| | |  | People | Home » » Infidel | | | | | | | Description: | | In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie Submission. Infidel is the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of free speech. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice, Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will, and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant threat -- demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan -- she refuses to be silenced. Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780743289696
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Ayaan Hirsi Ali | | Paperback:
| 384 pages | | Publisher:
| Free Press | | Publication Date:
| April 01, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0743289692 | | Package Length:
| 8.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.85 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 357 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 IncredibleMar 02, 2010
This was an incredible autobiographical book- one I will keep on my coffee table for years to come. This is a story of strength and perserverance. Ayaan is an amazing writer and person who makes the words on the page come alive with emotion by her choice of diction. The book engulfed me over two days whereas I was unable to set it down for any given time.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Conversion SyndromeFeb 23, 2010
As a sympathizer with today's Muslims, as they reel under the blows of militant imperialism, I picked up this provocative title for insight into opposing views. Ayaan's story -- the cruelty against women in Somalia, and her dash to freedom -- is moving and inspiring. It's a forceful reminder of the need for moderate and progressive Islam to supplant extremism and anachronism.
But at times Ayaan lacks information needed to interpret events. I lost her on the equation, 9/11 = zero God. The Enlightenment thinkers she admires believed in a Creator, for the simple Reason that the universe could not create itself. Ayaan's expedient, that life somehow just creates itself, earns no marks for analytical curiosity faced with the ultimate mystery -- why does anything exist in the first place?
For me, 9/11 was a huge marker in an opposite direction. It laid bare the unfathomable depravity of the rulers of the West. The proofs are manifold and overwhelming, beyond a shadow of doubt: 9/11 was a war pretext made in USA. WTC Towers 1 and 2 -- and #7, the collapse covered up by the media -- were all destroyed by controlled demolition and nanothermite, not airplanes. The alleged Muslim hijackers were fakes or patsies...
Ayaan has exchanged a world view where Islam has all the answers to the reverse, a blind faith in the West. She can't see Islam as another religion in the Abrahamic tradition, a brave effort burdened by the human vices and cultural baggage we all struggle under. Religions are only as good as their membership. Despite today's need for reforms on women's rights, Islam did pioneer values of equality, brotherhood and religious tolerance six centuries before the Catholic Inquisition.
People don't realize how much today's Middle East is the fruit of centuries of Western influence. It is Saudi oil wealth that funds the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, and it was the British who replaced the moderate, civil Hashemite dynasty with the Saudis and Wahhabis in the late 18th century. Then in the 20th, Britain broke Arabia off from cosmopolitan Turkey, to become their dependency.
All classic divide-and-conquer doctrine -- extremism isolates a rival power from potential allies, according to "Islamic Fundamentalism: Fostered by US Foreign Policy," chapter 15 of 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, by W. G. Tarpley. Also, in Terrorism and the Illuminati, David Livingstone writes, "Islam does not pose a threat to the West. It is the contrary that is correct. Islamic terrorist organizations are hotbeds of impostors in service of Western imperialistic objectives."
Nor is the empire averse to using liberal ideas for the same ends, the way British intrigue used the Enlightenment figures whom Ayaan admires to foment the French Revolution and topple France, their greatest rival. Similar tactics are used today to excite gullible idealists against any government that does not bow down to the money masters' scheme of things.
In our time, the US put Saddam and the Taliban in power to crush the left, then used them as a casus belli to take over their oil and gas. And the American Enterprise Institute has drafted Ayaan as a token cheerleader for these wars. I was shocked to find her beating the drums on her blog to escalate the war on Afghanistan. Her own autobiography documents all too well how women and children suffer the most from war.
Ayaan's worst suffering in Africa came not from Muslim men, but from the absence of her father Abeh, a moderate, enlightened Muslim. Here again there is a geopolitical dimension. Abeh was a freedom fighter against the Somali dictator Siad Barre -- a Marxist atheist. History's worst mass murderers -- Jingiz Khan, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot -- were either atheist or agnostic. The problem is not religion, but that people are so easily duped. Religion is just one of many factors used by the unscrupulous to divide and conquer.
Ayaan gives a fascinating anecdote of Siad Barre's last days, how he sent his death squads on false-flag operations, massacring people and writing in blood that it was done by the rival clan. We all know the result, the disintegration of Somalia into genocide, famine and warlordism. Yet it doesn't occur to Ayaan that 9/11 was also a false flag op? Enough has been written on 9/11 for an intelligent person to take notice.
On his return, unfortunately, Abeh brings the final straw, arranging her marriage -- against her wishes. Much as one sympathizes with her flight to freedom, no doubt the ancient custom of matchmaking served a useful purpose, and might be welcomed even today, as long as free choice is respected. Young people in the West spend man-years of time and energy to find a mate. Yet the result is a disastrous divorce rate, which further weakens our social fabric. Ayaan herself is apparently single and childless.
