Ayaan Hirsi Ali: ‘Islam Is Not a Religion of Peace’

RADDATZ: "I want to start with you, Ayaan. Your argument is that it’s foolish to insist as our leaders habitually do, you write, that the violent acts of radical Islamists can be divorced from the religious ideals that inspire them, Islam, Islam is not a religion of peace."
ALI: "Islam (INAUDIBLE) today is not a religion of peace. And in the book I make a distinction between let’s say three sets of Muslims —(CROSSTALK) --- The Medina Muslims, the Mecca Muslims and the dissidents who wants to reform. And the Medina Muslims are those Muslims who apply anything and everything that the Prophet Muhammad did after he emigrated to Medina and they apply the Quran literally. So it’s groups like ISIS, the Taliban, et cetera. But there’s a huge group of Muslims — I think they are the largest number — who I call them Mecca Muslims, who (INAUDIBLE) practice only the peaceful parts of their religion. And then there are those who want to reform the religion, the reformists of the heretics. And it’s extremely important today for the Medina Muslims to lose. We want the dissidents to convince the Mecca Muslims that large contingents of people to reform their religion from within."
RADDATZ: "Should she really be the voice for that?"
ALI: "I think that — "
RADDATZ: "You’re not a believer anymore."
ALI: "All of us who are born into Islam, the minute we start to criticize a religion from within, we’re labeled heretics, apostates; we’re condemned to death. And I think change is not going to come from the clerics. Change is going to come from the heretics. That’s why I’m speaking out."