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Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

4.16 · Rating details · 84,369 ratings · 6,517 reviews

One of today’s most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened that she would be next. She made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and resigned from the Dutch Parliament.

Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished politica ...more

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Hardcover, 353 pages

Published February 1st 2007 by Free Press (first published 2006)

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May 17, 2015 Petra-X Off having adventures rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography-true-story, 10-star-books, philosophy-religion, 2015-read, 2015-reviews, reviewed, popculture-anthropology

I was watching the BBC's 'Muslim Beauty Pageant and Me' hosted by and starring Dina Torkia, an English Muslim who wears hijab, not the black stuff but pretty fabrics. I thought this is going to be good. Balance. I'm going to see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is feverishly hysterical and that what she says might apply to the immigrants from Africa and even more so from Arabia, but not to British Muslims.

The girls, who all wore hijab and a lot of makeup looked very pretty. They had to undergo physicals and ...more

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May 23, 2013 Lyn rated it it was amazing

Any woman born as a Muslim who has the courage to write a book openly critical of Islam has my respect.

A woman who has the brass to title that same book Infidel has my rapt attention.

Infidel by Ayann Hasli Ali is shocking, brutally honest, and captivating. This woman’s courage and resilience are a testimony to the human spirit. The letters and phone calls between her and her father are painfully real and troubling, especially when read in the context of the harshness and violence of the cultur Any woman born as a Muslim who has the courage to write a book openly critical of Islam has my respect.

A woman who has the brass to title that same book Infidel has my rapt attention.

Infidel by Ayann Hasli Ali is shocking, brutally honest, and captivating. This woman’s courage and resilience are a testimony to the human spirit. The letters and phone calls between her and her father are painfully real and troubling, especially when read in the context of the harshness and violence of the culture from which she came.

Most endearing, though, is her indefatigable sense of hope and optimism, despite all that she had seen and been through. She is not blindly accepting of western culture, she calls it like she sees it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, but she draws a stark and real portrait of the contrast between two worlds.

Also important to read was her observations and perspectives of the 9/11 attacks. At the time, Ayann was a political refugee in Holland. These attacks and the world’s responses thereafter led her on a spiritual journey of questioning her faith, questions and doubts that had been brewing for some time.

When I was in Iraq back in 2005 (roughly the same time this book was coming out), I met a man named Omar, he was a Kurd, who spoke English and we struck up a conversation. It turned out that we were the same age. I was dumbfounded by the great disparity in our childhoods. While I had enjoyed a pleasant and non-eventful youth in the suburbs of America, Omar had been beaten, shot, and his family had been kicked out of their home. As we talked, I could not help looking at Omar’s right arm. He was lucky to still have it; there was a horrific deformity in the forearm, the result of a gunshot wound. Omar explained that he had been taken to the nearest hospital and given rudimentary first aid and sent miles away … to a Kurdish hospital. The first hospital had been only for Arabs.

I could not believe that while I was riding around with my friends and having fun, Omar was experiencing a much harder life. Ayann is my age too, and her childhood was very similar to Omar’s. Growing up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and across eastern Africa, Ayann described seeing beatings, punitive amputations and beheadings, and depicted receiving violent beatings and mutilation at the hands of her own family. Her escape to Holland and her emancipation from the darkness of her past is a great story. Her continued fight for civil and human rights and her ongoing struggles and life threatening difficulties are inspiring.

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Mar 20, 2008 sisraelt rated it did not like it

MARCH 25, 2015
Immensely disliked this book and tired of all the comments so I took down my review. Moving on!

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Oct 06, 2007 andreas rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone, really

"Infidel" is the personal story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who, after a loveless childhood (to put it very mildly), came to Holland at the age of 20 claiming refugee status to escape an arranged and forced marriage, and to assert her independence. She was accepted, found her way around, studied political science, became a citizen, fell away from Islam, and became a member of Parliament. In 2004 she and Theo van Gogh made the short film "Submission Part 1", which resulted in Theo's gettin "Infidel" is the personal story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who, after a loveless childhood (to put it very mildly), came to Holland at the age of 20 claiming refugee status to escape an arranged and forced marriage, and to assert her independence. She was accepted, found her way around, studied political science, became a citizen, fell away from Islam, and became a member of Parliament. In 2004 she and Theo van Gogh made the short film "Submission Part 1", which resulted in Theo's getting killed and Holland's being thrown into near chaos. For her security, she was hidden for two months and a half. A bit more than a year later, when the book was almost finished, her citizenship was revoked but later reinstalled, she resigned from Parliament, and left for the US to work at the American Enterprise Institute. Surely stuff for a book, but that's not even the main story.

The main story is the oppression of Muslim women, back where Hirsi Ali grew up but also in Holland, where African Muslim immigrants often seem to live the way they used to – outside Western society and in disregard of Western values. The descriptions are stark. Husbands who are almost universally evil, mean, and violent. They are completely unaware of the fact that their wife is a person, an individual, a partner. A man would be a good husband if he doesn't beat his wife, this is what the author's girlfriends hoped for growing up. A sad world where a decent man is a precious commodity.

