Unveiled Quotes

“The Muslim world has been shielded from criticism for so long. How will progress ever happen if criticism is considered bigotry? ... Are Muslims not entitled to go through enlightenment and reform just as Christians have? Didn't that happen because of people criticizing the Church? Didn't that criticism eventually lead to the separation of Church and state? How can that happen in the Muslim world when there are people with this patriarchal attitude shielding Muslims from progress?”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“Many years later when I got involved in activism, I noticed a very common thread. A lot of us girls had been psychologically abused by our mothers. A [Muslim] woman who has no control over her life craves control. There are very few outlets where that control is acceptable. In her immediate family, she cannot exert control over her husband or her son, but her daughter is fair game. All of her aggression and frustration are released in that one direction.

Since, according to Hadith, Heaven is at the feet of mothers, mothers will get to determine if their children will burn in Hell for eternity or not. That is a lot of power to wield over a child. That power can have tragic results in the hands of an abusive mother. She can abuse the status and use it to control and manipulate. You must be an obedient slave to get her affection, support, approval, and, most importantly, to get into Heaven one day. She can revoke her 'blessing' at any point, keeping you in line for perpetuity.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“Western women may well be recognized as equals of men, but in many parts of the world, brave suffragettes, counterparts to Susan B. Anthony, are still fiercely fighting for their equality.
A deep disconnect exists between the feminists in the Western countries and the feminists in the Muslim-majority countries. ...
I don't have to refer to a history book to find women who are risking their lives to fight societies that view women as second-class citizens. I interact with them everyday. Yet, tragically, most prominent Western feminists are not standing alongside me and these brave freedom-fighting women.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“From my perspective, it was unforgivable...to deflect criticism of this ideology that has caused so much suffering in the world. Generally, no one in the West cares if Muslim women were being imprisoned or killed in Iran and Saudi Arabia for not covering their hair. No one cared that bloggers in Bangladesh were being hacked to death in the streets because they dared write about humanism. No one cared if university students were beaten to death in Pakistan for questioning Islam. ...
I remember feeling that I wanted to speak out. I wanted to shout and scream out. ... However, I was also terrified.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“We accept and willingly support the subjugation of our sisters to the East, even though we would never accept that for ourselves or our sisters in the West. Here, we demand that women be able to "free the nipple," but we support those in the East who demand that women "cover their head."
It is devastating to see this disconnect. ... As much as women in the Muslim world are fighting back, we will only succeed if we work together. Women in the East must work together, and women in the West--please reach back your hand and pull women in the East up the road to equality with you.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“Women who get arrested and disappear because they dare to take a scarf off their head in Iran. Women who are arrested and disappear because they drive a car in Saudi Arabia. Women who are arrested or killed for showing their face and hair on social media in Pakistan or Iraq. Those brave women exist all around us, and they want nothing more than to be supported by feminists in the West.
... The free West, where these brave girls used to look to as beacons of light and hope, is supporting their oppressors and ultimately fighting against their progress. In Saudi Arabia, women are burning their niqabs. In Iran, women tie their hijabs on sticks and sway them silently, defiantly in the streets as they are arrested in droves. In the West, we put a Nike swoosh on hijabs.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“In Pakistan and Iran, calls to raise the legal age of marriage are shot down as un-Islamic. Nearly every two seconds a girl under eighteen is married. ... Many Muslim-majority countries have enacted the marry-your-rapist law, which stipulates that if a girl is raped, she must marry her rapist because no one else will want her. She is used goods, her seal has been broken.
It is important to remember that these ideas travel across borders. People with this mind-set do not magically change their minds when they move to another country. Girls all over the world are subjected to the same dehumanization, even if it is not the law in the new country they reside in. That is why it is essential for Western countries to protect their young girl citizens from the barbaric and archaic families and communities that engage in such atrocities.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“The Dean of my faculty called me down to his office to ask me if I had dealt with any backlash [because of 9/11]. Muslims has just killed thousands of Americans, and his first concern was that no one was making feel uncomfortable. Oh Canada! If you only knew what you were dealing with and how strange your concern seemed to me. No, no one had made me feel uncomfortable. In fact, they were going out of their way to make sure that I was always comfortable. I felt like asking the Dean, "Seriously, are you *kidding* me? We're calling for your death, and you're concerned that our feelings might be hurt?"

