00:03:39.940I went to the Netherlands. And I think I'm famous or infamous for leaving Islam. And having lived in these African and Middle Eastern countries after I arrived in the Netherlands, having made a journey that's not just geographical, not just physical, but intellectual.1.00
00:04:04.800And so when I got acquainted with the norms and values of the West, such as freedom, equality, the rule of law, women's rights,
00:04:17.040I thought that those values and those principles were superior to the ones that I was raised in.0.98
00:04:24.380I was raised within the culture of Islam and in a tribal society.
00:04:28.580And so I would say in a nutshell, that's my story.
00:04:34.080Okay, great. Okay, so I'm going to start off with what was your experience, and this is kind of a broad question, but what was your experience with Islam like?
00:04:46.720Well, in the early years, before I was 20 years old, I would say it was mundane.
00:04:58.420We identified ourselves as Muslims, prayed five times a day when we could and all that.
00:05:04.080But we didn't really have the fundamentalist fanatical strengths that we see later.
00:05:10.540In the 1980s, when I was a teenager, there were teachers who came to our schools and our neighborhoods who were propagating this radical strain.
00:05:26.660What attracted me, I think, was just the clarity that they offered.
00:05:32.740You know, you've got a whole list of here are the things that are forbidden in Islam.
00:05:39.080Here are the things that are permitted.
00:05:40.540And all you have to do is just abide by these rules and you're a good person.
00:05:45.900And then once I started actually trying to abide by those rules, I found out how extremely difficult it was.
00:05:55.280And then later on in my life, when I came to the Netherlands and I saw people who are actually good people, honest people, people who tell the truth and who do things in ways that are very productive in their relationships with other human beings.
00:06:09.700and within the world, that's when I started to reflect on Islam, both in the sense that I was0.68
00:06:17.140raised where we were passive Muslims, and later on when we became, I became an active fanatical
00:06:25.280believer. Okay. Were the people you were seeing in the Netherlands, were these other religious
00:06:32.180as people like Christianity or atheist, agnostic, or just in general?
00:06:38.260Many of them were Christians. So when I first arrived at the Asylum Seeker Center,
00:06:42.660most of the people who volunteered to help asylum seekers, refugees, they did it through
00:06:50.040their churches. So they were Christians. And the Christianity that I saw that was practiced
00:06:56.160in the Netherlands was a very appealing Christianity. People were actually
00:07:00.620I thought very generous, very tolerant. For instance, even though they volunteered to help
00:07:09.320us as non-Christians, they didn't demand that we convert to Christianity. They didn't preach
00:07:15.840their religion. They didn't impose on us in that way at all. And I thought that was interesting
00:07:22.560because when I started to become an active Muslim1.00
00:07:27.580and abide by these rules of the permitted and the forbidden
00:07:33.100and all that, I really wanted to be a good Muslim.
00:07:36.080One of the things that our teachers were telling us was
00:07:38.520you have to go and convert non-Muslims.
00:07:42.820And I thought it was interesting when I came to the Netherlands0.97
00:07:45.980that these Christians were not imposing or preaching
00:08:12.520And I was surrounded by the time I left 14 years later, by the time I left the Netherlands, I was surrounded more by agnostics and atheists than Christians.0.97
00:08:23.640Okay, interesting. Muhammad Hijab, welcome to my podcast.
00:08:30.420Thank you very much for being here. This should be an interesting episode.
00:08:34.660Before we get started, can you give anyone who doesn't know who you are a brief background about who you are and what it is you do?
00:08:40.080All right, so my name is Muhammad Hijab. Much like yourself, I'm a YouTuber. I'm the co-founder of the Sapiens Institute. My academic background is in politics and history, where I've acquired a postgraduate in that as well. Islamic studies, of course, which I've acquired a postgraduate in as well, in addition to applied theology.
00:09:01.420and I'm currently doing my PhD in the philosophy of religion.
00:09:07.360I have to say, Michaela, from the outset here,
00:09:10.140that unlike the co-guest, the ultra-crepidarian academic charlatan co-guest
00:09:16.760that you have, the obsequious apple polisher for the far right,
00:09:22.000Ayan Magan, which is actually her real name,0.99
00:09:24.620I'm actually qualified to speak about that,
00:21:22.320Of course, I think I should add to this, in addition to all that was aforementioned, that
00:21:27.520Ayan McGahn herself was embroiled in the most embarrassing of public inquiries, if you can call that that, whereby she herself was in a polygynous relationship.
00:21:40.080She was a mistress. She was a mistress to Niall Ferguson, her husband now.
00:21:47.080And she was doing so at the dismay of Sue Douglas, who is his ex-wife.
00:21:53.180And with the destabilizing effect, of course, the destabilizing effect to his family, to Lachlan Ferguson, to Phoenix Ferguson, the children of Niall Ferguson.
00:22:05.140So she attacks polygyny in her books, but she practices it in her daily life.
00:22:10.920And so this is a serious hypocrisy, not just in that which she does, Megan, Ian Megan, but in that which she states as well.
00:22:22.060So the challenge really is, and I will repeat this, if someone wants to quote aspects of the Islamic discourse, aspects of the Islamic jurisprudential tradition, and juxtapose it with the Western discourses, especially here we're talking about second wave feminism, and expect Islam to correspond with those, they'll be utterly and bitterly disappointed.
