Infidel

I had never heard of the author until that afterall I was browsing my local Barnes & Noble. I am glad I did. This book was a very inciteful look into the Muslim culture from a woman's perspective. And that's as far as I take it. It is a place to start from and gather more knowledge and varying perspectives. I think she was very courageous to give us a glimpse into the pain, rebirth and redemption she now emboddies. I hope her voice is never bound and continues to speak out.

This is easily one of the greatest books I have ever read. Hirsi's personal story is incredible and awe-inspiring. The book is not only provocative and at times painful, but it is extremely insightful and compelling. Hirsi is a true hero, a beacon of light. This book is a gift to humanity.

This is an amazing story told in a compelling, interesting voice. I highly recommend it!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's story is not a novel, even though we find the lives she describes to be unimaginable in the 21st century. We in the West need to read this shocking book to help us understand the intense devotion of millions of people to beliefs that are militantly hostile to our Western world view. This is the most courageous woman I have ever met.

A truly fascinating and inspiring autobiography of a true human rights activist and a truly courageous fighter who has survived the victimization of Islamists and their despicable leftwing backers, for speaking the truth and standing up against evil and abuse of women.

The author talks of her childhood and youth in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya,and of the narrow minded bigotry of the Muslim world today.
She recounts the horrors of genital mutilation in Somalia, the racial prejudice in Saudi Arabia against non-Arabs (especially Africans), the complete hatred and Nazi-like brainwashing she witnessed in Saudi Arabia against the Jews (which takes place in most of the Islamic world: "In Saudi Arabia everything bad was the fault of the Jews. When the air conditioner broke, or suddenly the tap stopped running, the Saudi woman next door used to say the Jews did it. The children next door were taught to pray for the health of their parents and the destruction of the Jews. Later when we went to school, our teachers lamented at length all the evil things Jews had done and planned to do against Muslims...Sister Aziza told us about the Jews. She described them in such a way that I imagined them as physically monstrous: they had horns on their heads and noses so monstrous they stuck out like great beaks. Devil and djinns literally flew out of their heads to mislead Muslims and spread evil. Everything that went wrong was the fault of the Jews...The Jews controlled the world, and that was why we had to be pure, to resist this evil influence. Islam was under attack and we should step forward and fight the Jews, for only if all Jews were destroyed would peace come to Muslims".

The author describes the slow opening up of her minds against Islamic bigotry and enslavement of the spirit. When she lived in Kenya, which was relatively free compared to Somalia, Saudi Arabia and the then Marxist Ethiopia, she recounts how discovering the school library and the books of Enid Blighton and Nancy Drew adventures of pluck and independence, tales of freedom and adventure, trust equality between boys and girls, opened up her mind to another world.

And yet her battle was long, as she explains opening up and deconstructing a mental cage is a long process.

Ayaan shockingly reveals the horrific fate of rape victims in Islam who are blamed for being raped and murdered or tortured.

Finally the author migrated to the Netherlands and became a member of parliament for the Dutch Liberal Party a defender of human rights, and opponent of Islamic fanaticism.
As a result she became a victim of death threats and had to live in hiding. Vilified by both Islamists and their leftist backers, who hypocritically claim to be pro-feminism and human rights but attack those who highlight abuses in Islam.

Indeed the liberal Dutch politician, Pim Fortuyn, highlighted the danger of Islamic fundamentalism and uncontrolled immigration to the Netherlands and was murdered by a Dutch pro-Islamic leftwing radical. The international left today are helping the Islamists to plunge the world into darkness and need to be stopped.

Ayaan's friend and colleague Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered by a Muslim terrorist because of a documentary he was working on with Ayaan highlighting abuse of women in Islamic societies.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was eventually stripped of Dutch citizenship and went to live in the United States.
She stresses that the central message of her book is that "We in the west would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition (to a culture that respects women and human rights) unnecessary, be elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred to the status of a respectable and alternative way of life."
Let us support people like this and break the stranglehold of the Islamic/Leftist axis that threatens the very existence of the free world.