Citizen Warrior:

Is Ayaan Hirsi Ali a racist? She was born in Somalia, from which she escaped to avoid an arranged marriage, and she eventually became a member of Parliament in the Netherlands. She helped produce a film with Theo Van Gogh which criticized Islam’s treatment of women. Van Gogh was shot to death by a Muslim in retaliation, and a note was pinned to his chest with a knife — a note that threatened Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She made her way to the United States, and has since written two books critical of Islam: Infidel and Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations.

Is Wafa Sultan a racist? She was born and raised in Syria, and was trained as a psychiatrist. On February 21, 2006, she took part in an Al Jazeera discussion program, arguing with the hosts about Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations theory. A six-minute composite video of her response was widely circulated on blogs and through email. The New York Times estimated it was seen at least one million times. In the video she criticized Muslims for treating non-Muslims differently, and for not recognizing the accomplishments of Jews and other non-Muslims. The video was the most-discussed video of all time with over 260,000 comments on YouTube.

Is Ibn Warraq a racist? Warraq was born in India to Muslim parents who migrated to Pakistan after the partitioning of British Indian Empire. Warraq founded the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society. He is a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. Warraq is the author of seven books, including Why I Am Not a Muslim and Leaving Islam. He has spoken at the United Nations “Victims of Jihad” conference organized by the International Humanist and Ethical Union alongside speakers such as Bat Ye’or, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Simon Deng.

Is Tapan Ghosh a racist? The president of Hindu Samhati, he speaks all over India and the United States about the ongoing Islamic invasion of West Bengal. In an article about him, a correspondent wrote, “A life of 25 years of relentless service has strengthened the resolve of Tapan Ghosh to unite Hindu masses to fight against injustice and the oppressive attitude of the authorities in the face of ever-increasing Islamist aggression.” Ghosh said, “As someone who has suffered enormously from the Islamist onslaught in eastern India, both after the partition of India as well as the partition of erstwhile Pakistan to form Bangladesh, Islamic terrorism has deeply affected my life and the life of millions in the Indian subcontinent. The horrific events of 1971 where nearly 3 million Bengalis, mostly Hindus were exterminated by the Pakistani military regime left an everlasting impression on me. Since then, I have worked relentlessly for the service and upliftment of people reeling under the scourge of radical Islam.”

Is Seyran Ates a racist? Born in Turkey of Kurdish parents, and now working as a lawyer in Germany, Atest is highly critical of an immigrant Muslim society that is often more orthodox than its counterpart in Turkey, and her criticisms have put her at risk. Her book, “Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution,” was scheduled for publication in Germany in 2009. In an interview in January 2008 on National Public Radio, Ates stated that she was in hiding and would not be working on Muslim women’s behalf publicly (including in court) due to the threats against her. Ates is the author of the article, Human Rights Before Religion: Have we forgotten to protect women in our bid to accommodate practices carried out in the name of Islam?

Is Francis Bok a racist? Francis Piol Bol Bok, born in Sudan, was a slave for ten years but is now an abolitionist and author living in the United States. On May 15, 1986, Bok was captured and enslaved at age seven during an Islamic militia raid on the village of Nymlal. Slavery is a standard feature of orthodox Islam. Bok lived in bondage for ten years before escaping imprisonment in Kurdufan, followed by a journey to the United States by way of Cairo, Egypt. Read more of his story here. Bok’s autobiography, Escape from Slavery, chronicles his life from his early youth and his years in captivity, to his work in the United States as an abolitionist.

Is  Nonie Darwish a racist? Now an American, she grew up a Muslim in Egypt,  the daughter of an Egyptian general whose family was part of President  Nasser’s inner circle. Darwish founded Former Muslims United  with Ibn Warraq, an organization dedicated, in part, to helping Muslims  reject the inherent intolerance, violence, and supremacism in their  doctrine. Darwish is the author of two books critical of Islam, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, and Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. And she is an outspoken critic of Sharia law.

Is  Brigitte Gabriel a racist? She’s an Arab, born in Lebanon. Gabriel watched her country become an Islamic state. Lebanon was a Christian country and “the jewel of the Middle East” when she was young. But the Muslims in Lebanon, supported by Syria and Iran, slowly became more militant until they turned the country into a war zone. She made her way to America only to find, to her horror, the Muslim Brotherhood here in her newly adopted country, going down the same road. She decided to warn her fellow Americans about the dire results you can expect from appeasing orthodox Muslims, so she founded  ACT! for America, a grassroots organization dedicated to educating the public about Islam’s prime directive. Gabriel is the author of two books, They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It, and Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.

Is Mark Gabriel a racist? Born in Egypt, he became an Islamic scholar in the Muslim world’s most prestigious university. Early fears by relatives that Gabriel would grow up a Christian because he had been breastfed by a Christian woman resulted in him being given a thorough Islamic education. So he grew up immersed in Islamic culture and was sent to Al Azhar school at the age of six. By the time Gabriel was twelve years old he had memorized the Quran completely. After graduating from Al-Azhar University with a Master’s degree, he was offered a position as a lecturer at the university. During his research, which involved travel to Eastern and Western countries, Gabriel became more distant from Islam, finding its history, “from its commencement to date, to be filled with violence and bloodshed without any worthwhile ideology or sense of decency. I asked myself ‘What religion would condone such destruction of human life?’ Based on that, I began to see that the Muslim people and their leaders were perpetrators of violence.” On hearing that Gabriel had “forsaken Islamic teachings” the authorities of Al Azhar expelled him from the University on 17 December, 1991 and asked for him to be released from the post of Imam in the mosque of Amas Ebn Malek in Giza city. The Egyptian secret police then seized Gabriel and placed him in a cell without food and water for three days, after which he was tortured and interrogated for four days before being transferred to Calipha prison in Cairo and released without charge a week later. He escaped Egypt and has since written several books, including, Islam and Terrorism.

Is Walid Shoebat a racist? He’s a Palestinian immigrant to the United States  and a former PLO militant. Shoebat was born in  Bethlehem, the grandson of the Mukhtar of Beit Sahour, an associate of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.  In 1993, Shoebat converted to Christianity after studying the  Jewish Bible for six months in response to a challenge from his wife,  initially trying to persuade her to convert to Islam. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Shoebat began to criticize Islam publicly. He has appeared on mainstream media around the world and has been an expert witness on a number of documentaries on orthodox Islam. Shoebat argues that parallels exist between radical Islam and Nazism. He says, “Secular dogma like Nazism is less dangerous than Islamofascism that we see today…because Islamofascism has a religious twist to it; it says ‘God the Almighty ordered you to do this’…It is trying to grow itself in fifty-five Muslim states. So potentially, you could have a success rate of several Nazi Germanys, if these people get their way.”

Read more