00:22:45.360because clearly we believe our system is superior we believe the system is failing we believe that
00:22:50.460nuclear households are being destroyed in the west we believe that you've got it wrong we believe
00:22:56.120that we've got it right and so in order to defeat us in argument you must first argue from first
00:23:01.020principles and so yes we do have differences with western especially second wave or third
00:23:05.840way of feministic discourses, but that does not, that does in no way show or indicate that Islam
00:23:13.960is misogynistic. To the contrary. And the one last thing I will say is Megane herself is blissfully
00:23:20.540ignorant. Ayaan Megane, Ayaan Hirsi Megane, blissfully ignorant of the Islamic tradition, the
00:23:25.940underqualified, overconfident, ultra-crepidarian, academic charlatan, right-wing, apple polisher,1.00
00:23:33.820obsequious woman that she is doesn't even know that it doesn't even know the basics of the0.97
00:23:40.860Islamic tradition mentions in her book heretic in page 77 that we worship Muhammad she doesn't0.98
00:23:46.020even know the basics of the religion she makes squandering mistakes one after the other about
00:23:51.680gender in jurisprudence in Islam in her latest book pray you can see it in page 151 where she
00:23:59.140makes a series of unsubstantiated claims about Muslim women and their rights in Islam,
00:24:06.020saying that their rights can be sold to strangers and all kinds of nonsense propositions which have no basis in the religion of Islam.
00:24:13.620So if you really want to know about women's rights in Islam, one has to go to the source.0.97
00:24:17.060And this ultra-crepidarian academic charlatan, Ayan, is just a failure who's been let in by the most unusual types of affirmative action program to the neoconservative circles because she has no academic acumen at all.0.82
00:24:34.620okay okay so i'd like to just keep the rest of the conversation if we can try to attack the idea0.92
00:24:43.780rather than the person otherwise i'm never going to be able to have any guests on this show again
00:24:48.280for opposing views okay okay um i have one follow-up question about what you just said
00:24:54.460because i think i understand a bit but um you talked about you talked about that in regards
00:25:01.880to believers so what about non-believers like how does the kind of and i'll just be straight
00:25:08.640up with it how does the potential misogyny of affect women if they're non-believers or men's
00:25:15.760relationship muslim men's relationships with non-believing women muslim muslim men's relationship
00:25:22.780with non-believing women there is no differential in that as compared to muslim men's relationship
00:25:29.640with believing or non-believing men there's nothing in the quran or in the sunnah on the
00:25:34.840prophetic tradition that indicates that there should be any different way as a general to how
00:25:41.860men treat non-muslim women to men except for those things which are outlawed by islam itself for
00:25:48.560example having intercourse before marriage or being alone in a place with a woman now that can
00:25:55.440be a Muslim woman or a Muslim or non-Muslim woman. These are things Islam prohibits because
00:26:00.180it creates instability in families. It creates instability in societies and so on. The thesis,1.00
00:26:08.760and I'm not sure if you want to ask this as a separate question, but the thesis that McGahn
00:26:12.940has put forward in her newest book, Prey, is that actually what you find is that Muslim men,
00:26:19.600the immigration of Muslim men to European countries has increased rape. This is basically0.98
00:26:24.680yet and she mentions in page 33 of that book she says there's an actual causal relationship
00:26:30.060she says that there's a causal relationship i've read her book the entire book and i've seen the
00:26:36.040data that she puts forward for the claims that she makes michaela and she and just go for the idea
00:26:42.120the idea is that muslim men immigration coming into european countries causes an increase in
00:26:49.800rape that's what each chief say now look she mentions what is the data that she mentioned
00:26:55.480she mentions data from about five european countries including but not limited to the
00:27:00.220united kingdom france and sweden now what she then states is that there's evidence for a causal
00:27:08.240relationship in page 33 what is this data missing michaela this data is missing i mean this data
00:27:15.860has everything going for it in fact except for the evidence because this data does not even have
00:27:22.620that these men are muslim men and that might be a surprise and a shock to you but this data is
00:27:28.980about where these men come from so for instance she cites that these men come from africa from
00:27:33.900subcontinental asia but you will know and i'm sure your viewers who are clever people who have been
00:27:40.700educated at a minor level will know that Africa is not a Muslim continent. The entire continent
00:27:47.380of Africa, there are many Muslims in it, and there are many Christians in it. So the data is not
00:27:52.220conclusive. In fact, it doesn't even show anything. It just shows that there's an increase
00:27:56.940of people coming from Africa, and then there's an increase also in rape. Okay, well, we tried the1.00
00:28:02.800same methodology, Michaela. I actually tried the same methodology with Latin America and America,
00:28:08.920the United States of America. So people coming from Latin America, which are not Muslims, as you0.98
00:28:13.680know, and when they go into America, the United States, there is also a correlative increase in
00:28:20.400rape. Now, we can't say just because there's a correlative increase in rape, and this is a0.83
00:28:25.780fallacy, by the way, that therefore the causation is those people. But even if we did say that,
00:28:32.080well, Latin Americans are not Muslim. Latin Americans are Christians. And therefore,
00:28:38.380for the most part, very small Muslim minority, very, very small and negligible Muslim minority.
00:28:43.900And therefore, the whole thesis collapses. She even mentions, and she lies through omission
00:28:50.340by mentioning data from the World Health Organization. And she is a liar, by the way.
