After this, she read Benedict Spinoza, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Mill, Voltaire, Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper.

In Aug 2004, the film Submission, written by Ali and directed by Theo van Gogh (1957-2004), was released on Dutch television, wherein the sub-human treatment of woman in Islamic cultures, justified by the Quran, was criticized; three months later van Gogh was stabbed to death, and to his body was affixed a note stating that "Ali will be next".

On 29 Aug 2004, Ali's 10-minute film Submission (Ѻ) was aired on the Dutch public broadcasting network — done while working with writer and director Theo van Gogh (1957-2004) (Ѻ), wherein she wrote the script and provided the voiceover — which criticized the treatment of women in Islamic society, wherein scenes of actresses portraying Muslim women suffering abuse, dressed in a semi-transparent burqa were shown with texts from the Quran, written on the skin, interpreted as justifying the subjugation of Muslim women. After the film's release, both Ali and van Gogh received death threats.

On 2 Nov 2004, van Gogh, while biking to work at 9AM, was shot 8 times, semi-decapitated, stabbed in the chest, by a 26-year-old Mohammed Bouyeri, a radical Dutch Sunni, to which a note was affixed to his body stating that Ali would be next.

In 2007, Ali was forced to leave Holland and go to America, because the Danish government said the show was costing to much, a reference to the cost to protect her.

Muslim angels | Christian angels
In 2001, Ali amid her discussion of her 10-year deconversion from Muslim to openly secular to internally atheist, engaged in dialogue (pg. 274) with Abshir, a young Somalian imam, about to undergo heart surgery, on the difference between the two types of angels, Muslim angel vs Christian angel:

Ali: “If I’m questioning the holiness of the Quran, that means I also question the existence of hell and heaven.”
Abshir: “That’s impossible.”

Ali: “It’s not just that. All these angles and djinns—I may be very underdeveloped in my understanding of the exact sciences, but I still see no proof of their existence.”
Abshir: [no comment]

Ali: “Abshir, looking at the paintings here in the west, are these the angels, beings in white dresses with chubby cheeks?”
Abshir: “No, Muslim angels are totally different. They don’t have wings!”

Ali also gives the following background story (pg. 313) on the fall of Satan in respect to what this has to do with “submission” and why Muslims tend to never question the word of Allah:

“The Quran tells a vivid story about how Satan was expelled from the realm of angels after Allah created Adam. Allah ordered all the angels to bow to Adam, but Satan refused to obey. He talked back to Allah: Why should he, an elevated angel, bout down to creature mad of mud? Allah threw Satan out of paradise, and from then on Satan has tried to lure Adam and his offspring from the ‘straight path’. For a human to doubt any of Allah’s rules is to fall into Satan’s clutches.”

Another point she brings up is that Muslims are taught that, throughout their days, one angel sits on their left shoulder recording their sins, while another angel sits on their right shoulder recording their good deeds, and who she carried this belief with her into her 30s, prior to her deconversion.

Quotes | On

— Ayaan Ali (2017), “Interview with Islamic SJW Apologist” (time), response to are you are you Islamophobic? Are you anti-Semitic?, Apr 1

“If I fall down dead right now, then at least I’ve seen the world.”

— Ayaan Ali (1991), Infidel (pg. 193); on her 6 Aug Dutch immigration Service interview, amid her escape to Holland, where she picked a new name, and cut ties with her old world

“Look at how many Voltaires the west has. Don’t deny us the right to have our Voltaire, too. Look at our women, and look at our countries. Look at how we are all fleeing and asking for refuge here, and how people are now flying planes into buildings in their madness. Allow us a Voltaire, because we are truly living in the Dark Ages.”

— Ayaan Ali (2001), opinion voiced at the debate “The West or Islam: Who Needs a Voltaire?”, The Balie debate house, Amsterdam, Nov [1]

“It’s my religion too, and if I want to call it backwards I will do so. Yes, Islam is backwards!”

— Ayaan Ali (2002), Dutch TV debate, Aug [1]

“Islam is like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.”

— Ayaan Ali (2002), Dutch TV program about women in Islam, Aug; in Infidel (pgs. 285-86)

“In Saudi Arabia, everything bad was the fault of the Jews. When the air conditioner broke or suddenly the tap stopped running, the Saudi women next door used to say the Jews did it. The children next door were taught to pray for the health of their parents and the destruction of the Jews. Later, when we went to school, our teachers lamented at length of all the evil things the Jews had done and planned to do against Muslims. When they were gossiping, the women next door used to say, ‘she’s ugly, she’s disobedient, she’s a *****—she’s sleeping with a Jew.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 47)

“Some time after we moved to Riyadh we started school, real school, in the morning and Quran school in the afternoon. But real school in Saudi Arabia was just like madrassah. We studied only Arabic, math, and the Quran, and the Quran must have taken up four-fifths of our time.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 49)

“In Saudi Arabia, everything bad was the fault of the Jews. When the air conditioner broke or suddenly the tap stopped running, the Saudi women next door used to say the Jews did it. The children next door were taught to pray for the health of their parents and the destruction of the Jews. Later, when we went to school, our teachers lamented at length of all the evil things the Jews had done and planned to do against Muslims. When they were gossiping, the women next door used to say, ‘she’s ugly, she’s disobedient, she’s a *****—she’s sleeping with a Jew.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 47)

“People had contested the whole basis of the idea of God's power on earth, and they had done it with reasoning that was beautiful and compelling. Darwin said creation stories were a fairy tale. Freud said we had power over ourselves. Spinoza said there were no miracles, no angels, no need to pray to anything outside ourselves: God was us, and nature. Emil Durkheim said humans fantasized religion to give themselves a sense of security. I read all this, and then had to try to stuff it all behind the little shutter in my brain.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 239); reflection on her 1995 deconversion readings

“Dutch society worked without reference to god, and it seemed to function perfectly. This man-made system of government was so much more stable, peaceful, prosperous, and happy than the supposedly god-devised systems I had been brought up to respect.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 240)

“I was enamored with the idea that you should think precisely and question everything and build your own theories.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 248); on reading western books

“Bin Laden's quotes from the Quran resonated in my brain: "When you meet the unbelievers, strike them in the neck." "If you do not go out and fight, God will punish you severely and put others in your place." "Wherever you find the polytheists, kill them, seize them, besiege them, ambush them." "You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as friends; they are allies only to each other. Anyone who takes them as an ally becomes one of them. " Bin Laden quoted the hadith: "the hour of judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them".”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. 271); reflection on hearing Osama Bin Laden’s videos on CNN and Al-Jazeera, following 9/11

“It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.”

— Ayaan Ali (2007), Infidel (pg. #309)

“I read Alexis de Tocqueville [RGM:322|1,300+] (Democracy in America, 1840) (Ѻ), and I read about democracy, and I lived in countries that had no democracies, that had no founding fathers, so I don’t find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom, because you do not know what it is not to have freedom.”

— Ayaan Ali (2017), “Interview with Islamic SJW Apologist” (6:57-7:16) (Ѻ), Apr 1

“There’s no Islamophobia. It’s a myth.”

— Ayaan Ali (2017), “Interview with Islamic SJW Apologist” (3:56-58) (Ѻ), Apr 1