35: Ex-Muslim Yasmine Mohammed - #FreeFromHijab and why liberals treat Islam differently

I’m delighted to welcome onto the show the pre-eminent human rights activist and ex-Muslim Yasmine Mohammed. She’s the creator of the #FreeFromHijab hashtag and the founder of the Free Hearts Free Minds organisation that helps ex-Muslims transition out of Islam, a little like what Episode 3’s guest Emily Green does for Orthodox Jews. Links to her website, as well as her book Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam and her social media pages, in the show notes. Yasmine Links: Free Hearts Free Minds Organisation: www.freeheartsfreeminds.com Yas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/YasMohammedxx Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam: https://www.waterstones.com/book/unveiled/yasmine-mohammed/9781999240530 Andrew Links: Twitter: http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok Patreon: http://patreon.com/andrewgold Insta: http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok Website: http://andrewgoldpodcast.com As you’ll hear, I mention Hasidic Judaism and Catholicism a few times in the discussion, partly as a reminder that the podcast isn’t picking on Islam in particular. We’ve already done episodes with former members of the Hasidic Jews, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Westboro Baptist Church. And yet, Yasmine will point out a few places where Islam is unique, not only its own characteristics, but how it is perceived and, in her mind, given a free ride, by the liberal western media. Yasmine is a Canadian professor and member of the Center for Inquiry, who has also been interviewed by esteemed speakers Seth Andrews and Sam Harris, who we talk about a lot towards the end of the interview. She talks about how her personal story runs parallel to that of modern Islam, in that things were more secular, and then got a whole lot more religious and oppressive very suddenly. She was forced to marry an al-Qaeda operative, before fleeing with their daughter, something unimaginably awful for most of us. We talk about the situation of Australian ex-Muslim Zara Kay, who has been arrested in Tanzania. We’ll speak about why eminent writer Salman Rushdie got the Fatwah – which was a religious call to have him killed – and why he was singled out for that treatment.  Also, at the end, we have a funny chat about Hugh Grant and Fargo that didn’t quite fit with the rest of the conversation, but stay after the de de de de at the end, as I’ll play those couple of minutes as part of the outro. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Om Podcasten

What makes you a heretic? Journalist Andrew Gold believes that, in an age of group-think and tribes, we need heretics - those who use unconventional wisdom to speak out against their own groups, from cancelled comedians and radical feminists to cult defectors and vigilantes hunting deviants. Learn from my guests how to rebel, think differently and resist social contagion. From Triggernometry's Francis Foster and the world's most cancelled man Graham Linehan to ex-Hasidic Jew Julia Haart and gender critical atheist Richard Dawkins. These are the people living with the weight of their own community's disappointment on their shoulders.