Infidel
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ayaan Hirsi AliEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0743289692
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Free Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780743289696
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
- The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam
- The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam
- Infidel
Book Reviews of Infidel
Book Review: About the rejection of resources in Islam: reason, progress, women
Summary: 3 Stars
The author has to settle a score with Islam, especially with the Islam dealing with women. The accusations are not new, but they are concerning whenever an eyewitness and victim is reporting about her own experiences. In this case the author has not only her own story to relate, she is also a person of public interest, guest in many talk shows, an educated woman, not thanks to Islam education, but to a life in the ideological freedom only found in the West. She had to submerge after the assassination of Theo van Gogh who criticized Islam too much for the taste of some radical Muslims.
It is difficult to contradict her arguments against the Islamic treatment of women. If this is Islam, saying woman has only one purpose to satisfy the needs of man, then the women of the world can cerebrate whether this is something they would like to have. Ayaan says no.
She says that the integration of Muslims must fail mainly because of the woman-hostile religion and culture of Islam. She could prevent herself from being forcefully married only by escape. No woman should be a production plant for sons but decide herself about her life. A bad joke that anybody has to say a word like this in the 21. century!
With her critics against Islam she is the most endangered person in the Netherlands, getting constant death threats. The muslims cannot be tolerant in that. She broke too many taboos, she did not only criticize the Islam as a religion, she also rejected Islam and converted to a non-muslim. Who wonders?
Her analyzes are sharp like the edge of a sword. She says that the first element of Islam is the relation of the Muslim to his God dictated by fear, because Allah punishes offences to his requirements. The second element is Muhammad as the only source of moral for a Muslim. But he was a man of the 7th century, thus Islam is backward oriented. The third element is the dominion of a sexual moral of old Arabian customs which entails a certain conduct towards women. And these three elements explain the backwardness of Islam.
"In only taking over the technical achievements of the West and not the western courage to self-established thinking the spiritual stagnation of the Islamic culture is abiding".
No news! In fact there are many educated muslims who think the same. But they are blind for the fact that Islam cannot accept the successes of non-islam societies! The Quran and Muhammads compatible Hadiths stand against it. It is true that the author is exaggerating when she is writing: "The most important explanation for the spiritual and material residue in which we Muslims are, is in the sexual moral."
Is it believable when she confesses she would be optimistic that there are reforms which will take advantage of the accomplishments of the West?
She does not confess Islam at all. At first she realized: "The more religious I became, the more I lied and cheated." On lies and fake the whole of Islam was build, we hear. This again is a less helpful exaggeration.
Change everything what she wanted to and you do not get Islam. For her the sole reading of the "Atheistic manifest" is sufficient to give her the last kick to convert to non-Islam and instantly become the opponent of the fear- and oppression religion.
This again seems to be nothing but a superficial "conversion". Not everybody, who is disappointed in his religion leaves the belief in a higher authority behind, as if the proof that a man-made God is good for nothing is also the proof that there is no God at all! This has to be called inconsequent thinking. But this is not what the book is about.
The author is also asserting that preaching of hatred against Jews and other non-muslims is belonging to the standard program of Quran schools. She is right to say that hatred against the West is not only due to the economical and cultural successes of the West in comparison to the muslim world, but also due to religious reasons. In this she is right to go over the description of Bernard Lewis about the crisis of Islam.
She is consequently contradicting the political "correct" statements of the politicians that Islam is just misused from islamists and taken into custody by them. "Islam has taken itself into custody!" Thus not the interpretation of Islam is the problem, as if all muslims were fools, instead Islam is the problem! She is asking:
"If we Muslims are so tolerant and friendly, why then is there in Islamic countries so much ethnical, religious, political and cultural brokenness and violence. Why are we Muslims so full of feelings of anger and discomfort and carry so much hostility and hatred in us? Why do we not succeed in questioning ourselves?" This is in fact a good question, and to question oneself is moreover a very clever question!