Where Hirsi Ali grew up, violence was everywhere, in the streets but also in the home. The unifying theme of her childhood was brainless brutality, one group against another, and men against women. People are organized in clans, and diversions and differences between them are the defining principles of identity. Violence, utterly pointless and to no one's benefit, is always present.

In the smaller scheme of things, I was born on the wrong side of the fence. But I have not suffered much hardship from it, and the fence came down when I was only 14, opening a world of opportunity. In the larger scheme of things, thankfully, I was born safely on the right side of the fence. The fence that separates Africa from the rest of the world, and madness from reason, poverty from wealth, life from death. This is what the book doesn't tire of pointing out. Sadly, the fence isn't coming down and opportunity will continue to elude most Africans.

For all the horrors of Hirsi Ali's childhood, of civil war, of fleeing violence and the most wretched conditions, the most shocking paragraphs of the book describe the author's and her sister's genital mutilation, a process whose enormity the more neutral terms excision and infibulation are utterly inadequate to describe. The author has suffered a violation so atrocious, brutal, and painful, painful even to read, that it is almost beyond my imagination. I am strangely thankful for the graphic description because up to now I no clear idea what the procedure entailed. But more so I am speechless that anyone would consider this wise or necessary. It surely takes a sick, brain-washed mind empty of independent thought and a heart empty of compassion and tenderness to advocate or perform such an operation.

The first two thirds of the book are all personal account and analysis, but the last third calls for action. It is a long, angry rant against the excesses of literally read Islam. It is about liberating women, encouraging them not to submit, imploring them to stand up against inequities and for their freedom. Hirsi Ali is passionately outraged, and it is a pleasure to read. She has a reason for her anger and fights for a cause. She wants to abolish sharia and set Muslims women free. ...more

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May 28, 2012 Caroline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-books, auto-and-biog

I'm kind of shell-shocked. The squishy Liberal views that have, up to now, dominated my concepts about immigration, multiculturalism, integration, Islam, the burqa, and a live-and-let-live philosophy, have all been shaken and stirred beyond recognition.

Hirsi Ali is an extraordinary woman, to have survived and risen above her incredibly dysfunctional upbringing. Dysfunctional in part because her family was rife with superstition, anger, and violence - largely because her mother was a volatile an I'm kind of shell-shocked. The squishy Liberal views that have, up to now, dominated my concepts about immigration, multiculturalism, integration, Islam, the burqa, and a live-and-let-live philosophy, have all been shaken and stirred beyond recognition.

Hirsi Ali is an extraordinary woman, to have survived and risen above her incredibly dysfunctional upbringing. Dysfunctional in part because her family was rife with superstition, anger, and violence - largely because her mother was a volatile and depressed Muslim fundamentalist, from an incredibly restrictive culture, who foisted a whole stack of bizarre ideas upon her children. But her father was not a lot better. Her description of her childhood - in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya - is quite overwhelming. For me one of the outstanding features was the degree to which it was permeated with burdensome religious ideas - and the heinous practices that these ideas generated. Even just the degree of time they had to spend learning about Islam and the Quran, meant they were limited in the time they had to learn about other things.

The incredible thing was that when Hirsi Ali finally absconded to the Netherlands and met Western culture and ideas, she was able to take huge intellectual gulps of fresh air, and embrace the freedom, politics and fairness of the society she found there. She talks a lot in the book about Muslim women who are not able to make this leap, but who remain stuck in the rigid structures of their upbringing. This was not so for Hirsi Ali - she learnt Dutch, educated herself, and eventually even ended up as a very popular member of parliament.

Of course there are many Muslims who practise a benign and philanthropic form of Islam - but Hirsi Ali makes it very clear that this is not always the case, and it is not always the case in the West either. She talks about Muslim enclaves in our cities, where all sorts of gross Islamic traditions are still being continued - forced marriages, domestic violence against women, FGM and honour killings. She makes it clear that fundamentalism can often be an issue in immigrant societies, and she stresses the difficulties of changing these attitudes, and how these attitudes are often embraced by younger generations.

She is currently living in America, working for The American Enterprise Institute - a centre right think tank. Under its umbrella she started the AHA Foundation, which fights for women's rights, especially concerning issues like FGM and and honour killings. If I have moved a metaphorical five miles over the course of my life, Hirsi Ali has moved at least a hundred miles over the course of hers. I am still stunned by what she has managed to achieve.

What an incredible woman, and what an incredible communicator. If you only read one more book this year - make sure it is this one.

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There are a lot of articles questioning Hirsi Ali's attitudes. Here is one...

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/fa...

...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Amari rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography

Last week, I heard a colleague ranting about Islam and women's rights. He was reading this book and espousing Hirsi Ali's views. The next day, I lent him my copy of the Quran so that he'd have some background on the basic text of the religion he was trashing. I tend to find that all of the major religious tomes are ridiculous, hopelessly outdated, and that it's not a flaw in religion but a fault of those interpreting fundamental texts in fundamentalist ways when religion becomes less a spiritual ...more

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Sep 10, 2013 Tanja Berg rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography-memoir

This would have been a four star rating, but I'm upping it to five because this book has significantly altered my world view. I've been one of those western liberals, thinking that Islam is mostly about peace and that the violence of it stems only from the fanatics. I'm revising that stance now and am wondering how I could ever have been so blind.