00:28:55.600She's a liar. She lied to the Dutch parliament. She lies by omission by mentioning the WHO,1.00
00:29:02.300the only i know the only data that has that the who has done on rape and she she mentioned certain
00:29:10.360things about africa once again there's not even a muslim continent in its entirety and subcontinental
00:29:15.340asia but what she doesn't mention is that according to the who that same report that
00:29:21.040she mentions but she omits this part according to the who that stranger rape is highest in what
00:29:29.380they call the high income areas, which is the West. So in other words, stranger rape is highest
00:29:34.540in Europe, or if you want to generalize, Europe and America and Canada, where you're from. So
00:29:42.800wait a minute, what's going on here? The whole thesis starts to be destroyed. And of course,
00:29:47.900as I've said to you before, and I'll say to you again, Islam prohibits premarital0.97
00:29:51.580premarital engagements between men and women how on earth can you get a thesis that says islam as0.88
00:30:00.060she mentions the word cause and it's a fallacy causes an increase in rape for muslim men to0.95
00:30:06.920non-muslim women where islam limits it to the highest level stranger rape funny enough according0.95
00:30:13.380to the who is lowest in areas which are most populated by muslim people like the subcontinental1.00
00:30:19.240area. Of course, they say that's because the cultural reasons of a woman coming out and all1.00
00:30:23.580that kind of thing. That's their analysis, but that's not their data. Furthermore, if it was to
00:30:29.520do with the jurisprudence, then we know that Orthodox Jews have a very similar, if not more
00:30:35.880strict, way more strict, kind of jurisprudential tradition when it comes to the interaction of men
00:30:42.500women however I will tell you Michaela despite that being the case we don't see that that is
00:30:49.760causing any rape within Jewish communities or Jewish men doing that to non-Jewish women
00:30:54.880she mentions in her one of her interviews that she does she says that therefore Muslim people
00:31:00.620need to be made be taught how to be egalitarian we believe in a complementarian system where
00:31:06.400there's a managerial hierarchy and the man's at the head of it we do believe in that Michaela
00:31:09.520we're not going to lie to you in the households that's we really that's the only way we can do0.96
00:31:12.780it however she's saying no let's she's trying to impose a feminist narrative which you should be1.00
00:31:17.640opposed to and your father is already opposed to which she says that she's trying to that men that0.55
00:31:22.500coming in from abroad should now be uh kind of vetted by told by being told what by being told
00:31:28.920that they need to believe in the egalitarian uh family system now if that's the case that's not
00:31:33.740going to happen with just muslims that should also happen with christians with traditional
00:31:37.020conservative values and it can happen with jews as well and if that's the case now she's this is0.91
00:31:42.020a kind of corrosive uh restriction on on human freedom which is unusual it's a creeping in of
00:31:49.420collectivist discourse and it's very unusual because in other places she denies that she's
00:31:53.360a collectivist in summary therefore i will say that the thesis is most pathetic and it's it's
00:31:59.800it's most rejected it cannot be and it has already been refuted by the way by many many academics
00:32:06.120For example, Jill Filipovich, who's recently written a comprehensive refutation of this nonsense that this miserable specimen of an academic charlatan has written forward and for some reason is being taken seriously by people.
00:32:22.560But it cannot be taken seriously by people.
00:32:25.100This is basically, let me show you something, Michaela, since we're on the topic.0.83
00:32:28.100It's basically a rehashing of, it's the rehashing of the Jewish discourses.0.97
00:32:34.400As you can see here, the fascistic Jewish0.86
00:32:36.660The Jewish problem, you see the white woman there0.99
00:32:38.800And then the Jewish man, can you see this kind of thing?0.94
00:32:40.700Can you see it? I'm not sure if you can see that1.00
00:33:03.220like that can you see it there's a yeah and a jewish man on the side this is before what0.76
00:33:10.060happened the pogroms and whatever happened this is the discourse she's just she's just rehashing0.50
00:33:14.320a fascistic discourse and being academics and clever people we should you know i'm sure people
00:33:21.860in the neoconservative movement or the alt-right or whoever it is in america and in the west will
00:33:26.700be able to see this for what it is it's nonsense it's academically redundant and it is the most
00:33:32.320ridiculous thesis I've ever seen in my life by someone who has no peer-reviewed work and should
00:33:37.540not be taken seriously by anybody. Okay. Okay. Let me see. We got to one of the questions I was
00:33:47.860going to, so we, you addressed one of the questions, so I'll skip that one. So let me go,
00:33:54.480do I want to follow up instead? Yeah. Okay. Let me follow up and then we'll get to the rest of
00:33:59.900questions. So this is what I've learned. And I don't know whether it's true or not, because I
00:34:05.200don't know what's true exactly out there with all the misinformation about everything. But this is
00:34:11.620what I've heard that concerns me. And it's that, and this argument I think makes sense. It's that
00:34:16.920when there's an influx of Muslim people to certain European countries and culture starts changing in0.97
00:34:23.440those areas um things like is like for instance is this true in islam that women who are supposed
00:34:33.020to have a guardian a male guardian is that your question yeah is that true just so i know to
00:34:40.480continue my question so there is something called a welly in islam the welly is a male guardian in
00:34:46.640certain very restricted contexts so for example if a woman travels and it's a long distance
00:34:53.340some scholars say she doesn't need anybody to accompany her some scholars say that she should
00:34:58.880have someone accompanying her if you were to travel Michaela I'm sorry to put it to you but
00:35:03.240someone like yourself and you had a security guard with you okay I don't think that's that
00:35:08.260diminishes from your independence or your volitional uh acumen or who you are as a person
00:35:14.140I think that just it's a good precaution to have. So it's a right that a Muslim woman has rather than something which diminishes her value. Why? Because, you know, people who are important require protection. And for us, we believe that Muslim women are very important. So in that kind of context, and in the context of marriage, for example, if a Muslim woman wanted to get married, some scholars say, the majority of them say that the guardian should get involved in the process.0.80
00:35:39.500I should also add that some say they don't. So there's a difference of opinion here. But these are the two, from my mind, the two restricted contexts which guardianship applies. Apart from that, no.
