Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Infidel
Book Review: A wake up call
Summary: 5 Stars
[...] This is a riveting, deeply moving auobiography of a woman, reared in an oppressive Muslim society, who fled to the West and gradually came to embrace western values. When she coproduced a film depicting the abuse and oppression of Muslim women, she received death threats, and her coproducer was murdered. She has given us a wakeup call. We will all need to have her courage to overcome this totalitarian ideology that threatens the values we hold dear.Book Review: A wake up call for the West
Summary: 5 Stars
What an unusual autobiography we have in the form of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Infidel". I can't remember the last time I read a book as unique as this one. It's insightful, powerful, and talks about places in the world most of us in the West have little experience dealing with, let alone understanding. Ali, if you aren't familiar with her, was born in Somalia back in the late 1960s. She resided there for some time before heading off to live in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya before fleeing to the Netherlands in search of freedom from an arranged marriage set up by her father, a prominent Somali who spent years trying to topple the pro-communist Mohamed Siad Barre regime. Her tenure in Holland changed her life in several important ways. One, the choice to flee from her new husband caused irreparable damage to the connections she had with her family. Two, she came to understand the dangers radical Islam posed to the western world. Three, her absorption of western philosophical ideas led her to embrace democratic freedoms and oppose the subjugation of women under Islamic law. This stance, coupled with her embrace of atheism, brought her into direct conflict with fundamentalist Muslims.
Ali recounts the difficulties inherent in living in third world countries in the first sections of the book. Sadly, Islam exacerbated these difficulties for the author. Women, as we all know by now, are treated as second-class citizens in most Islamic nations. The book overflows with sad depictions of arranged marriages, beatings, sexual repression, and other abuses best left unsaid here. One excellent example is Ali's mother, a proud woman who initially set out to achieve good things with her life but who eventually sank into despair and resorted to violence against her children because Islam forbade her to take an active role in resolving her marital and economic problems. Living in Ethiopia and Kenya wasn't so bad, according to the author, because both countries contain significant non-Muslim populations. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, was a nightmare. Ali didn't live in some corporate compound reserved for foreign oil workers. She lived right next door to the citizens, which exposed her to the full brunt of fundamentalist Islamic practices. Woman couldn't drive, couldn't go to the store without a male escort, and couldn't report domestic violence. The local populace blamed their problems on the influence of Jews. What a world we live in, eh?
The last part of the book details Ali's immigration to Holland and her subsequent rejection of Islam. A proud woman and a hard worker, she labored for years to learn the language, find employment in order to get off the public dole, and eventually earned a master's degree in political science from Leiden University. Her education led her to a job with the Social Democratic Party's think tank. She didn't stay here long due to her increasing disenchantment with Islam, brought about by her embrace of western philosophy, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the realization that Muslims weren't assimilating into Dutch society. Ali eventually joined the conservative Liberal Party and ran for a seat in the Dutch parliament. She won, but her strong condemnations of Islamic practices along with her role in the death of controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh (she made the film "Submission" with him, a short movie that attacked Islam's domination of women) brought down the wrath of Holland's "tolerant" politicos. They dug up the fact that she lied on her immigration forms and chased her out of politics. Death threats from fundamentalist Muslims resulted in her exodus to the United States. Today she works at the American Enterprise Institute.
I'm leaving a ton of stuff out in these two brief paragraphs. "Infidel" is more than a quick jaunt through the Middle East and parts of Africa, although that would be interesting enough. Most readers will gain a better understanding about these parts of the world after reading this book. For example, the author elucidates several theories about the third world that explains much about their proclivity for violence and civil war. She credits the tenets of Islam with much of the discord in the Middle East and Africa, a controversial theory that will find plenty of detractors. But it's her explanations about how the clan system works that add additional depth to her ideas. I don't think it's possible to understand the mess that Somalia is in today without understanding how clans work as both a form of economic support for citizens as well as a means of social classification. When you throw in Sunni and Shia distinctions, well, you've got a recipe for the sort of madness we're seeing in places like Iraq right now. The author also points out how Saudi Arabia's funding of radical Islam causes further chaos in these third world countries. What a seething cauldron!
The most disturbing element of the book is the book itself. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a cry in the desert about what's really going on over in the Middle East and, with increasing regularity, Europe. Where are all the other voices that should chime in with additional evidence supporting this author's conclusions? Critics will tell you the paucity of Ali clones proves that she's dead wrong in her analysis, but we ought to know better. There aren't more people speaking out because they're afraid of becoming the next Theo van Gogh; they're afraid some Islamic fruitcake will stick a knife in their chest if they tell the truth. Look at what happened when this author spoke up. She had to go into hiding for weeks at a time in order to avoid execution. "Infidel" is a wake up call to the West just as surely as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were. We ignore the problem at our own peril. Even worse, we're endangering our children and our grandchildren by ignoring this problem. It's time to wake up and act before it's too late.
Book Review: A woman of great courage--but not a true writer
Summary: 4 Stars
As a person who has had the privelidge of knowing many friends who are Muslim, I read this book with some hesitancy as to what they might think if they discovered that I was reading it. I'm glad I read it, regardless of what they might think. There are not many women like Ms. Ali in this world, especially a woman who was born in Somalia and raised in Saudi Arabia and Kenya, who grew up with a powerful and overbearing Muslim family who has decided to dedicate her life into working for the very things that Islam opposes. Ms. Ali has been the focus of much debate since her recent climb to political power in the Dutch parliament (she has sinced resigned) and her creation of the move "Submission: Part 1" which explored 4 stories of oppressed Muslim women. Her partner in making the film, Theo van Gogh, was murdered mercilessly in November of 2004 by an extremist Muslim.
Ms. Ali criticizes Islamic society for its sexism, its hatred towards the "other" people of the world, and its neglect to better itself. If you are an open minded thinker, dedicated to education and the freedom of speech, I recommend this book to all. Read it and be inspired by a woman who has had great courage and integrity to overcome unbearable hardships (including her own excision at the age of 5) and to try and make a positive change in the world--especially in the lives of the oppressed Muslim women.
Book Review: A wonderfully written book
Summary: 5 Stars
Biographies in my experience are sometimes written in a "lecturing" tone. This book is so engrossing and well written I almost can't believe its a biography. Ayaan life story is the topic of "Infidel"; namely her ascention from refuge to politician to researcher and activist, all thus far in 30-some years. I learned more on everyday Islamic culture and treatment of women in this book than I have during 3 college electives I've had on Islam.
If Ayaan's safety could be ensured, I'd love to see a screenplay written based on this book. She is truely an icon.
Book Review: AN ASTONISHING TRANSFORMATION
Summary: 5 Stars
Westerners, even the religiously devout, are intellectually infused with the ideas of the Enlightenment. Ayaan Hirsi Ali discovered them and adopted them. This evolution required the erosion of a whole set of loyalties and mental habits no native-born American can ever experience. To do this she had to break from family, clan, religion and her native culture. This book has no parllel.