Here in Norway, where I live, everyone is ever so willing to adapt to immigrants. We change our school traditions so that we do not offend people who h ...more

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Jun 11, 2007 Amanda R rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

I feel like my imagination isn't big enough to even begin to comprehend what life is like growing up in Somalia, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia - as a female Muslim with an absent father and an abusive mother. Even though Ayaan does a good job covering her youth and describing her life to those who have no frame of reference for that kind of life, it still is hard to imagine. It goes without saying that those of us born and raised in the United States have been so amply blessed; its almost beyond compr ...more

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Jun 06, 2008 Milan/zzz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, nonfiction

If I ever decide to make a list of the most important books I’ve read “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali would surely find its place on it.

First time I’ve heard about Miss Hirsi Ali it was after murder of Theo Van Gogh because of his film “Submission-part one” which he made in collaboration with Hirsi Ali. Theo has been shoot and slaughtered in the middle of the day and the letter for Hirsi Ali (in which assassin is promising the same to her) was staked with knife in Theo’s chest. It was really a huge ...more

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May 21, 2019 Nandakishore Varma rated it liked it

Shelves: memoirs, female-voices

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an extremely polarising figure. She has been hailed as an icon of women's emancipation and derided as a self-hating Islamophobe. Ayaan is an outright critic of Islam: not its manifestations across the world, but the religious philosophy itself. According to her, Islam is a medieval religion built on violence and misogyny and has no place in the modern world, and it is high time Muslims accepted it.

This book is her autobiography from her birth to the point of time when she had ...more

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Aug 28, 2007 Telly rated it liked it

Recommends it for: thos who enjoy autobiographies.

This masquerades as pure autobiography of the daughter of an iconic Somali revolutionary, who was absent for most of her life and left her, her brother, and her sister to be cared for by a heavy handed grandmother and an abusive mother. If I were rating the review as an autobiography, I would give it an additional star. As an autobiography, it does not let you down, although it does drag a little slower towards the end.

When reading this book, however, you quickly realize that there is somewhat o ...more

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Sep 03, 2008 Mikey B. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: human-rights, autobiography, gender-studies, favorites, islam

A Remarkable Transition

What a transition this individual has gone through! This autobiography describes the Somalian author's early life in Mogadishu, Saudi Arabia, and Nairobi, Kenya. Most of it is repressive. She was beaten routinely by her grandmother and mother. She had to do household chores while her older brother went out with his friends. She was also genitally excised (clitoris and labia removed) - the sole purpose being to inhibit sexual enjoyment. It is another way to inhibit a woman A Remarkable Transition

What a transition this individual has gone through! This autobiography describes the Somalian author's early life in Mogadishu, Saudi Arabia, and Nairobi, Kenya. Most of it is repressive. She was beaten routinely by her grandmother and mother. She had to do household chores while her older brother went out with his friends. She was also genitally excised (clitoris and labia removed) - the sole purpose being to inhibit sexual enjoyment. It is another way to inhibit a woman's self-development and enjoyment.

While a teenager the author participated in Islamic discussion groups about the proper nature of the head-scarf - how much or how little to reveal. It would seem that the more of the self that was removed or hidden the happier were the religious extremists. At one point she was beaten by an imman and needed hospitalization. The only pretense to self-fulfillment would be in the afterlife - or perhaps the only gratification allowed was in devotion to God. Her father was absent much of her life; he was unsuccessful in trying to topple the corrupt regime in Somalia.

Fortunately the author learned to read and in that she found another world. Even in "trashy" novels she observed that a Western woman had a role of her own, could be independent and make decisions. She was shocked and titillated that they were assertive in sexual relations.

She decided to act on that growing assertiveness and rebelled when her father made an arranged marriage to a Somali man who lived in Canada. When taking the plane to join this man, she disembarked in Germany and sought refugee status in Holland. It was there that she entered a new world. Women were free; police behaved civilly and even offered protection.

A door to an entirely new mode of behavior was opened. Some refugees chose to retreat into their ethnic bubble - not Ayaan. She embraced the freedoms of her new country. Her goal then became to wake up the Muslim-Islamic community to its own inner repression - and to alert the Dutch and greater Western community to the "backwardness" found within Islam (it was only after 9/11 that people started listening).

Within Europe there are pockets of Muslim communities where wife-beatings and honour killings are acceptable. Children are sent to Quoranic schools where they are NOT taught positive Western/European values - like the equality of women. Instead they are forced to memorize portions of scripture from the Quoran. Women are taught at a young age to be submissive and to dress conservatively. Young girls may be excised genitally. At a young age they may be coerced into an arranged marriage. If they refuse or pursue their own choices (dating) they may be murdered. If they marry and do not obey their husband, they may be beaten. The number of honour killings in Holland proves this.

Ayaan made a short film with Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh. It exposed the rigidness of fundamentalist Islam. For this Theo was violently killed by a Muslim religious fanatic. After this, Ayaan had to go in hiding.

