Ali A. Rizvi

Ali Amjad Rizvi (born 29 May 1975) is a Pakistani-born Canadian atheist ex-Muslim and secular humanist writer and podcaster who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith. into a "moderate to liberal Muslim family." He spent his early childhood in Libya, later moving to Saudi Arabia where he attended the American International School in Riyadh, which he describes as a school exclusively for the children of ex-pat families living in Riyadh, limiting his exposure to Saudi culture and customs. Both his parents were educated in North America, and taught at a Saudi university. Rizvi's family and other expats referred to a square in Riyadh where public beheadings took place as "Chop-chop Square". Rizvi and his parents had little understanding of the Quran nor the daily prayers, since these were in Arabic, a language they barely understood. Rizvi says that when he bought an English translation of the Quran one day and started reading it, he was shocked by statements about decapitating unbelievers in Islam (Quran 8:12-13), amputation of the hands of thieves (Quran 5:38) and violence against women (Quran 4:34), amongst other things. He confronted his parents with it; he claims they were equally dumbfounded. Rizvi then undertook a diligent study of the Quran and the Sunnah; this caused him first to question and eventually to lose his faith. At McMaster University he earned a Master of Science in biochemistry and later spent five years specializing in pathology at State University of New York at Buffalo.

Career As well as his formative work in oncologic pathology He has also spoken about western attempts to legislate on the wearing of the burqa and niqab,

By 2011 his writing and secular interests were taking precedence so he changed career to medical communications to be able to devote more time to writing.

In 2015 Rizvi made a special report for CNN bringing attention to the case of his friend Raif Badawi, a Saudi author and dissident imprisoned in Saudi Arabia on several charges including apostasy.

In 2017, Rizvi launched the Secular Jihadists from the Middle East podcast together with ex-Muslims Armin Navabi (Atheist Republic), Faisal Saeed Al Mutar (Global Secular Humanist Movement) and Yasmine Mohammad (Confessions of an Ex-Muslim). In January 2018, the show was renamed Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment, with Rizvi and Navabi as co-hosts, which fans can support through Patreon.

In 2018, Rizvi appeared in Islam and the Future of Tolerance, a documentary based on a conversation between Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz. In the documentary, Rizvi shares his personal experiences growing up in a Muslim-majority country.

The Atheist Muslim

Rizvi is the author of The Atheist Muslim: A Journey From Religion to Reason published by St. Martin's Press in 2016. It is a combination of personal biography and analysis of arguments in favour of rejecting Islam through "reformation; secularism; and, finally, enlightenment." and praised for presenting "Rare and intriguing arguments in the debate over Islam." The Globe and Mail described it as "passionate, timely but, ultimately, muddled plea for reform in Islam."

According to Rizvi, writing his book "would have been unthinkable about 20 years ago", recalling the outcry against Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (1988 and onwards) and the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy (2005–2006), but arguing that criticism of Islam had been largely normalised by the late 2010s.

As of April 2018, The Atheist Muslim has been translated into Indonesian and Dutch, and an Arabic version is underway.

Views

In interviews and speeches, Rizvi frequently quotes a statement from ex-Muslim activist Maryam Namazie: "The Internet is doing to Islam what the printing press did to Christianity."

Islamic terrorism itself is utterly unable to defeat the West, Rizvi argues, but if Western governments take away the Enlightened values and civil liberties to appease paranoid citizens' sense of security, "that's how they [the terrorists] will win."

Personal life

Rizvi plays guitar in the rock band Dead Shyre with his brother Zameer Rizvi.

Rizvi has said that he and his ex-wife would regularly receive death threats from Muslim fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, and members of the far-right, mostly from people outside Canada.