Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Journey to Christianity: From Islam Critic To Freedom Advocate
One of Christianity’s biggest champions — in a world submerged by secularism — is also new to the faith.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, author and thinker, has become best known for her outspoken views on Islam, women's rights and the societal consequences of secularism.
In fact, Hirsi Ali’s religious journey to becoming one of the most prominent critics of Islam into her recent conversion to Christianity has been shaped by personal experiences of suffering, political activism and intellectual transformation.
“In Christian doctrine, freedom is not merely political or economic — it is spiritual,” she said.
Born in Somalia, Hirsi Ali was raised in a strict Muslim home. Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was a prominent Somali dissident. Her early life was marked by hardship, including the family's escape from the civil war in Somalia when she was a child. The family sought refuge elsewhere — in Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia and later Kenya — where she subjected to a harsh culture that was strict about gender roles and expectations for women.
Hirsi Ali’s life took an important turn when she moved to the Netherlands as a refugee in 1992, seeking asylum to escape an arranged marriage. The move exposed her to a more liberal society where she encountered the freedoms that contrasted sharply with her upbringing. Hirsi Ali, 55, began her career in activism after joining the Dutch Parliament in 2003.
Hirsi Ali has become known for her strong advocacy for women's rights, particularly focusing on issues such as female genital mutilation, arranged marriages and the integration of Muslim immigrants into European society. Her political rise was accompanied by her outspoken criticism of Islam, which she condemned for its treatment of women and minorities.
This outspoken criticism put her in conflict with multiculturalists who promoted the tolerance of diverse cultural practices, even when they contradicted liberal values.
Jesus as the ‘core’
During a recent 30-minute talk in Irvine, Calif., followed by a spirited question-and-answer session, on human flourishing hosted by Fieldstead and Company, Hirsi Ali pointed out that freedom and reason in Islam are different from traditional Western perceptions.
In her talk, she discussed a variety of societal frameworks — from tribal culture and Islam to communism and Christianity — to address what freedom, reason and progress look like and how to achieve them.
Hirsi Ali told the audience that Western democracies’ “insistence on the separation of religion and state” could only result in the Christian doctrine that “we’re all equal and created through the image of God.”
“Every time we go back to the core of what Jesus said, it’s always attractive,” Hirsi Ali said, acknowledging that she’s a “newly-minted Christian.”
Hirsi Ali’s most famous work, “Infidel: My Life,” published in 2007, is an autobiographical account that retraced her painful experiences of life in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya, along with her conversion from Islam to atheism. The book was both celebrated and reviled, with many praising her courage to speak out against a religion she saw as backward and incompatible with democratic values, while others accused her of Islamophobia.
But Hirsi Ali argued that the Enlightenment ideals of reason and individual rights could provide a more humane — and just alternative — to religious dogma, particularly for women in Muslim-majority nations.
One of the most controversial chapter of her life began after the murder of her colleague Theo van Gogh in 2004. Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker, was killed by a radical Islamist for producing a short film, “Submission,” which criticized the mistreatment of Muslim women.
Hirsi Ali, who had collaborated with on the film, was placed under constant threat. Her life was further endangered as a result of her vocal criticism of Islam, which led to her needing bodyguards and eventually moved to the United States.
Over time, Hirsi Ali said she felt “spiritually bankrupt” and started taking Antidepressants and seeing psychologists.
“I felt damned. I was in despair,” she said, adding that faith helped her from the “firehouse of thoughts that colonized her brain.”
Turning to prayer
As a result, Hirsi Ali turned to prayer and announced in 2023 that she had converted to Christianity.
“I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity,” she wrote in an essay published by the British website Unherd. “I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognized, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer.”
Over the past year, Hirsi Ali has used her conversion and position as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution to promote free speech.
“There is no separation of reason and faith,” she said of Islam. “For that matter, there is no reason between politics and faith. … Freedom in the Quran, and freedom according to Muhammed, is to worship without asking questions.”
Hirsi Ali added, “If we all bow down to Islam, where does that take us? It takes is to life after death. It’s the final goal. It’s God’s plan. And it’s eternal. So that is freedom. That’s where progress takes us.”
Instead, what Hirsi Ali has found more appealing about Christianity — fueled by the First Amendment in the American context — is the ability to be a critical thinker.
“I think critical thinking would have shortened by path to Christianity,” she said.
Hirsi Ali ended her talk on a positive note, saying that the 21st century would see a “rebirth” in Judeo-Christian morality that would lead to human flourishing.
“This is not to become Bible-thumping religious zealots. … What I mean is a reflection of what made this civilization so exceptional and so great,” she said.
Fieldstead and Company is a donor to The Media Project and Religion Unplugged.
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.