Key Points:
In a February 2, 2026 interview, Ayaan Hirsi Ali rejected the idea of Islam as a peaceful religion, calling it a “religion of conquest.”
Former Australian deputy prime minister John Anderson highlighted the common distinction made between moderate Islam and extremist Islam.
She cited the actions of ISIS in 2014 as examples of extremist groups drawing justification from Islamic texts and early history.
Islam is a religion based on the teachings of Muhammad and has an estimated following of around 2 billion people today. There has long been a debate over whether the religion, which has spread over more than 1,400 years, is one of the sword or of the pen.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former politician and conservative thinker, weighed in on this ongoing debate in an interview dated February 2, 2026, with former Australian deputy prime minister John Anderson.
There are numerous narratives about Islam, one of them is Islam, the second most-followed religion after Christianity, advocates a peaceful world. In the Quran, God refers to the “home of peace,” calling on mankind to create a peaceful world in order to attain eternal peace.
One narrative speaks of peace for humanity in the ultimate end, while there are other narratives also about Islam that it does not advocate peace. Ayaan Hirsi Ali often talks about this later aspect of Islam. In a discussion with Anderson, Hirsi presents a contrasting view of Islam as a religion
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Anderson laid the groundwork by pointing out how Islam is often divided into two categories by people—modern Islam and extremist Islam. He said, “People are determined to draw a distinction between what they call moderate Islam, which they say is harmless and peaceful, and extremist Islam, which everyone agrees is very dangerous.”
While presenting this distinction to Hirsi, he argued that describing Islam as a peaceful religion is not a simple or an uncomplicated discussion. Hirsi responded by rejecting the claim that Islam is a religion of peace, instead stating, “Islam is a religion of conquest.”
American author Raymond Ibrahim in an Episode of Trigonometry Podcast , the word Islam is derived from an Arabic root meaning “submission”, while a Muslim is someone who “submits”. He also described the system as a closely connected web of religion, political power, and law, and argued that the spread of Islam reflects not only the expansion of belief and faith but also territorial expansion.
Hirsi traced how Islam spread globally and how its empire declined in the 20th century. She stated that the Prophet Muhammad is often remembered as a conqueror. She explained that, according to his biography, Muhammad said that God spoke to him through the angel Gabriel.
“In Mecca, he convinced his wife, he convinced his best friend,” Hirsi narrated, describing how Muhammad built a base of followers over a decade. She added, “Through the method of simply speaking and trying to persuade, without any violence, he gained a following of about 200 people over ten years.”
Hirsi then recounted how Muhammad later went to Medina, where he established a militia and eventually conquered Mecca and the people who had earlier rejected his message.
“And from there, for Islam, things went almost worldwide. Islam became an empire that fell only in 1924,” Hirsi added.
She claimed that the narrative of Muhammad as a warlord is widely known and is often repeated by Islamists who glorify his conquests. Hirsi further argued that Islamists are eager to continue what they see as Muhammad’s conquests and glorify the “treatment that Muhammad meted out to the Jews when he massacred them.”
She recalled the period in 2014 when ISIS captured parts of Syria and Iraq, stating that their acts of violence were based on Muhammad’s example as described in the Hadith and the Quran. “They started to do things that horrified us, such as beheading people and enslaving Yazidi women. They were re-enacting what they found in the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, and in the Hadith and the Quran,” she said.
Hirsi warned that this grave reality remains a concern even if people choose to close their eyes to it. “You can pretend you don’t know this for as long as you want, but that is a fact. That’s the case,” she added.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the bestselling author of Infidel (2007) and Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015). Ali, a Somali-born Dutch activist, has been a vocal critic of child marriage and female genital mutilation. She converted to Christianity in 2023, stating that atheism no longer provided her with sufficient “moral guidance.”
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