Her goal is still to expose the evil and repressiveness of this fundamentalist cult and to get refugees and immigrants to adjust to democracy and the freedoms of Western & European society. ...more

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Oct 05, 2007 Chris rated it liked it

Some of the reviews on GoodReads for Infidel have accused Ayaan Hirsi Ali of using the platform of autobiography to expound her political views and have suggested that any American reading this book may not pick up on a perceived subtlety of doing so (whereas, one suspects, in Holland this is quite obvious). My response to this is: of course she has. Any autobiography worth reading has to be more than a simple cataloging of life’s events; otherwise it would simply be a journal. Imagine reading B ...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Rebecca rated it it was ok

Shelves: memoirs

Just finished Infidel. I leave the memoir with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I appreciate the strides that the author has made in life, considering the huge obstacles she has overcome. Additionally, I admire her outspokenness concerning women's issues. I left the book feeling an even greater resolve to support organizations and charities that are working to level the gender playing field. It causes me to reflect on my own personal practices and belief systems that work against equity (of any ...more

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Jan 10, 2016 Gary rated it it was amazing

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 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. ...more

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Feb 14, 2010 Deena Hypothesis rated it did not like it

This is a great article on why I dislike this book, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I'm going to just copy and paste some excerpts outlining her biases.

http://www.thescavenger.net/feminism-...

"Now, I’m no fan of religion – of any kind. But Hirsi Ali’s simultaneous condemnation of Islam and obvious admiration of Christianity was disturbing. As with any religion or ideology, it’s how it’s practised that impacts on people’s lives and on society.

Many of Hirsi Ali’s criticisms of Islam could be applied to funda This is a great article on why I dislike this book, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I'm going to just copy and paste some excerpts outlining her biases.

http://www.thescavenger.net/feminism-...

"Now, I’m no fan of religion – of any kind. But Hirsi Ali’s simultaneous condemnation of Islam and obvious admiration of Christianity was disturbing. As with any religion or ideology, it’s how it’s practised that impacts on people’s lives and on society.

Many of Hirsi Ali’s criticisms of Islam could be applied to fundamentalist Christianity: unwavering adherence to the Bible and the control of women’s sexuality. Even FGM has a western parallel in the state-sanctioned, legal, non-consensual mutilation of intersex children’s genitals to force them to conform to a male/female sex binary – something that rarely warrants an outcry in mainstream media or from feminist activists. If Christian fundamentalists such as Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church had their way, our society would look very different in terms of women’s and queer rights, to name just two.

Of course in no way am I saying that we should not pay attention to and speak out against the abuses endured by so many women and girls in the Muslim world. Nor am I saying we should not be critical of radical, fundamentalist Islam – as Mona Siddiqui points out in her review of Nomad in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, there are many Muslims who fear radical Islam. But vilifying an entire religion or people who follow that religion is not the way to create a harmonious society – as history as shown time and again.

The irony is that while Hirsi Ali is (rightly) applauded for her courage in fighting for and finding personal freedom, she now denies others such rights. In unleashing her wrath on Islamic fundamentalism, she has (perhaps unwittingly) become a fundamentalist herself.

It doesn’t help that she has achieved celebrity status, because once a person reaches a certain level of fame for their ideas, they are then invested in sticking with them for their own economic survival. It’s a rare academic, writer or thinker who is willing to take the risk of losing their career and/or income by doing an about-turn.

So, perhaps it’s down to publishers to champion other writers with as much vigour as they do Hirsi Ali; to publish and promote the hell out of the work of Muslim feminists working on the ground in their local communities to educate and effect change; to bring the female activists such as those featured in Coleman’s book to international writers’ festivals and posh venues like the Sydney Opera House." ...more

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Nov 25, 2020 Darryl Greer rated it it was amazing

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, feminist, author, scholar and former politician, named by Time magazine in 2005 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She is a former Muslim who rejected her faith, became an atheist and has been a vocal critic of Islam. In 2004, she collaborated on a short film with Theo van Gogh, entitled Submission which depicted the oppression of women under fundamentalist Islamic law. The controversial film led to death threats and ...more

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Mar 26, 2015 Debbie "DJ" rated it it was amazing

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, political, favorites, cultural, audio-book, religious

This book opened my eyes to the Muslim world and completely changed my views. It is remarkable what one woman can do to affect change. I cannot recommend highly enough, especially for women.

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Sep 06, 2015 Negin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: africa, memoir-biography

A few months ago, I read “Murder in Amsterdam”, about the murder of Van Gogh’s great-grand-nephew, Theo, back in 2004. Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian refugee had recently produced a short documentary about the treatment of women in Islam. He was killed first and she was meant to be next. She has been under continuous death threats since that time.

Infidel is an amazing book, the first one I’ve read by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I definitely plan on reading more. I cannot say that it’s a boo A few months ago, I read “Murder in Amsterdam”, about the murder of Van Gogh’s great-grand-nephew, Theo, back in 2004. Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian refugee had recently produced a short documentary about the treatment of women in Islam. He was killed first and she was meant to be next. She has been under continuous death threats since that time.

