"The “problem family”—people like my relatives—will become more and more common unless Western democracies understand better how to the newcomers into our societies: how to turn them into citizens. I see three main barriers to this process of integration, none of them peculiar to my family. The first is Islam’s treatment of women…. The second obstacle, which may seem trivial to some Western readers, is the difficulty many immigrants from Muslim countries have in dealing with money. Islamic attitudes toward credit and debt and the lack of education of Muslim women about financial matters means that most new immigrants arrive in the West wholly unprepared for the bewildering range of opportunities and obligations presented by a modern consumer society. The third obstacle is the socialization of the Muslim mind. All Muslims are reared to believe the Muhammad, the founder of their religion, was perfectly virtuous and that the moral strictures he left behind should never be questioned. The Quran, as “revealed” to Muhammad, is considered infallible: it is the true word of Allah, and all its commands must be obeyed without question. This makes Muslims vulnerable to indoctrination in a way that followers of other faiths are not. Moreover, the violence that is endemic in so many Muslim societies, ranging from domestic violence to the incessant celebration of holy war, adds to the difficulty of turning people from that world into Western citizens. I can sum up the three obstacles to the integration of my own family in three words: sex, money, and violence."
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Atheism activistsWomen activists from the United StatesCritics of IslamAfrican American atheistsAmerican former Muslims
Original Language: English
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Introduction (pp. xvi-xvii)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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