There is much I agree with Ayaan and much I don't.

Her statment about finding justification for Bin Laden's attacks in the Qu'ran, Islamic military law, does not for example justify the killing of innocents, stealth attacks, or attacks on other faiths. Before you assume that the existence of military law within the religion means its somehow primed for conflict understand that the Prophet was a statesman and a military leader as well as a holy man, forming the relgion during turbelent times of inter-tribal conflict.

Her view of Islam is deeply rooted in the Wahhabism traditions of Saudi Arabia where she has spent most of her formative years, which spread to Somalia. PBS Frontline's House of Saud can provide background for how that came into being and what effect it has had for the development of extremism.

Its a strict interpertation of Islam that is firmly based in Sharia law and does not reflect the rest of the Islamic society across the world, as such her views have been misused by neo-conservatives to justify the clash of civilisation between democratic society and Islam as a whole. Her own stance is at occasions nearly insulting to other members of her faith.

It is just impossible to expect a religion to reform itself overnight, her stance to me at times reads like an expectation that Islam should be thrust into the 21st century schools of thought. That is impossible to do, it would more prudent to allow change to occur within the religion through reform that seeks to return to ethical and pluralistic intentions of the scripture.

There is much also to say about Saudi Arabia that stipulates submission to relgion because within that context it means submission to the rule of the Saudi royal family and their continual grip over oil resources, its not so much a issue of religion then but an issue of keeping power and control.

But I understand that her views may have be skewed more because of the horrible repression she has faced. Anyways upvote.

"does not for example justify the killing of innocents"

Ofcourse it doesnt, not by its own definition of "innocents", but who is innocent according to islamic doctrine? Is a gay person innocent? an apostate?`an infidel? a blasphemer?, an adulterer? a woman in a bikini? Of course, to a modern, liberal interpretation of Islam, I'm sure people have found room to say that all of these people are basically "innocents", but I'd really hesitate to admit that Muhammad was of this opinion.

And I'd forgive him for that, he lived in an ignorant, barbaric, tribalized time and place in the world, but that goes to show, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Islam, like all religions, is man-made.

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