Infidel is an amazing book, the first one I’ve read by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I definitely plan on reading more. I cannot say that it’s a book that I enjoyed reading, far from it. There were parts that extremely disturbing and painful (regular beatings and genital mutilation – I had to skip those details, since it was just too much for me). She takes us through her childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. She ends up in the Netherlands where she escapes an arranged marriage.

I cannot even begin to imagine having to grow up Muslim in these societies, or, sorry to say it, in any society really, since I have great issue to take with the way women are treated, and that’s just a starting point. I also cannot imagine growing up under the awful clan system that exists in Somalian and other cultures. I was born in Iran and spent some early years of my childhood there. Unlike what the media would have one believe, most Iranians, at least the ones that I knew and have known, are not particularly religious. I have found that the extremism of religion goes along with the class and education system. The more educated and the higher the class levels, the more they tended to shun religious extremism. Besides, many Iranians view Islam as an Arab import that was forced upon them back in the day. Anyway, not to digress, I am immensely thankful that I am not a Muslim and never have been. I am also very grateful that I never had to wear a headscarf or veil and for the fact that we left Iran before all that rubbish was enforced. The Islam that is practiced in Iran is definitely different to that in countries like Somalia, Saudi, and so on. The average Iranian Muslim is nowhere near as extreme as these other countries.

Ayaan eloquently challenges any claim that Islam is a religion of peace. She says it like it is and I love her for that. It never fails to amaze me that so many in the Western world in particular, are quite blind to the realities of Islam – to their lack of women’s rights, free speech, and so forth.

Some quotes that I liked and want to share:
"I first encountered the full strength of Islam as a young child in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the source of Islam and its quintessence. It is the place where the Muslim religion is practiced in its purest form, and it is the origin of much of the fundamentalist vision that has spread far beyond its borders. … Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still stoned and enslaved."

“The Quran is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Muhammad died. And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war.
The Prophet did teach us a lot of good things. I found it spiritually appealing to believe in a Hereafter. My life was enriched by the Quranic injunctions to be compassionate and show charity to others. There were times when I, like many other Muslims, found it too complicated to deal with the whole issue of war against the unbelievers. Most Muslims never delved into theology, and we rarely read the Quran; we are taught it in Arabic, which most Muslims can’t speak. As a result, most people think that Islam is about peace. It is from these people, honest and kind, that the fallacy has arisen that Islam is peaceful and tolerant.”

“When people say that the values of Islam are compassion, tolerance, and freedom, I look at reality, at real cultures and governments, and I see that it simply isn’t so. People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically, for fear of being called racist.”

Again, this book is not an easy read emotionally and mentally, and that's to be obviously expected given the subject matter. However, as far as content and writing style go, it is an exceptional read and one that I highly recommend. ...more

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Apr 14, 2010 Patricia rated it it was ok

Shelves: womens-issues, islam, memoir-biographies, own

I found that her view of Islam was extremely negative and she sounded more bitter then she exclaimed. The situations that she faced in a closed society where women's rights are pretty much non-existent I felt somewhat tainted Her opinions and descriptions about Islam..... They were quite biased and one sided and at most times I felt more resentment then honesty which is quite sad, she brought though some very good points about mutilation and the rights of women in such societies. But got distrac ...more

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Oct 15, 2018 Paul rated it liked it

Shelves: readingwomenchallenge

This is a fascinating autobiography describing a Muslim childhood and upbringing in Somalia, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Ali has had a fascinating life and one of the strengths of this book is her descriptions of her childhood. The book goes on to cover Ali’s avoidance of an arranged marriage and her move to Holland, her gradual learning of the language and customs. She went into Dutch politics and later became well known for her collaboration with Theo Gogh to highlight the situation of Muslim wome This is a fascinating autobiography describing a Muslim childhood and upbringing in Somalia, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Ali has had a fascinating life and one of the strengths of this book is her descriptions of her childhood. The book goes on to cover Ali’s avoidance of an arranged marriage and her move to Holland, her gradual learning of the language and customs. She went into Dutch politics and later became well known for her collaboration with Theo Gogh to highlight the situation of Muslim women. His subsequent murder and the threats to her life are well documented and the book ends at this stage of her life.
The autobiographical sections relating to Ali’s childhood are gripping. There are descriptions of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and accounts of life in three different countries. Family is a constant as are regular beatings. Ali focusses on the role and position of women in Islam, including arranged marriage and FGM.
Ali argues passionately about the role of women in Islam and their need for liberation. She has been criticised for adopting Western attitudes and mores and becoming an apologist for the west, calling for the defeat of radical Islam. Writing here, Ali is pessimistic about the possibility of Islam changing and reforming and she argues that there is no hope for Islam as the Islam she experienced cannot change. It’s an interesting argument and having been brought up in a fundamentalist Christian sect I do understand how she feels. Like her I am now an atheist. However to argue that the extremists and fundamentalists are the only face of Islam and that deep down all Muslims are like this I think goes too far. It would also be going too far to say the deep down all Christians are the same as the hellfire breathing fundamentalists. It is certainly not my experience. I disagree fundamentally with the concept of religion but I acknowledge the right to freedom of thought and I can distinguish between the many fundamentally good people who practise religion and the extremists.
This is a challenging and interesting account of a difficult childhood which illustrates that patriarchy does not just exist in the west. However I do disagree with some of the conclusions Ali draws and her too easy acceptance of some western values. ...more

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Jan 23, 2008 Peggy Sue rated it it was amazing

This book is a must read for all people trying to understand the Muslim attitude and outlook. Hirsi Asaan Ali is a courageous woman who has given us a peek into her mind on what a Muslim thinks. I quote so you can see how powerful she is.

