Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the founder of the AHA Foundation and editor-in-chief of Restoring the West, and one of the most prominent voices on law, liberty, and the defense of Western civilization.
In this conversation, Ayaan lays out exactly why treating Islamist societies as identically beneficial to Western ones isn’t compassionate, democratic, smart, or even trendy—it is actually culturally suicidal. As someone who grew under Islamist rule, she argues that Western traditions of religious, civil, and political liberties are uniquely better to create and sustain human flourishing.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
RtW: What are the primary differences between the Western tradition of civil law and the civil law in Islamic societies?
AHA: Islamic society derives its laws from Islam. The main Islamic texts are the Quran, the Prophet’s biography, and the Hadith. Western civic law, by contrast, is rooted in what remains of Greek and Roman thought, and over a long period of time, in Christianity. Western civic law, therefore, is biblical at its core.
The Christian West arrived at its national constitutions by affirming liberty and freedom, then, using the law, developed and established institutions that safeguard that liberty. Our renowned system of checks and balances is derived from the principle that we cannot have an absolute ruler, as the Bible teaches. Only God is the King of Kings. Neither our kings nor our presidents have absolute powers—God alone does.
The existing checks and balances stem from the idea that, even though human beings are allowed to make their own laws, no one can place themselves above the rest of us and assume absolute power.
The Christian law system is at stark odds with Islam, where you have a supreme leader on earth like the caliphate or the Islamic Republic. The supreme leader for the Shia, the caliph for the Sunnis—they’re regarded as deputies of God. In Islamic law, the supreme leader can have absolute power because they place themselves on God’s throne. Under Islam, leaders govern in God’s name, whereas in the Christian West, God remains (and never was anything but) the supreme leader. Additionally, in the West, there is a very clear separation of church and state. The state cannot assume absolute power on the one hand, and on the other hand, it must be able to explain and justify those restraints and constraints if it is to compromise an individual’s liberties.
Read the full interview here.