Ali outraged Dutch Muslims by accusing Muhammad of pedophilia.

Hirsi Ali says some took the issue seriously. She emphasizes its relevance because "there are more and more men taking minors as wives, and saying that Muhammad is their example."

Hirsi Ali says the debate gave her hope - she received one letter from a Muslim that read, "I don't know what you started in me, but I am thinking... . "

In the same way, Hirsi Ali explains, she'd like to challenge the beliefs of Black Muslims in America. She finds it as unfathomable that African Americans would convert to Islam as that Jews would convert to Nazism.

"I want to tell them about Darfur," she asserts firmly. "The people in Darfur are being exterminated just because they are black. So [Islam] is also a racist doctrine... . People don't know what's going on in Saudi Arabia. All these palaces are full of black slaves! So the black community here converting to Islam is like converting voluntarily to slavery.

"I think if they hear it from a black person," she says hopefully, "it will help."

These days, Hirsi Ali reports, she's working on a book about Enlightenment values - Voltaire remains a great hero. She plans to have it translated into Arabic, Urdu, and other key languages and distributed around the world in video and audio.

"I'm going to resurrect Muhammad, and he's going to have conversations with [British philosopher Karl] Popper and me and [economic theorist Friedrich] Hayek."

Hirsi Ali smiles. "I hope I live long enough to complete it," she says.