Yasmine (https://twitter.com/YasMohammedxx & https://www.yasminemohammed.com/) is a rights activist, advocating for the rights of women living within Islamic majority countries. Yasmine founded Free Hearts Free Minds (https://www.freeheartsfreeminds.com/). Her book, Unveiled, recalls her experiences growing up in a fundamentalist Islamic household & her arranged marriage to a member of Al-Qaeda.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

- Growing up in a fundamentalist Muslim household in Canada, attending Islamic school, being dressed in hijab & niqab

- Being forced into marriage with an Al Qaeda member (now in prison in Egypt), considered "strong enough to control me"

- Questioning things from a young age

- The isolation of some religious communities even in secular states

- Having a daughter & that being a catalyst for change

- Escaping from husband & family

- Going to university & learning about religions. The intoxication of being allowed to question

- "I've been wasting my whole life terrified of a figment of the imagination of some ancient man"

- "You spend so much of your life ruled by a fairy tale"

- What's real? Believing in Islam

- "It's embarrassing to admit I really did believe these things"

- "You're indoctrinated from birth... & punished for questioning"

- "You believe or you burn in hell"

- "Every aspect of your life is laid out... Questioning is challenging god himself. So you must submit"

- The life of Mohammed. The Quran as the word of god

- "You don't think 'is this a good thing to do?' you think 'is this the correct thing to do?'"

- What's real? Leaving Islam

- Taking off the hijab & being told "you need to be killed before you leave Islam" by her mother, "I will be punished for eternity for having a daughter who is an infidel"

- How a Jehovah's Witness mother might allow their child to die rather than allow a blood transfusion

- Abraham's willingness to kill his own son

- "Honour killings" (murders)

- Religious compliance as above "ordinary morality"

- Studying religion, seeing 9/11 happen & being horrified

- Seeing a BBC reporter find Bin-Laden documents mentioning Yas' ex-husband's firm

- "I needed to get my daughter out of that world before she started to think that was OK"

- Hints of fundamentalism in the atheist movement

- Appearing in Jay Shapiro's film "Islam & the future of tolerance" w/Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz

- "Meditation saved my life"

- Humility & open-mindedness at the heart of naturalism

- And more... (see YouTube for full notes)

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ w/this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.