She is dedicating a whole chapter to the necessity of self-reflexion. A very important perception! The question remains what the result of the self-reflexions of people should be, of people who are listening their whole lives long "truths". Everybody needs to have his own traumatic experience! And even this is not always sufficient, because:
"If I had to characterize Islam I should have to say, that it has become like the father of Atta (of the chief terrorist of 11.9.): wrathful, traumatized, shaken and captured in delusion". That everybody uses his own traumas to get free from his delusion! At least, the author seems to have made it!
She is also asking the question whether this God in which she believed failed. And she is answering with the failure of man: "We Muslims have lost the balance between religion and reason totally out of sight. The results are poverty, violence, political instability, economical stagnation and human misery." In this context she is citing Islam expert Lewis, which she seems to have read carefully.
Broad space is given to the description of the role of the women in Islam. Rightly she is talking about her own experiences. That in the Islamic cultural realm the human rights have been tread with feet is well known. What is the author demanding for?
Basically western conditions. But this is the same as the abolishment of Islam! But Islam`s commandments fort he life-style of the fidels is not separable of the more abstract teaching (Allah is the only one and Muhammad is his prophet, etc.). Islam rules and regulates everything and herein is without compromises! Additional is the strong tradition serving in some countries for the mutilation of the genitals. Here she should have better fairly separated Islam and tradition.
Be that as it may, it has to be feared that the call of the author is not heard from those who should hear it. She is invoking muslim women to demand their rights, especially their rights of self-determination. This seems to be a pious wish, because for many women their life is just about the bare survival, not so much about submission. Islam means "submission"!! Islam simply does not grant the right for self-determination. If religion is sometimes not reasonable you have to oppose with: humans do not always want to be reasonable at all! Thus it is not a wonder that they do not demand from their religion that it is a reasonable one!
Freedom is a question of decision! Yes, but also of possibilities and chances! Not everybody is d`accord with the battle cry: "Freedom or death!" The author is even designing a plan for muslim women to run away!
Islam is also therefore a phenomenon because it fosters so many anachronisms and yet it survives and has millions of followers. But to get to know the freedom which the author experienced and treasured - this is exactly what many people do NOT want! Not everybody has such an unquenched drive for freedom as the author, not every woman in Islam has made bad experiences. And many even like to be the subordinates of a man!
Sometimes there seems to break through a piece of naiveté and smart-alecky besides the much too latent outrage and the missionary self-consciousness of the author. One should, she says, adapt faith to realities, Muslims should realize the incompleteness of their faith etc.
And then she steps on totally alien ground in her exuberance: "In fact there are also misogynistic texts in the Bible and in the Talmud". And many Christians and Jews had shown that "many of the texts in the Bible and in the Talmud are good for nothing".
Such unqualified, not proved and polemic platitudes devaluate what she rightly has to say. Not all her comments are showing a clear view.
Her concern should not be understood as a sweeping blow against all religions. Ayaan is just a feminist!
Who is going to read the book? The best is Muslims who really have a serious interest that women in Islam are not oppressed or abused. And non-Muslims, who want to be informed about the topic. They get a lot of information from the insider about the ruling deficiencies in Islam. In the West it is well known how to make wars for the sake of suppressed peoples - but for one half of the peoples, the women, the West is doing next to nothing.
You should also hear others who have studied the matter about the epistemic statements of the author. The comments of a frustrated and - rightfully - disgusted woman are not enough. Nevertheless, no doubt, here you read a personal accounting of a courageous woman. More such courageous women are needed in the world, there are enough cowards! It was high time, that this was said what she had to say. And the so called free world should take it into consideration, even when the muslim world does not do it.
This book is readable mostly, it has weaknesses which lie in the simplifications and the digressions into fields where she is amateurish. You can only hope that the author and all who support her live long enough! And for this the "free" world should do everything!
Summary of Infidel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world?s attention with Infidel, her coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of today?s most admired and controversial political figures. She burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened she would be next; and she made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and forced to resign from the Dutch Parliament.
Infidel shows the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished?and sometimes reviled?political superstar and champion of free speech?the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female circumcision, brutal beatings, an adolescence as a devout believer, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four countries under dictatorships. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam, earning her the enmity of reactionary Islamists and craven politicians.
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