Islam is the second largest religion in the Netherlands, after Christianity, and is practised by 5% of the population according to 2018 estimates. The majority of Muslims in the Netherlands belong to the Sunni denomination. Many reside in the country's four major cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born, Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician. She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation.
Theodoor van Gogh was a Dutch film director. He directed Submission: Part 1, a short film written by Somali writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which criticised the treatment of women in Islam in strong terms. On 2 November 2004, he was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Islamist who objected to the film's message. The last film Van Gogh had completed before his murder, 06/05, was a fictional exploration of the assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. It was released posthumously in December 2004, a month after Van Gogh's death, and two years after Fortuyn's death.
Mohammed Bouyeri is a Moroccan-Dutch convicted terrorist serving a life sentence without parole in the prison of Nieuw Vosseveld (Vught) for the assassination of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. A member of the Hofstad Network, he was incarcerated in 2004.
The Hofstad Network was an Islamist terror group composed mostly of Dutch citizens. The terror group was composed mainly of young men between the ages of 18 and 32. The name "Hofstad" was originally the codename the Dutch secret service AIVD used for the network and leaked to the media. The name likely refers to the nickname of the city of The Hague, where some of the suspected terrorists lived. The network was active throughout the 2000s.
Jason Walters or Jamal is a Dutch citizen who was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on charges related to Islamic terrorism.
The Caged Virgin: A Muslim Woman's Cry for Reason, also published as The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, is a 2004 book by the former Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The Caged Virgin was first published in English in 2006.
Gregorius Nekschot is the pseudonym of a controversial Dutch cartoonist who mocks political ideas about Dutch multicultural society and the behaviour of people with rigid religious or ideological views. Islam is frequently subject of his cartoons. Gregorius Nekschot publishes his cartoons and satire mostly on his own website. His cartoons are also available in print from one publisher. On May 13, 2008, the cartoonist was arrested and taken into custody for interrogation. He was released after 30 hours, but it was expected that he would be prosecuted for discriminatory speech, insulting certain groups in society on the basis of their race or beliefs and possibly also for the crime of inciting hatred. His arrest has caused much debate in the press and parliament in what has been coined The Affair by Trouw newspaper on May 24, 2008. Charges against him were eventually dropped in September 2010. In December 2011 he announced he would no longer publish cartoons.
Hirsi Ali Isse 'Magan' ; 1935 — 2008), commonly known as Hirsi Magan, was a Somali scholar, intellectual and political dissident. He was a prominent figure in Somali revolution and culture and part of Somalia's political elite, he was a co-founders of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), Hirsi Magan Isse opposed the government's authoritarian policies and was imprisoned for his dissent.
Infidel is a 2006 autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-Dutch activist and politician. Hirsi Ali has attracted controversy and death threats were made against Ali in the early 2000s over the publication of the book.
De Schreeuw is a sculpture in the Oosterpark in Amsterdam that commemorates the assassinated Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh. The monument was designed by Jeroen Henneman as a symbol of freedom of speech.
Fitna is a 2008 short film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Approximately 17 minutes in length, the film attempts to demonstrate that the Qur'an motivates its followers to hate all who violate Islamic teachings. The film shows selected excerpts from Surahs of the Qur'an, interspersed with media clips and newspaper cuttings showing or describing acts of violence by Muslims worldwide.
Multiculturalism in the Netherlands began with major increases in immigration during the 1950s and 1960s. As a consequence, an official national policy of multiculturalism was adopted in the early 1980s. This policy subsequently gave way to more assimilationist policies in the 1990s and post-electoral surveys uniformly showed from 1994 onwards that a majority preferred that immigrants assimilated rather than retained the culture of their country of origin. Even though the general acceptance of immigrants increased, opinion polls from the early 1980s and after showed that many were critical of immigration. Following the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh the political debate on the role of multiculturalism in the Netherlands reached new heights.
This is a bibliography of literature treating the topic of criticism of Islam, sorted by source publication and the author's last name.
Islamic teachings and argument have been used to censor opinions and writings throughout history, up to and including the modern era, and thus there are many cases of censorship in Islamic societies. One example is the fatwa against The Satanic Verses, ordering that the author be executed for blasphemy. Depictions of Muhammad have inspired considerable controversy and censorship. Some Islamic societies have religious police, who enforce the application of Islamic Sharia law.
Ebru Umar is a Dutch columnist of Turkish descent. Under the influence of Theo van Gogh, she gave up a career in management and became a columnist, first for van Gogh's website and, after he was assassinated, as his successor as a regular columnist of Metro. She writes for a number of Dutch magazines and has published four books, often on the topics of feminism and criticism of Islam.
Head in Flames is a postmodern novel by Lance Olsen, published by Chiasmus Press in 2009.
This article lists some of the events that took place in the Netherlands in 2004.
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance is a 2006 book by Ian Buruma. The Guardian describes it as, "part reportage, part essay." It explores the impact of mass immigration from Muslim countries on Dutch culture through the lens of the murder of film director and anti-immigration activist, Theo van Gogh.
De zoontjesfabriek. Over vrouwen, islam en integratie is the title of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's first book, which was published in Dutch in December 2002. It is a collection of all articles that Hirsi Ali had published up till then, and an interview with Dutch feminist author Colet van der Ven.
