Why Yasmine Mohammed Is Speaking out Against Islam

“What I was not prepared for was the tsunami of just hate and pushback and disdain that would come from people I thought were my people: people that believed in enlightenment values, Western values, and liberal values.”

Yasmine Mohammed released her memoir Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam on September 25th. The book documents her life, having been raised in “a fundamentalist Islamic household” to her being pressured into a marriage with a member of Al-Qaeda to her decision to leave Islam and begin speaking out against the treatment of women under the religion, both in Muslim-majority countries and in the West. Ms. Mohammed has become a frequent commentator on Islam’s relationship with the West, particularly in Canada where she lives and works. In this interview, Ms. Mohammed joins Merion West’s Erich Prince to discuss the pushback she has received from both fundamentalist Muslims and, in almost equal share, those who identify with the Western left, how the text of the Quran (such as passage 4:34) states that men are in charge of women and can strike them, and the murder of Canadian teenager Aqsa Parvez for removing her hijab. This is part one of two of their conversation.

Yasmine, glad to speak with you. I just finished your book and look forward to discussing it with you. Perhaps we should start, first, with the newsletter I received from you indicating that Amazon is flagging your book’s content as too controversial for its advertising program.

Yes—which is funny because what book isn’t controversial? I mean, how did they make that determination? How boring would the book be if there were no controversy in it? So it is upsetting to me to be deemed “too controversial” for Amazon to advertise my book—as if I’m saying something so hateful and so beyond what should be allowed [to be said] in civilized discourse. And that’s why I brought up the fact that they show Mein Kampf on their website. I don’t know what lines they’re drawing and how they determine what is too controversial for them and what isn’t.