00:35:52.860Okay, okay. Good. That answer is part of it. Then the next one would be, why is it that in some areas women are required to completely cover their bodies or in some areas their faces are open?
00:36:31.240Some say, no, actually, everything should be covered.
00:36:33.160and these two views are two views that muslim people have held for 1400 years now it depends
00:36:38.180on what view the woman holds what she decides to do you'll find quite interesting that the very
00:36:43.480small minority of women that do that and i'm not saying that as a matter of they're doing something
00:36:48.560wrong in fact i think i i praise what they do but those women who do what they do they do it
00:36:54.240from their own volition i don't very rarely from what i've seen have i seen people being forced to
00:36:59.600put a niqab on, which is the face covering. I mean, I have seen people be pressured to put on
00:37:03.680a hijab on, but not very rarely have I seen a niqab. The idea really is that women, there's a1.00
00:37:10.620physiological difference between men and women, a sexual difference between men and women, such that0.78
00:37:15.980there should be certain precautions that are put in place so that distractions to an otherwise
00:37:22.740cognitively healthy environment are limited. And that's why you have boys' schools and girls'
00:37:28.260schools in the west they understand this they understand that having boys in one place and girls
00:37:32.220in one place sometimes it limits the distraction we we just extend that and there's nothing to say
00:37:37.000that well having boys and girls schools for example is something that should be done and
00:37:41.060and that is something that shouldn't be done what we will say in addition to that is in fact most
00:37:46.720psychological research including but not limited to baumeister i think is 2001 and kathleen who's
00:37:56.680actually a woman as well they say that in terms of sexual difference between men and women that
00:38:01.300men's sex drive is completely different in terms of it's more frequent they say in the abstract
00:38:06.900it's more frequent it's more pressing it's more uh severe and so on than women so we do realize
00:38:13.440these realities and our religion uh it caters for those realities that men find women immediately
00:38:21.620more sexually attractive than what men find or women find this is something which is pretty
00:38:26.900much accepted within the psychological community in the academic works and so therefore to avoid
00:38:32.420all kinds of sexual violence number one in the quran mentions this so they don't get sexually
00:38:39.760molested or anything like that and or to also avoid distraction from the purpose of life which0.91
00:38:45.100is to worship one god the covering is mandated upon muslim women now as i say covering the face
00:38:51.280is something which some scholars of islam uh believe in and some say no actually covering
00:38:56.640their face is not something that is required at all and this is the vast majority of women accept
00:39:01.880this and practice this but in a nutshell it's because men i know this sounds like a very basic
00:39:07.220answer men are different to women and women are different to men and those differences are
00:39:11.760respected those differences are respected and we have something else if you want to add if i want
00:39:16.700to add this as well in the islamic tradition something called ghira which which means a man's
00:39:23.000protective jealousy over a woman so for example if i you know if a muslim man married a a woman
00:39:29.860they should feel they should feel uncomfortable okay and this is the islamic understanding they0.59
00:39:37.000should feel uncomfortable at the fact that other men are looking at her in a sexual manner they
00:39:42.500should feel uncomfortable with that. Why? Because they should feel as if that's their job to
00:39:47.240satisfy sexually and otherwise that woman. And so for other men to be feasting on another woman like
00:39:54.300that is something we feel is contrary to the disposition of a man and something which actually
00:40:00.740creates problems later down the line because, well, the woman is going to do certain things
00:40:05.340and the man's going to do certain things in the family and it's going to cause unstable families
00:40:09.660really and so this is a way by which and through which stabilities of families can be maintained
00:40:15.320and that the muslim people can keep their honor and in addition to keeping away from distractions
00:40:21.140which will otherwise impede uh judgments uh as something which is not far away from the western
00:40:27.220understanding but it's it's extended so the western understanding we do have girl schools
00:40:32.100boys schools girls locker rooms girls uh boys locker rooms etc etc who says it should stop there
00:40:39.440it's very arbitrary kind of morality to be honest with you we say no it should also be extended to
00:40:45.040these other areas and we believe that god the all-knowing all-wise one is the one who laid
00:40:49.120those foundations down and if you don't believe in islam and the quran i understand why someone
00:40:53.540will not go with that but if we do believe that this this book was from god it makes perfect sense
00:40:58.880okay thank you that was interesting that's a good response okay i have one point for devil's
00:41:06.020advocate. And then I have to get onto the next question, but is it possible that when, um,
00:41:12.240and I'm not saying this for all Islamic men or Muslim men, but is it possible that if men grow
00:41:17.160up learning what you just said, and they go to countries where women aren't covered and the
00:41:22.900reason women are covered in their country is to avoid sexual violence. Is it possible that that
00:41:28.060could increase the tendency towards sexual violence for women who aren't covered?
