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Average Rating:  out of 272 Reviews
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Price: $15.00
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Sale: $8.37
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Manufacturer: Free Press
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780743289696
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Publisher: Free Press
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Dewey Decimal Number: 949.2073092
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Publication Date: 2008-04-01
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Reading Level: 384
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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.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Should be Made into a Movie!! |
Date: 2008-11-17 |
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Details: Wow, you can't put this book down!
It reads like an action/suspense/thriller!
Wow, I hope someone will turn this into a film soon.
She is the Anne Frank of our generation.
She walks us through her youth during the modern
day holocaust that is the Muslim mistreatment of
millions of women including little girls -- thousands
who are mutilated daily. Unbelievable! |
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Review Summary: Thank God we live in America |
Date: 2008-11-02 |
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Details: This book was interesting, and gave insigts into many areas; being a Muslim woman, being a wife of arrangewment, being a foreigner seeking asylum in another country, what a socialist country is like to live in. I felt the book was too wordy, in other words, too much detail to lots of long days, but was a great discussion book for my bookclub. Too bad she gave up any belief in God also. Worth reading. |
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Review Summary: This woman is so brave |
Date: 2008-10-31 |
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Details: You'll be amazed by this remarkable woman's story and what it tells us about extreme Islam. It will leave you angry, scared and ready to roll up your sleeves.
Before reading this, I didn't know that her partner in making the short film, Submission, was killed and that because of that she had to live under constant security. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CakuoaCf4 Submission film
All I expected from this book was the story of a Muslim who left Islam. It was much more than that. |
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Review Summary: An important and interesting read |
Date: 2008-10-26 |
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Details: "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an important book not only because it chronicles the life experiences of a very interesting and courageous woman, but also because it provides the non-Muslim with an insider's view of Islam as it is practiced in the countries she grew up in. Her critique of the religion is clear-eyed and devoid of romanticism. She discusses frankly her own disillusionment with Islam, a disillusionment that seemed primarily to spring from its cruel and unjust treatment of women in general and her specifically. But she also takes aim at the dangers and challenges that Islam presents to western cultures as they accept larger and larger populations of Muslims who reject western values. She takes to task the apologists for Islam who fail to be concerned with the brutalization and subjugation of women, and who excuse the radicalism present in and encouraged by the theology. She recounts her life on the run from death threats for speaking out against Islam and the death of her friend Van Gogh.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali lived and suffered under Islam for the first 25 years of her life. She experienced the cruelty of Islamic practices toward women first-hand. She should know of what she speaks. So it behooves us to understand why she is more harshly critical of Islam than are most westerners and why she bemoans the fact that most westerners fail to understand and value the ideological foundations upon which their relatively peaceful and prosperous countries are built. The warnings this courageous woman raises in this well-written book are well worth reading and considering.
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Review Summary: A Powerful Book That is Relevant To Our Troubled Times |
Date: 2008-10-24 |
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Details: This book is a memoir about Ayaan Hirsi Ali's struggles with growing up in a strict Muslim home, and her gradual understanding of how her religion was abusive to the happiness and freedoms of women. Born in Somali, and eventually becoming a member of the Dutch parliament before moving to the United States, she tells a brutal and straight forward story of what it was like living as a girl and later a woman under the strict rules of the Muslim Religion. Despite death threats, she has not shied away from attacking the religion that she once believed so strongly in. This book is a powerful exposure of what the lives of women are like in a very restrictive and controlling religion, that places women in a subservient role. This extraordinary story has really made me stop and think, and re-evaluate my own current attitudes about Islam. Many Muslim women, even in so called free thinking countries, such as Holland, are still living under strict Islamic laws that not only allows, but even encourages men to beat their wives, order genital mutilation of their daughters, and sometimes to even kill these women. This book is so relevant to what is going on in the world today. It helped me to better understand why we are so hated, to see that the roots of this hate are based in the original doctrines of the Muslim Religion, to understand that women who choose to wear the vail are not necessarily doing it because this makes them happy, but because that the culture tells them that this is the way to be pure, and the way to eternal reward after death. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in women's rights, and the basic beliefs of people who literally follow the teachings of the Muslim Religion. I believe in tolerance for religious freedoms, but I found this book very disturbing, and it has caused me to rethink some of my previous attitudes. Free countries must guard against believing so strongly in religious tolerance that the cost of basic human rights is compromised. |
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