She is mistaken that there is nothing the West could learn from the East, or that Islamic countries are congenitally incapable of reform. A few years ago, Morocco's new King reformed the family law to reinstate the rights of women. Although it will take time for the culture to adapt, there has always been a great constituency for progress in the Islamic world, which cannot afford to hobble half its population, as Ayaan says. The crux is that Western imperialism has always lined up to subvert, destabilize or crush progressives, because only they have the potential to liberate their countries from today's neo-colonialist regime.
I only hope Ayaan's work helps mobilize those progressive forces, rather than becoming a another alibi for the oppression of Muslims by the powers that be -- capitalizing on another divide-and-conquer front, men against women? More provocateur than peacemaker, she is still a great writer, and I hope she writes more. (I've offered to publish her next book, about an encounter between Mohammed and Enlightenment philosophers, but got no reply.)
I hope she also reads more from alternative views. There IS another, very different slant on things, and the Western media, even the NYT bestseller list, can not be blindly trusted to tell you about it! That viewpoint is more effectively suppressed in the West than by any repressive regime.
Ayaan could have saved herself and her Dutch hosts a world of trouble by absorbing two Mohammedan teachings -- to respect other people's beliefs, and speak to people in terms they understand. Two tips on social hygiene that also happen to be values held by Dutch politicians. You don't get through to people by shock, by insulting what they hold sacred.
Muslims do need persuasive voices to help distinguish between what is timeless in their faith, and what is old cultural baggage. Islam came into the world in the 7th century, in the depth of the Dark Ages, a time of extreme cruelty and ignorance. So the claim that Islam's dispensations regarding women were meant to protect them is not an empty one. Even today, women still need protection, but of a different kind for a different time.
To sum up, Infidel is a masterpiece -- as anti-Islamic propaganda. As an autobiography, it is a tale of great promise, but great disappointment -- a story of a well-meaning young person who got in over her depth, fell into a trap, and became a tool for the enemies of her people.
A Must Read...Feb 21, 2010
I'll keep this short because the book must speak for itself-- growing up in America I never truly realized how fortunate I am. I'm 32 years old and always disparaged being a 'woman' because of being treated somewhat unfairly (grew up in the deep south east). This novel made me want to run down the road proclaiming loudly that I am a female and I am beautiful and fully intact. It also opened my eyes to the fact that females are usually the quickest to keep other women down in order to keep the status quo. I don't know why, but many of the women of Islam are just as militant about suppressing themselves as their overly patriarchal men are. I will forever be grateful to her for writing this, even if it means that she has to live in hiding and under protection.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Beautiful, inspiring and instructive, only one suggestion...Feb 21, 2010
This is the best book I have read in years. As I progressed in reading it I could feel more and more empathy with the author, and could not resist creating many earmarks, something that I usually try to avoid.
Having said this, I think there is one aspect that could have been investigated better: the similarities between Islam and Christianity. What Ayaan saw was a sharp contrast because she went from a strictly Muslim family, living in a Country that was several centuries behind the west, to the 21st century in Holland. But if we look back at 100 years ago or more it wouldn't be hard to find that some of the bad things about the way women are treated by Islam today have ancient roots even in the Christian religion.
 Nonfiction Book Review of InfidelFeb 05, 2010
So I finally finished Infidel, and I still hold to the opinion that this book is not a great literary piece. The monotonous rhythm of events never changed. So, while I know all the names of these people who were important and influential in her life, I don't have a 'sense' of any of them.
It was interesting, though, following her rise and the literal politics of how one goes from being a Somali refugee to a member of Holland's parliament. And, I was really interested in her message. In a world where it is so politically incorrect to speak against a specific religion, Ali lives every day in fear of her life for what she has exposed about what Islam teaches to Muslims.
In 2004, Ali made a short film with a producer called Submission. In it, four women represent four types of oppression that she feels Islam perpetuates - total submission to men, arranged marriages, physical abuse and sexual abuse. (The last female is a young girl who was raped by her uncle, but is now pregnant and so will be punished for having sex outside of marriage.) She uses verses from the Quran that she feels supports the oppression.
The producer who helped Ali with this film was murdered two months after its release in broad daylight - a knife plunged into his chest stabbed a five-page letter of warning addressed to Ali.
She says the world would be outraged if it new how many honor killings occur today. And, "[t]he fact is that hundreds of millions of women around the world live in forced marriages, and six thousand small girls are excised every day."
So she has dedicated her life to giving a voice to all the Muslim women who are oppressed, abused and silenced.
It is one thing for a person of means to learn of someone's plight and spend the rest of their life fighting for a cause of the weak and helpless. It is quite another for a women with no means, who knows first hand, to rise above out of sheer will and be able to enlighten the world around her of what she knows because she has lived it - and escaped. This is what makes Infidel a worthy read. Infidel
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