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Hello, and welcome to the Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krause.

Miriam Namazi is an articulate, intelligent, forceful voice for ex-Muslims, talking about the dangers

of Islamic fundamentalism and the need to promote rationality and reason in the Islamic world.

I first learned about her a decade ago when I heard her speak,

and I was completely blown away by what she said and the way she said it in particular. We caught up

with her before the pandemic in her offices in London, and our discussion ranged over many things,

and it was actually quite prescient given what's happened since that time.

In any case, I hope that you, too, will be as impressed by Miram Narazi as I Mary Namazi, because I, you're a hero of mine,

I should say, for your courage.

Stop.

As a spokesman for the Council of Ex-Muslims and One Law for All, you speak about issues that are

important, but also dangerous. And I want to talk about what you've been working on and also

your history. I know you don't like to look at your history, but this is an origins podcast.

So I want to begin with your origins. So where were you born?

So I was born in Iran and my father is a Muslim.

My mother is actually from Nepal.

She's a Nepalese.

But she met my dad in Calcutta and she became a Muslim and then they moved to Iran.

But I feel Iranian because I was born there.

I was raised there and my politics is very much linked to the politics in Iran. But it's interesting because my grandfather was an Islamic scholar. And he taught Arabic and Persian at the university in Calcutta. I've called him a mullah and my dad just the other day told me, please don call him a mullah mullahs are freeloaders everybody hates them your grandfather was a scholar he taught Arabic he worked he didn't freeload from anyone so there is this thing in iran where people who are clergy are looked down upon and so you, nobody wants to call relatives who are clergy, clergy.

...