Watch our conversation here or listen here.

Yasmine (@YasMohammedxx & yasminemohammed.com) is a rights activist, advocating for the rights of women living within Islamic majority countries. Yasmine founded the charity Free Hearts Free Minds. 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.” In addition to the YouTube video the audio is also on our Podcast – subscribe here on Apple​​​​ & here on all the other platforms​​​​​.

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”
  8:51 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?'”
  16:00 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
  32:00 What matters?
• Relativism, nihilism
• “The long straight path – a tightrope over the burning fires of hell”
• “The fear messes you up… it’s in your psyche”
• “We only need one book” The reassuring simplicity of religious ethics
• After leaving Islam “I had to build myself”
• Infant circumcision/genital mutilation
• Compassion in religion is genuine, but often conditional & constrained.
• The weird feeling of extending compassion beyond the Muslim Ummah. “It expanded my heart & mind in a way that was really beautiful”
  48:44 Non-human sentients matter too
• Islam says animals are made for humans. Humans aren’t seen as animals
• 4-5 yr old daughter: “how many chickens did you kill?”
• Going vegetarian as a family
• The wonder of recognising a connection to all sentients
  54:42 The parallels between religion & animal consumption
• My daughter is the sort of child I could have been if my brain hadn’t been stifled
• Why many secular moral thinkers have a blindspot re: animal ethics
  01:01:55 The Future
• Many in religious communities don’t believe, but can’t speak out
• Death penalty for apostasy/homophobia
• Helping people trapped in religious communities
• Why culture/religion/tradition blocks “western” compassion for millions of oppressed people
• Does “the west” really think they invented feminism & liberalism & humanism in the enlightenment?
• How “the west” patronises by holding back from judging harmful ethics, buying in to “us & them” separation
• “Why would any free woman want to cover themselves in black?”
• Universal compassion rejects all tribalism (right/left, religious/secular)
• Resisting radical Islam w/out allying w/the authoritarian Xtian right
• “I’m incredibly optimistic” because I was deep in that darkness & was able to leave & watch my daughters flourish.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info​​​​​​​​​​​​​. Join our “I’m a Sentientist wall” using this simple form​.

​Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Our biggest so far is here on FaceBook​.

Thanks, Graham for the post-production! Follow him at @cgbessellieu.