Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Author details

Born:
Nov. 13, 1969

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali (; Dutch: [aːˈjaːn ˈɦiːrsi ˈaːli] (listen); Somali: Ayaan Xirsi Cali: Ayān Ḥirsī 'Alī; born Ayaan Hirsi Magan, 13 November 1969) is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist and former politician. 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. She has founded an organisation for the defense of women's rights, the AHA Foundation. Ayaan Hirsi Ali works for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the American Enterprise Institute, and was a senior fellow at the Future of Democracy Project at Harvard Kennedy School.In 2003, Hirsi Ali was elected a member of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the States General of the Netherlands, representing the centre-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). A political crisis related to the validity of her Dutch citizenship, namely the accusation that she had lied on her application for political asylum, led to her resignation from parliament, and indirectly to the fall of the second Balkenende cabinet in 2006.Hirsi Ali is a former Muslim who became an atheist. In 2004, she collaborated on a short film with Theo van Gogh, titled Submission, which …

Books by Ayaan Hirsi Ali