It was nauseating and condescending, to be honest. I was not a special little snowflake that needed extra attention because people who shared the same religion as me were murderers. The whole thing was ridiculous. The immediate concern should be dealing with the trauma of all our lives being different now, and that there was no going back. We could no longer feel safe. The heart of our world had just been attacked. Everyone was struggling to make sense of it. Everyone was in a state of shock.

I resented being connected to those monsters in any way. I hated that this fucking cloth on my head made me look like I was complicit in that shit. I was just as terrified of the terrorists as everyone else. My life was as shaken up as everyone else's. My heart broke for all the victims, just like everyone else's.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“Many feminists in the Western world are afraid that by supporting their fellow sisters, someone might misconstrue that as ethnocentrism or racism. And even worse than just ignoring them, at times Western corporations actively support the very things that these brave women fight against. The 2019 swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated featured a burkini. And most egregious, the poster for the Women's March depicts a woman in hijab. ...
How can we fight patriarchy while simultaneously supporting Islamic patriarchy? ... People in Muslim majority countries are just trying to progress their culture in thee same way Western culture have. You have been able to abolish slavery. You have been able to fight for women's equality. We just want to do the same.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“My daydream of being adopted or escaping turned to nightmares where I would stab him and slice off his penis, and I enjoyed it. The dreams terrorized me with their viciousness and brutality, but they also calmed me. I felt at peace watching his blood flow. Not a night passed that I wasn't haunted by those dreams. But how could someone feel so happy and serene at the sight of another person bleeding to death? I felt like a monster. I hated that I was so vicious, and I was angry at myself for feeling such relief wash over me as I had those wicked thoughts.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“Why wasn't our mom stopping him? ... She was all I had to protect me, but she was nothing like Wonder Woman on TV. I understood in that moment that she would never stand up for me. She would never defend me from his beatings.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“There was no outlet. ... I kept my sordid secrets to myself. My life is not politically correct. I do not fit the preferred narrative. My life story is an uncomfortable truth, and people much prefer their comfortable lies.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“A deep disconnect exists between the feminists in the Western countries and the feminists in the Muslim-majority countries. Growing up as a first-generation Canadian in a fundamentalist Muslim family, I spent a lot of time being caught between those two worlds. At home I was taught that from the time I was nine years old, I needed to wear a hijab to protect myself from men who wanted to molest me. From my society, I learned that this is called victim blaming. At home I was taught that good, pure, clean girls wore hijab, and filthy, loose, despicable girls did not. From my society, I learned that was called slut shaming.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“The thing about being Muslim is that you are taught to ignore your gut feelings. Those feelings are usually attributed to the devil. It's the devil whispering in your ear and making you feel that way. So you learn to ignore your evil gut feelings and just do as you're told. You are told that those around you are smarter and more experienced than you. It's not like you trust your own ability to make decisions, anyway--it's a skill that is never encouraged or actively developed.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“It is sad to see that there remains this pervasive idea that Muslims all share a culture. No. They do not. They each have distinct cultures that have just been shrouded by Islam in the same way each individual girl's personality gets shrouded by hijab so that they all start looking the same.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“Both Islamists and jihadis have the same goal--to spread Islam, but they have different methods. Islamists want to do this through passive means such as politics, immigration, and childbirth. However, jihadis prefer the method used by the first Muslims: the sword.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“One of us would clear ad wipe the table, another would wash the dishes, and the third would rinse. We were being trained to be good wives. ... It was part of the training, though. To be a girl in a Muslim household has to be a fate worse than Hell. You are taught to be ashamed of everything you do, everything you are.
"Don't laugh like that. You're a girl!"
"Don't sit like that. You're a girl!"
"Lower your voice. You're a girl!"
"Lower your eyes. You're a girl!"
Girls are not ever allowed to look a man in the eyes. We have to keep our heads lowered like a dog to be reminded of our place as lesser than. It was endless. The word for shame was snapped at me in a loud whisper thousands of times throughout my childhood. "Eib! Eib!" It was the only word I heard more often than haram.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند

“...this book is for my fellow warriors. My fellow ex-Muslims, my fellow atheists, my fellow freethinkers, and my fellow troublemakers.”
― Yasmine Mohammed, بی‌حجاب: چگونه لیبرال‌های غرب بر آتش اسلام‌گرایی رادیکال می‌دمند