00:41:32.040I will have to say it is possible because I can't tell you it's not possible.
00:41:36.560I can only say that it's hypothetically possible, but in order for that to be substantiated, it has to be sociologically verified.
00:41:44.960And I can't say to you it's not possible because that's the work of sociologists and psychologists.
00:41:50.520Unfortunately, as I say, it's a good idea.
00:41:53.280It has everything going for it except for the evidence.
00:41:55.120if people want to affirm such a thesis they have to go for a more plausible theoretical model with
00:42:02.840a proper methodology and which is peer-reviewed unfortunately ian mcgahn has done none of those
00:42:07.680things or any of those things and until those things are done and it becomes something which
00:42:12.480is commonly understood in psychological and sociological literature we have to remain at
00:42:17.040least agnostic to this proposition at this moment we have no evidence for it okay this episode is
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00:43:27.880at cooking meat. You won't suck anymore with these guys. Do you think that there's a link between
00:43:34.600Muslim immigration in Europe and an increase in sexual violence towards European women?1.00
00:43:41.720The answer to that is yes. And there are some caveats. My latest book is called Pray.0.94
00:43:48.460and the subtitle is Islam, Immigration, and the Erosion of the Rights of Women.0.99
00:43:55.320The answer, my uneasy answer to this is yes.
00:44:00.020The caveat is not all Muslim men are misogynists
00:44:04.760and not all Muslim men harass or attack women or treat them badly.
00:44:10.420But there is a minority and that minority is considerable.
00:44:15.920and that minority of very young Muslim men have come from societies where women are viewed0.74
00:44:26.000differently from the way they're viewed in Europe and once they come to Europe they start to behave0.57
00:44:31.340in ways that are hostile to women sexual harassment rapes gang rapes even syndicates
00:44:39.720or grooming gangs that prey on young girls.
00:44:44.020Now, what has Islam got to do with any of this?
00:44:48.060When you talk to religious leaders, Muslim religious leaders,
00:44:52.760what they say is, well, the behavior of these men is wrong,
00:44:58.200but the fact that women are around in public,0.84
00:45:01.760uncovered and by themselves is also wrong.
00:45:04.860So then they propose solutions that are Sharia-based in Europe. That's one. Number two, women are divided into those who are good and modest and those who are bad. And bad women, whether it is within Islam or within the tribal culture that some of these young men come from, women who are regarded as bad are regarded as unprotected.0.94
00:45:33.260unprotected meaning unprotected by male guardians so in that sense what you see is
00:45:40.260and I have talked to some of these young men Muslim men in Europe and asked them why is it0.83
00:45:47.560that you can't if you behave this way in Egypt when you come to Germany why do you carry on
00:45:53.920behaving this way and a lot of them who've actually done some reflection on the differences
00:46:01.380in society is just say, they explain the differences and they say, if I behaved this
00:46:08.280way in Egypt or in Afghanistan or Iraq, I would meet with no disapproval. The women who are
00:46:14.820targeted, they are the ones who are disapproved of because they are the ones who put themselves0.98
00:46:19.220in trouble. And so as you can see, there's this big clash of values or clash of civilization,
00:46:26.920I don't know what you want to call it. But on the treatment of women, it definitely is a clash of values when it comes to the values of Europe versus the values of Islam.0.71
00:46:38.240That's very interesting. OK, that makes sense. Do you think Islam is spreading, particularly over Europe?0.75
00:46:45.400uh the answer to that now is yes and no it is spreading through immigration of course a lot0.88
00:46:56.120large number of muslims in muslim countries are leaving their societies and moving to
00:47:01.940non-muslim societies and i think europe is in proximity so in that sense europe is becoming
00:47:07.060islamized if you will or there are more muslim people more muslims who are living in europe
00:47:15.460But there's also been a huge effort ever since Islam was founded of proselytizing, of trying to get non-Muslim societies to adopt Islam, either through persuasion or through force or through both of those means.0.79
00:47:33.440And so in that sense, it's also spreading.0.86
00:47:35.920There's a lot more campaigning for people to join Islam than the other way around.
00:47:40.580The reason why I hesitated when you posed the question is that I'm also seeing a lot of young people today who are leaving Islam. And that's a very interesting phenomenon. And in my view, it's not talked about enough.
00:47:58.640And why do you think that's happening?
00:48:00.960I think a number of reasons. First of all, we've seen in the late 20th century, early 21st century, the efforts of the radical Islamists to use violence to take power in Muslim societies and to spread it through violence.