"We Muslims had been taught to define life on earth as a passage, a test that precedes real life in the Hereafter. In that test, everyone should ideally live in a manner resembling, as closely as possible, the followers of the Prophet. Didn’t this inhibit invest This book is a must read for all people trying to understand the Muslim attitude and outlook. Hirsi Asaan Ali is a courageous woman who has given us a peek into her mind on what a Muslim thinks. I quote so you can see how powerful she is.

"We Muslims had been taught to define life on earth as a passage, a test that precedes real life in the Hereafter. In that test, everyone should ideally live in a manner resembling, as closely as possible, the followers of the Prophet. Didn’t this inhibit investment in improving daily life? Was innovation therefore forbidden to Muslims? Were human rights, progress, women’s rights all foreign to Islam?

By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we choose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.

“Saudi Arabia is the source of Islam and its quintessence. It is the place where the Muslim religion is practiced in its purest form, and it is the origin of much of the fundamentalist vision that has, in my lifetime, spread far beyond its borders. In Saudi Arabia, every breath, every step we took was infused with concepts of purity or sinning and with fear. Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still stoned and enslaved, just as the Prophet Muhammad decided centuries ago.

The kind of thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia, and among the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hypocrisy, and double standards. It relies on the technological advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam.

We need to educate ourselves about the Muslim faith which is the faith of over half of the world's religious. This book woke me up. I highly recommend it. ...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Mary rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, 2012

I first saw Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Real Time with Bill Maher a year or two ago and quickly placed her book on my to-read list. It was weird because I tried several times to order the book and it kept getting cancelled from several different vendors. Eerie. Especially when you consider that Hirsi Ali is such a controversial figure who lives her life with bodyguards under the threat of death to this day.

It’s a fascinating story. A young girl from a fundamentalist Muslim family in war-torn Somalia, Sau ...more

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Feb 17, 2008 Peggy rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: biography, Africa, Saudia Arabia, Islam. War, religious freedom, Womens rights

oh gosh.. only 30 pages into this book and I'm not sure I can read it..
Female castration/ mutilation - this isn't in the dark ages.. this happens in mid 1970 and still happens today!!

This is an incredible biography of a girl who was born in a country torn apart by war, in a continent mostly known for what goes wrong rather than right. Measured by the standards of Somalia and Africa she states she is privileged to be alive and thriving.
She states; "Where I grew up, death is a constant visitor. ...more

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Oct 06, 2014 Mike (the Paladin) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, biography

I'm not putting this on any shelf except for Biography and history. The subject matter may touch on other topics but i don't want to mislead nor put anyone off. This book is informative, insightful, sad, frightening (even horrifying). I would say that this book is not to be missed.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a young woman who was reared in a strict Islamic family and country. This is the story of her journey through loss, pain danger, growth, development and it's still going on.

I'm not going to say much ...more

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Jun 29, 2020 Sleepless Dreamer rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-a-book-from-every-country

This book might be one of the best biographies I've ever read.

Infidel is the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Somali born, by the age of 20, Hirsi Ali had lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Following her father's attempts to force her into a marriage with a stranger, she seeks asylum in the Netherlands where she gets elected to parliament, angers a lot of Muslims with her opinions, and loses her Dutch citizenship.

At its core, this book is many things. It's a religious reckoning following a f ...more

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May 05, 2015 howl of minerva rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bio-diary-letters, islam

An extraordinary woman. Her criticism of Islam and of sociocultural practice in Islamic countries is for the most part measured and reasonable, though only her most extreme utterances get airtime. She clearly states that female genital mutilation (FGM) is not an Islamic practice but a north African cultural one.

The extreme patriarchy, honour killings etc. she criticises are similarly not Islamic per se, though they are often justified and perpetuated in the name of Islam. The rosy spectacle rel ...more

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Mar 11, 2019 Libby rated it really liked it

Shelves: abuse, coming-of-age, identity-fiction, political, read-in-2019, social-injustice, religion, government

A powerful and thought provoking memoir, ‘Infidel’ by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a book that anyone studying religion and Middle Eastern politics should read. It begins with a murder and ends with a murder. Born in Somalia and raised primarily by her mother and grandmother, Ali experiences her growing up years in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Saudia Arabia. Even though her father is mostly absent, he casts a long shadow, and Ali frequently seeks his approval. The prayers that Ali remembers from childhoo A powerful and thought provoking memoir, ‘Infidel’ by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a book that anyone studying religion and Middle Eastern politics should read. It begins with a murder and ends with a murder. Born in Somalia and raised primarily by her mother and grandmother, Ali experiences her growing up years in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Saudia Arabia. Even though her father is mostly absent, he casts a long shadow, and Ali frequently seeks his approval. The prayers that Ali remembers from childhood have the singular focus of begging Allah to secure her father’s release from prison. A member of the SSDF (Somali Savation Democratic Front), her father is sent to jail for his role in trying to oust the authoritarian president, Siad Barre.

