The holy Ayaan

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the most controversial politicians in the Netherlands. In recent years, she was a defining voice in the debate about Islam, which catapulted her to international fame.

Last year, the American magazine Time proclaimed her one of the hundred most influential figures in the world. She believes she has a right to voice her opinions because she has an intimate knowledge of the subject and can draw on personal experience. But what is the truth about her past – of wars, her flight and forced marriage? ZEMBLA travelled to the Netherlands, Kenya, Somalia and Canada and spoke with her brother and aunt, present at her wedding. ZEMBLA met the man she married, visited the schools Ayaan attended and found a documentary from 1992 about her life as an asylum seeker. ZEMBLA also spoke with the women who first helped Ayaan in the Netherlands. None of these people have spoken publicly about  Ayaan Hirsi Ali before and they paint a very different picture of the Hirsi Ali we know. Hirsi Ali is confronted with the facts about her own life.