00:48:19.920you remember outfits like al-Qaeda and ISIS and these organizations I think have
00:48:28.560disillusioned a lot of young Muslim people they forced Muslims into a corner where they0.78
00:48:35.140pose questions they ask questions do we really agree with these things that we're saying we0.68
00:48:41.000think about ISIS when they were beheading people and enslaving women and they said this is Sharia
00:48:47.440law. This is what we are trying to get to accomplish. And a lot of Muslims were put off by
00:48:52.600that. And some of those who went ahead to question whether this was truly Islamic or not, many of
00:49:00.180them were left feeling that they couldn't defend some of these actions. And they realized many of0.96
00:49:10.220these were founded within the faith. So I think there's a lot of disappointment. There's also,
00:49:15.120of course, modernity. Young people with online social media, even though they may be in Muslim1.00
00:49:21.220societies or in Muslim households, they are exposed to the modern world, I think, in ways
00:49:28.680that past generations were not. That's having huge impacts on young Muslim people as well. And
00:49:36.800I think it takes them to a place of at least agnosticism, if not outright atheism.0.91
00:49:42.200if that makes sense is islam slowly taking over europe well here's the thing michaela islam has0.85
00:49:50.360always been part of europe we have to see that first of all the renaissance according to almost
00:49:54.760every historian of science um that spoke spoke about this issue like for example patricia farah
00:50:00.260and david limberg but in addition to even orientalists like thomas uh arnold who wrote
00:50:06.440the preaching of islam he's an orientalist and all those people see that actually the islamic
00:50:11.380influence has caused the or was a trigger at least to the renaissance and not only that i mean you
00:50:17.360have to remember something like this computer that we're looking at each other with right now
00:50:20.860and this i mean a lot of that was the influence of islamic science for example ibn al-Haytham who
00:50:26.700whose theory on optics was carried over to the west and therefore through it we could develop
00:50:31.260things like cameras so there is an influence of islam and always has been an influence of honest0.94
00:50:37.720of islam onto europe and sometimes and most of the times i would say that's a positive
00:50:43.800influence now there are countries in europe as you know countries like bosnia and kosovo and
00:50:50.640albania and provinces like dagestan and chechnya which are muslim majority provinces but despite
00:50:58.180all of this mikaela according to pew there's only five percent of people in europe that are muslim
00:52:49.560killed 77 liberal non-muslim people okay was inspired and influenced by ian magan ian hersey0.72
00:52:57.680a terrorist influencer she is he was he was looking at the same literature that people like
00:53:04.140those who who would do caricatures like this of jewish people were doing and this is the same
00:53:09.440exact language we're seeing now instead of the jewish problem michael we're seeing the muslim0.73
00:53:13.980problem we have to be able to see this we have to be able to recognize this so this subversion0.77
00:53:19.120narrative that you muslims are taking over europe although there are muslim majority european
00:53:23.720countries turkey is one of the biggest muslim countries in the world and half of it is half of
00:53:29.040it is actually in europe is physically in europe istanbul is in europe it's one of the biggest
00:53:34.340cities in europe it's a muslim majority country what we're talking about when we say uh taking
00:53:39.460over europe so it's it's a nonsense narrative that is put forward by fascistic people apple
00:53:45.460polishes for the right wing, like Magan, Ayaan Magan, which now needs to be called out because
00:53:52.680it's becoming embarrassing for everybody else.
00:53:56.820Okay. Is Islam the world's fastest growing religion?1.00
00:54:03.120It was. And in some areas, it may still be. But right now, I would say just given the
00:54:15.460who are either adopting other religions or adopting an agnostic position or becoming atheists,
00:54:24.140I am not sure it is the world's fastest growing religion.
00:54:28.220Now, in terms of religious campaigning, individuals and groups going out to convert people
00:54:40.120or to keep people within the fold of Islam,
00:54:42.920I think that's one question on which the research has to be updated.
00:54:48.840But when it comes to birth, I think in that sense,
00:54:53.200in terms of fertility rates, then yes,
00:54:56.780Islam is definitely the fastest growing religion.
00:55:00.520Okay. Is Islam the world's fastest growing religion?
00:55:04.260Well, according to Pew Research, of course it is.
00:55:06.540And the reason for that is that it's largely to do with birth rates, because Muslim women have more children than non-Muslim women, pound for pound.1.00
00:55:16.600And that is something that Islam actually encourages, quite frankly.0.88
00:55:21.140Polygyny is less of a reason because it's not widely practiced, although it could be said to be somewhat of a reason in places like Nigeria, where it is practiced, and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa where it is practiced.
00:55:32.500um but there is a growing level of muslim converts in the west a huge number of muslim converts in
00:55:39.620the west people becoming muslim from all parts of the world and the reason why they're becoming
00:55:43.480muslim from what we've seen and we've worked with organization that collect these data this kind of0.86
00:55:47.760data is because they are convinced with the religion of islam they're disillusioned with0.88
00:55:52.580christianity they see that christianity has a slavish type of morality as nietzsche said slap
00:55:57.660him on the one cheek and give him the other cheek uh nietzsche called it the slavish morality but
00:56:01.760Obviously, that's a verse in the Bible, the New Testament.
