Muslim born Ayaan Hirsi Ali abandons atheism, becomes Christian

UPDATE: Dinesh D'Souza discusses this here

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an interesting person originally from Somalia – at the age of five she suffered female genital mutilation. She is married to the historian Niall Ferguson. I had heard of her – she was interviewed I think by Laura Ingraham a couple of years ago.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a longtime critic of Islam and for years an outspoken atheist, said this week that she is “now a Christian,” stating she came to the religion both as part of a spiritual journey and as a response to the “nihilistic vacuum” of the modern world.

Hirsi Ali has long been a prominent critic of Islam. As a young girl growing up in Somalia, she suffered female genital mutilation in Somalia and in 2002 renounced her Muslim faith and declared herself an atheist. In the years since she has been a vocal critic of what she sees as extremist violence and intolerance from many Muslims. 

In an essay published Monday on the British website UnHerd, she said that although she identified as an atheist for over two decades, she now considers herself a member of the Christian religion. 

She wrote that she turned to Christianity in part “because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable — indeed very nearly self-destructive.” 

Her whole essay ( takes ten minutes to read) is also here – Why I am now a Christian  – it almost seems that she's become a Christian for sociological reasons – but see the 2 excerpts below – she admits she has a lot to learn about Christianity.

In 2002, I discovered a 1927 lecture by Bertrand Russell entitled “Why I am Not a Christian”. It did not cross my mind, as I read it, that one day, nearly a century after he delivered it to the South London branch of the National Secular Society, I would be compelled to write an essay with precisely the opposite title.

…Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognised, 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.