Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Conversation with Diane Rehm

Ayaan discusses Islam, extremism, and the role of women on the Diane Rehm Show.

They discuss her story, including her own experience with female genital mutilation and forced marriage. When Diane asks her if she questioned her family, “Why?” after she was forced to undergo FGM, she responds, “I wish I had. I was only five years old.”

She also discusses her spiritual journey from a child in Somalia where her grandmother practiced a “tribal” Islam of “amulets” to becoming a fundamentalist under the guidance of radical preachers, to finally becoming an atheist who now considers herself a “dissident,” as discussed in her new book

Listen here: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-03-31/islam-extremism-and-the-role-of-women