01:07:18.960And there's this, I think I'm butchering it,
01:07:22.900But, you know, when it comes to some of these religious punishments, the New Testament is a lot milder, gentler than the body of law, Sharia law that Islam has and the absolutes within Islam.0.90
01:07:48.820so throw the first stone you cast the first stone he who has no sin cast the first stone0.55
01:07:56.220that's not part of islam so these are i think some very very interesting differences
01:08:03.020and they lead to interesting outcomes yeah very what are the primary differences between islam
01:08:10.740and christianity islam believes in one god worthy of worship okay this god is not a creature this
01:08:17.480god is not a man this god is not an animal this god is not everywhere in the physical sense such0.55
01:08:22.860that we can put him in a jar or put him in the toilet or anything like that he's not a monkey
01:08:27.160he's not a cow he's not in the cow any of that stuff it's we believe in a transcendent god
01:08:33.440that is perfect and that is worthy of worship the all-knowing one the all-wise one the most
01:08:38.940merciful one by the way the loving one as well the loving we believe god is love we do believe
01:08:44.580God is love he is the loving one we believe that he's the forgiving one that we also have to be
01:08:49.660loving and forgiving forgiving but we also believe God is all just we also believe that God is that
01:08:56.180he can exert punishment on the people and so this is our conception of God we believe in one God
01:09:02.020worthy of worship and in addition to that we do not believe in the trinity we don't believe in
01:09:06.620the holy ghost that is also God which is equivalent to the father and the son which was
01:09:11.100which is the development by the way a roman development in the fourth century with the
01:09:15.100Cappadocian fathers if you can read a book like R&D Kelly's book it outlines how the trinity was
01:09:20.880developed almost consent consensus on this matter now that was a trinity there's development the
01:09:25.340trinity in Rome and they acquiesced to other mythologies which they put into their religion
01:09:31.500which is why you find the trinity even exists like mythologicalism and other things I'm not
01:09:35.620saying it's from exactly those things but we have statements from Justin Martyr like for example a
01:09:39.140church father who said that just like you believe in jupiter like the mythological god we also
01:09:43.480believe in the father and the son it's not a it's not a coincidence michaela that you find all of
01:09:49.160these father-son relationships between mythological gods it's not a coincidence that you have horus
01:09:53.320and isis not the not the group but horus and isis or that mithra and his son or hercules and zeus
01:09:59.240whatever it is and then you have the father and the son and the holy spirit it's no coincidence
01:10:02.480the reason why you find that in christianity is because it was clearly influenced by other
01:10:07.980mythologies that were there at the time.
01:10:10.080And so that's one thing. We don't believe in original
01:12:12.960Do you think violence is inherent to Islam?0.94
01:12:17.040Violence is inherent to mankind, to humanity.1.00
01:12:21.060and islam provides a great deal of justification for the violent believer to invoke1.00
01:12:31.600and to justify and to pretend that that's the violence he applies is righteous0.90
01:12:39.780that's really interesting thank you that's really interesting yeah okay do the teachings of islam
01:12:49.480encourage terrorism? Again, because violence is inherent to mankind,0.98
01:12:58.200the individuals who want to seek power find enough within the legacy of Islam0.98
01:13:07.500to engage in terror and terrorism to achieve their desired goals.0.92
01:13:14.740And so there's plenty in the Quran, plenty in the Hadith, and plenty in the actions of the Prophet Muhammad to give organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda permission, moral permission, to use various forms of violence, including terrorism.0.74
01:19:10.360the thought that God is the lawgiver with a parliament or a congress or people who are
01:19:20.640elected to take God's position. And so that becomes very, very difficult. And that is why
01:19:29.400I think up to a point, organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS and so on, they were having0.91
01:19:34.280an easy time recruiting people because they're saying what the quran says is what we want this0.99
01:19:42.860is what the prophet muhammad did you can't have a democracy in islam because you are turning0.99
01:19:47.120human beings into lawgivers that's the greatest possible sin and so i think if you approach it0.98
01:19:55.620from the perspective of the scriptural framework, then those two illegal frameworks, Islamic
01:20:05.940Sharia law, with the basic tenets of a democracy, that's incompatible. But Muslims, millions
01:20:12.680and millions of Muslims would love to live in a democracy.
01:20:18.580Okay, that makes sense. That's interesting, because in Christianity, it says,
01:20:25.620says um i'm gonna butcher this too but respect authority right that's part of it so if you have
01:20:33.660lawgivers or people in institutions or kings it says that respect them right right yeah interesting
01:20:42.260but i think because in christianity the separation is accepted the church is not the lawgiver the
01:20:49.100pope is not the lawgiver jesus christ is not seen as the lawgiver and other you know
01:20:55.340Christian scholars and theologians were not seen as lawgivers.
01:20:59.220They may have adopted those positions.
01:21:01.600They may have assumed those positions, but the separation is very clear.
01:21:06.500And I think that is probably why democracies and republics emerged out of Christian culture
01:21:18.720and why it's a huge struggle for something like that to happen within Islamic culture.
01:21:25.340okay is democracy compatible with islam so democracy is used by all those who use it
01:21:35.480or i'll say all maybe i'll say with for most of those who use it instrumentally a communist
01:21:42.800a socialist who uses democracy to vote in a communist party does so because not because
01:21:49.120they want to see democracy enacted necessarily but because they want to see communism enacted
01:21:54.480So in the same or by the same token, those who use democracy from, let's say, the Muslim sphere in Muslim countries to implement Sharia, they do so instrumentally as well, in the same way as someone would use it to put socialism or communism.