During the first few chapters, Ali establishes the importance of the Muslim religion and the importance of bloodlines in her family. Children are taught their lineage through rote memorization. Women are taught as part of the Muslim religion to be baarri, which means they are honorable, pious, and devoted to their husbands. They have no voice of their own, but are completely subjugated to the husband, and to the men of the clan. If she is beaten or the husband takes another wife, to complain would be understood as being not baarri, and wrong in the eyes of the clan. If a woman does not behave in a pleasing manner, she can lose the protection of her husband. Without his protection and the backing of the clan, she is exposed to censure, and may be taken advantage of by other men; she may even be left to die. All are taught that to be cut off from the clan is fearful and dangerous, a magnificent method of mind control.

At the same time that Ali’s brother Mahad, age six, is circumcised, Ali, age five, and her sister Haweya, age four, experience female excision.

“In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made “pure” by having their genitals cut out. There is no other way to describe this procedure, which typically occurs around the age of five. After the child’s clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off, or, in more compassionate areas, merely cut or pricked, the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made of the girl’s own scarred flesh. A small hole is carefully situated to permit a thin flow of pee. Only great force can tear the scar tissue wider, for sex.”

Ali writes, “in Somalia, where virtually every girl is excised, the practice is always justified in the name of Islam.” There are many injustices perpetrated against women and children that Ali will relate. They will make you angry that such cruelty exists in the world.

When Ali’s father escapes from prison, the family resettles in Saudi Arabia. There, she will learn of the Muslim Brotherhood, who espouse a return to pure Islam. Executions, floggings, and stonings are regularly held in the public square. Books become Ali’s salvation, fanning a spark of independence and free will. She begins to question her religion.

When Ali comes of age and flees her arranged marriage, Ali's questions grow as she embraces her new country. Away from her home country and clanspeople, she will experience freedom, unlike anything she has ever know. She perseveres against great odds to obtain a degree in political science. Eventually becoming a Dutch citizen, she will be elected to Parliament in Holland and begin to voice strong opinions with laser-like clarity and focus. She will be opposed to government funding of Muslim schools, on the basis of the religion’s foundational cruelty to women and children. Her arguments are persuasive and controversial. Having deported a greater percentage of Jews than any other Western European country during World War II, the Dutch are now committed to tolerance, perhaps because of guilt about previous actions. Ali will begin to form her political identity around the fact that Holland’s approach to multiculturalism isn’t effective. Ali’s political stance will be called Islamophobia by some, but she is very much about changing the reality for the women and children that have not previously had choices or even a voice. She thinks that the division of church and state in the West provides much more effective governance than the intertwining of Muslim religion and politics. What I appreciate most about this book is Ali’s clarity and persuasive arguments. Dutch politics were more interesting than I would ever have guessed, but in the end, they devolved to games and bickering, much like our own politics. ...more

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Jan 25, 2010 Bruce rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Buffs of autobiography, history, comparative religion, skeptics, feminism, & everybody else

Shelves: history, biography

Infidel is an amazing book, on many levels. It’s an amazing story, work of historical analysis, political philosophy, and dissection of Islam as viewed through the autobiography of a remarkable woman (Ayaan Hirsi Ali/Magan) who will not fail to point out that among Muslim women, she is singularly fortunate. Just look at what she has done through the power of logos: mastered languages (she is fluent in Somali, Arabic, Swahili, English, and Dutch), logistics (she has negotiated her way from the po Infidel is an amazing book, on many levels. It’s an amazing story, work of historical analysis, political philosophy, and dissection of Islam as viewed through the autobiography of a remarkable woman (Ayaan Hirsi Ali/Magan) who will not fail to point out that among Muslim women, she is singularly fortunate. Just look at what she has done through the power of logos: mastered languages (she is fluent in Somali, Arabic, Swahili, English, and Dutch), logistics (she has negotiated her way from the post-colonial violence of East Africa into asylum, citizenship, and ultimately a seat in Parliament in the Netherlands), and logic (she has questioned traditional clan, government, and religious authority). Furthermore, atop the impressive weight of her own argument and experience, she carries the ultimate stamp of authority – those in power whom she opposes fear her and publicly call for her murder.

Somewhat paradoxically, Ali’s public voice arose not only out of Dutch tolerance, but in reaction to it. Her central thesis is that the peaceable diversity promoted by multiculturalism cannot be successful without shared experiences and values, and that tolerance of alternative folkways and practices must neither impose segregation nor permit acceptance of self-imposed isolation. As chronicled here, Ali has sacrificed much to attain her present position of intellectual and physical freedom. She has endured ostracism from family, clan, countrymen (emphasis on men), and (former) coreligionists along with the crippling self-doubt that comes with such shunning. Fortunately, the world is wide, and she appreciates her acceptance among a free-speech loving people and those sympathetic to human rights.

