Ali Amjad Rizvi (born 29 May 1975) is a Pakistani-born Canadian[1] atheist ex-Muslim and secular humanist writer and podcaster[2] who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith.

[6][7] Rizvi finished medical school at Aga Khan University in Karachi, then immigrated to Canada[7] as a permanent resident in 1999.

[3] He says that he rejects the conflation of radical Islam with the general Muslim population and stated "Human beings have rights and are entitled to respect.

[15] 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.

[16] In 2018, Rizvi appeared in Islam and the Future of Tolerance, a documentary based on a conversation between Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz.

[citation needed] 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.

"[2] Rizvi describes the meaning of the title as follows: "In the Muslim world, there are countless freethinkers, atheists and agnostics who cannot openly speak about their views.

"[19] 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.

[21] 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.

"[6] He opined that "some parts of the Old Testament do sound a lot like the handbook of Islamic State, but by far most Christians and Jews don't take it seriously at all anymore, because they no longer regard their books as the literal, infallible word of God.

[6] Rizvi has stated that right-wing populist politicians are correct in challenging "authoritarian, totalitarian ideas that are in the scriptures", although many other people including Muslims themselves have also done that throughout the ages.

[6][22] 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.

"[4] 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.