01:22:12.680So once again, there's nothing peculiar.0.89
01:22:40.040and they'll do so using democracy so they're trying to implement christian values through
01:22:44.920democracy in the same kind of way muslim people may use democracy to put the same kind of values
01:22:52.060in this case you know the family values or something like that so yes but however what
01:22:56.820we don't believe in definitely is that the majority of people are speaking the objective
01:23:01.040truth at all times i mean just because the majority of people voted for something it doesn't
01:23:05.160mean that thing is true plato made this uh this assessment of democracy a long time ago when he
01:23:09.240said that it's it's not for the ignorant ones like you know to to to to talk about things which
01:23:13.900they're not specialized in just because the majority of people think that the earth is flat
01:23:17.740it doesn't mean that the earth is flat and that was the status quo in the world's history before
01:23:22.120people thought the world was flat so just because the majority of people say that it doesn't mean
01:23:25.300that's the objective truth so we would say the same thing we believe the objective truth
01:23:29.160the objective truth is that which the all-knowing the all-wise says which is in the quran and the
01:23:34.900sunnah and we have evidences for that we believe in that we can prove that however democracy is
01:23:41.400used instrumentally and if we're talking about in the western world then of course it's used in the
01:23:47.060same way but in terms of the muslim world once again it's used instrumentally it's compatible
01:23:51.340from that perspective not from the perspective that we believe that whatever the majority say
01:23:56.060is an objective truth which is in any way competitive with the islamic discourse or
01:24:02.540the quran or sunnah absolutely not yeah this is an important one okay um i suppose you've been
01:24:10.460working on this for a good portion of your life but how do we bring peace for the future given
01:24:16.920the fact there are given the fact islam isn't going away i mean i i understand the question
01:24:26.700It is, you know, between how do we bring keys between Muslims and non-Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, agnostics, Muslims who refuse to be Muslim anymore and who are threatened.
01:24:43.020I think, number one, and I think it's really key and the most important point, is to have honesty.
01:24:51.560I've seen a lot of exercise in what they call interfaith dialogue,
01:24:56.100where representatives of the various religions come together
01:25:00.180and try to figure out how we can coexist with one another peacefully.
01:25:06.480But one of the reasons why I think these exercises fail
01:25:11.120is because there's a lot of beating about the bush,
01:25:14.520not putting on the table what the key differences are between these faiths and those who don't have
01:25:22.440faith and i think once we get to the principles then you can say how can we get along and1.00
01:25:29.400have rules have the enforcement of the rule of law so if there are muslim people coming0.98
01:25:39.640to non-Muslim societies, they have to abide by the values, the norms, the laws of where they come.0.98
01:25:48.460And those societies have to enforce those laws and norms and values. If they don't,0.99
01:25:53.780then they're going to be faced with brute force. And I don't think that's a good starting point.
01:26:00.980But so far, we've seen these violent confrontations between Muslims and non-Muslims,0.99
01:26:07.780And the way to resolve that, I think, is by strengthening constitutional democracies to enforce their laws and their norms.1.00
01:26:18.800I think the fact that life is changing for girls and women in Europe because there are immigrants from Muslim countries who make it, I think that should be unacceptable.1.00
01:26:31.540Terrorism, yes, we are free countries and we don't want to listen in on everyone's conversation.1.00
01:26:37.200We don't want to become police and surveillance states. But I think there has to be red lines
01:26:46.800making it very clear what is allowed and what's not allowed, what's tolerated and what's not
01:26:54.240tolerated. And then if that's enforced swiftly and clearly, I think we will have
01:27:02.240have peace until everybody comes around to thinking
01:31:07.080There are women who, because they can afford,1.00
01:31:09.840they've moved from one neighborhood to a different neighborhood.1.00
01:31:12.860Doing all of these lifestyle changes, because the rule of law is not being enforced. They're not being protected from violence by their own societies. That is now backsliding. We're going back in time to a place where women made choices to stay at home, to refrain from working or going out to the pub or going out to, you know, with their friends to sports, dances and so on.
01:31:42.860because it wasn't safe for them to do. And now you're seeing this sort of thing coming back
01:31:49.760and we're tolerating it. We're accepting it. And I think that's wrong. It's terrible for women.
01:31:56.520Okay. Well, those are my questions. That's a scary place to leave, but those were my questions.1.00
01:32:04.060Ayan, thank you so much for coming on. And before you go, can you tell people where to find you,
01:32:10.660where to find your books. I'm going to link your books below too and show notes for anybody who's
01:32:14.540interested in reading them. Well, my latest book is Pray, Islam, Immigration, and the Erosion of
01:32:22.540the Rights of Women. And it's in bookstores. It's on Amazon. If you're interested in my views on
01:32:29.560Islam and whether it can be modified, reformed, I've written a book called Heretic. It's also
01:32:36.100on Amazon. And then my life story, Infidel. And that, that life story is really sort of the
01:32:45.520backdrop of how I come to adopt the views that I now have. So Michaela, thank you very, very much
01:32:54.600for having me on. And once again, I apologize for my tardiness. Oh, don't worry about it at all.
01:33:02.500that was great thank you so much I'm just glad I got the opportunity to speak to you
01:33:06.180so so thanks again thanks again thank you thank you very much how do we bring peace to the future
01:33:13.920so how do we either like coexist or get along with all these different different arguments
01:33:19.460and different religions that we have nowadays well look Michaela the thing is the first thing
01:33:25.060we need to do is we need to eliminate aspects of the discourse which are clearly insightful
01:33:31.760I'm not saying through a culture of censoriousness and blocking free speech or anything.