Today I am honored to introduce you to a personal hero of mine, Yasmin Mohammed.

Born into a strict Muslim family in Canada, Yasmin endured literal torture throughout her childhood

and at age 19 was forced into an arranged marriage with the top al-Qaeda operative tied

to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot.

She was eventually able to escape and has since rose as one of the world's most fearless

voices for women's rights, freedom of expression, and the impact of religious extremism.

She's the founder of Free Hearts, Free Minds, co-director of the Clarity Coalition,

bestselling author of The Incredible Book Unveiled, and host of the

Yassimin Muhammad podcast, where she unapologetically fights to expose the truth.

Yassim doesn't just offer invaluable insight.

She ignites change in a world that is utterly confused and desperately needs help.

Yes, mean, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Jordan. I really appreciate it. Thank you for being here. It is an absolute blessing. And as I've said, numerous times already you are a hero of mine. I mean it in every sense of the word. And I'm incredibly blessed to have you here. So thank you. Oh, that's my absolute pleasure. So just to start, for those who don't know you, can you take us back to the beginning, your childhood, what life was like, just so people can get a better understanding of where you're coming from. Okay. And there's no rush. Just go through all of it. Okay, good, because it's hard to say it all concisely. I'm actually going to take it before my childhood. And I'm going to take it back to

my parents' meeting in university. So my dad is from Gaza. He was living in Gaza when it was under

the Egyptian authority. So he was allowed to go to university for free in Cairo. And that's where

he went, and that's where he met my mom. So the two of them are, like, educated, secular. They're Muslim, but neither of them are religious. You know, they have, like, my mom looks like a bond girl in her wedding, you know. Like, belly dancers. Oh, yeah, teeny tiny little dress. Like, it's a wedding dress, but she's wearing like the little 60s, you know, those little tiny dresses that they used to wear. And they got married. They moved to San Francisco. So they're living in San Francisco. It's now the peace love and hippie era. It's like mid, late 60s. And my dad loves it. Okay. He thinks this is great. And my mom,

even though she's open-minded and everything, it's still a lot for coming from a conservative

country. I think it would even be a lot for most of Americans in those days, right,

what was going on in San Francisco. So, yeah, Yeah. But my dad loved it and my mom hated it. And then they moved to Vancouver and that's where I was born. And that's also where their marriage fell apart. Okay. So Vancouver, Canada. And at that time, my mom is now in Vancouver, Canada, she's got three kids.

My dad's moved over to the other side of Canada, Montreal, the French-speaking side.

Eventually, he remarries, gets three new kids, moves on with his life.

And my mom somehow gets connected.

So now we're talking like mid, actually early 80s, early to mid 80s.

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