Ali develops her insights through relating her poignant life story. Hers was not a warm, cuddly childhood, but one in which an insect-infested bit of food in the rural dirt gives rise to her grandmother’s diktat (page 9), “A woman alone is like a piece of sheep fat in the sun…. Everything will come and feed on that fat. Before you know it, the ants and insects are crawling all over it, until there is nothing left but a smear of grease.” This statement comes neither as a warning nor a lament, but a statement of simple fact, one accepted by men and women alike. It is through such experiences that the heart of Ali’s “infidelity” to her Islamic faith pulses not in her stance against the extremist thought and cruel practices of Islamic fundamentalism but in her claim that Islam is inherently fundamentalist in nature and incapable of reformation. She quotes a variety of Quran passages that render women mere chattel to men’s designs and which make possible a culture of violence, ignorance, and poverty in which women and children are fair game for anyone with the Quran-lauded strength and desire to take and do with them what they will. Ali rebels against what she describes as an unreasoning submission of body, mind, and spirit in the face of the dual threats of eternal damnation and temporal vengeance.

Her memoir is in many ways, a chronicle of an emergent crisis of faith. At pp. 272-273, she concludes:

I could no longer avoid seeing the totalitarianism, the pure moral framework that is Islam. It regulates every detail of life and subjugates free will. True Islam, as a rigid belief system and a moral framework, leads to cruelty. {Terrorism is…} the logical outcome of this detailed system for regulating human behavior. Their world is divided between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ – if you don’t accept Islam you should perish.

It {doesn’t} have to be this way…. We Muslims could shed our attachment to those dogmas that clearly lead to ignorance and oppression…. We could hold our dogmas up to the light, scrutinize them, and then infuse traditions that are rigid and inhumane with the values of progress and modernity….

For me to think this way, of course, I had to make the leap to believing that the Quran was relative – not the literal syllables pronounced by God, but just another book.

However, this desire to soften the Quran into a more egalitarian stance, to be a “Muslim Voltaire” and push for compassion and empathy based on common humanity rather than inward-facing misogynist xenophobia arises from observing that the tendency for asocial exclusion is not limited to any particular culture or group. At page 68 she lightly mocks the self-segregation that took place at her secondary school in Kenya, where in “the politics of lunchboxes” Kenyan Kikuyu, Kamba, and Luo each despised one another and collectively reviled the Somali Darod, who likewise looked down on the Somali Hawiye, who together disdained the Yemenis, all of whom were in their turn at odds with the “backward” Saudis – to say nothing of the Indians and Pakistanis who themselves maintained a caste of Untouchables. (All together now in singing Peter Gabriel’s “Not One of Us?”) Nor did she find the situation much changed as a young adult in junior college in Holland, where pillars of Protestants, Catholics, and secular liberals could exist in relative isolation so long as they remained willing to come together to repair the dikes (at p. 239). Or for that matter, in college (at p. 241), where clans and nationalities gave way to class distinctions of preppy clones, trashy girls who failed to dye their roots, and sleazy girls who did drugs, each of whom perpetuate their respective in-groups by self-selecting fraternity and sorority housing. After growing up with Ali in an environment of genital mutilation and regular, ritualized beatings strong enough to leave her with a broken skull, you have to appreciate her rejection of collegiate hazing opportunities in her early 20s as much as her break with the Parliamentary power-mongering exercised by Dutch political parties she encounters in her late 30s.

If this comes across as so much moralizing in my synopsis, that’s a grave injustice to Ali and those of her friends and acquaintances who have been threatened, maimed, and killed by those who cannot tolerate a little cognitive dissonance or who fear Ali’s truth to power. Infidel is a riveting narrative, free of histrionics and hysteria, full of wit and wisdom. Arriving in a German airport and speaking to a taxicab driver her first time out of the Muslim world, her reactions are classic fish-out-of-water comedy. But if her painful experiences should be leavened with humor, in no way should this detract from the seriousness of her conclusions about the root causes perpetuating Islamic cruelty. If anything, her juxtapositions render the subject matter all the more provocative to “enlightened” readers. You can laugh, cry, and get angry in the face of ongoing human atrocity, but you cannot ignore it.
...more

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Aug 20, 2019 Maria Espadinha rated it it was amazing

Out of Words

Right now, I’m out of words! Maybe they’ll come back later?!...
In the meantime, let these links be the voice of my unspeakable thoughts:

https://www.amnestyusa.org/the-horror...

https://www.amnestyusa.org/shocking-s...

https://www.city-journal.org/html/hon... ...more

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About Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali: Ayaan Xirsi Cali; born Ayaan Hirsi Magan 13 November 1969) is a Dutch feminist, writer, and politician. She is the estranged daughter of the Somali scholar, politician, and revolutionary opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse. She is a prominent critic of Islam, and her screenplay for Theo Van Gogh's movie Submission led to death threats. Since van Gogh's murder by a Muslim in ...more

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Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

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“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” — 725 likes

“As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.” — 276 likes

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