Infidel Read online

  Praise for Infidel

  “Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of Europe’s most controversial political figures and a target for terrorists. A notably enigmatic personality whose fierce criticisms of Islam have made her a darling of . . . conservatives . . . and . . . popular with leftists . . . Soft-spoken but passionate.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Brave, inspiring, and beautifully written . . . Narrated in clear, vigorous prose, it traces the author’s geographical journey from Mogadishu to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and her desperate flight to the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage.”

  —The New York Times

  “This woman is a major hero of our time. Please read her book and, if you like it as I do, recommend it to others.”

  —Richard Dawkins

  “Crammed with harrowing details, Hirsi Ali’s account is a significant contribution to our times.”

  —Kirkus (starred review)

  “Her voice is forceful and unbowed—like Irshad Manji, she delivers a powerful feminist critique of Islam informed by a genuine understanding of the religion.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “In Hirsi Ali’s mesmerizing memoir . . . we’re permitted to admire her courage and her prose, to marvel at her steely feminist self-creation, to mourn her sister, deplore her brother, and share her horror at true believers on a misogynistic rampage.”

  —Harper’s Magazine

  “But Infidel is not just a bitter manifesto against genital mutilation and holy terror. With her terrific ear for dialogue and her fine eye for detail, it’s at times more like Little Women under the shade of the talal tree, mapping the stories of family life, a young girl’s first kiss and ‘old chants of war and death, raids, herding, green pastures, herds of many camels’ against the soul-crushing backdrop of Somalia’s bloody civil war.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Infidel is a unique book, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a unique writer, and both deserve to go far.”

  —The Washington Post

  “A gifted writer and compassionate soul. . . . [R]eaders who crave well-told tales will want to listen.”

  —People, Critic’s Choice, 4 stars

  “A powerful, compelling read. . . . Put simply, this woman is a heroine.”

  —The Christian Science Monitor

  “A profoundly moving memoir that celebrates triumph over adversity.”

  —The New Yorker

  “The most remarkable, moving, eye-opening, can’t-put-down book you’ll read this year. You may not agree with every word, but Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s story will haunt you for life.”

  —Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and coauthor with Heidi Toffler of Revolutionary Wealth

  “A brave and elegant figure . . . an honest woman . . . No one who reads her [memoirs] will doubt the self-questioning and the rigorous honesty of her mind. Perhaps, as in Voltaire’s short story ‘L’Ingenu,’ it is that too much honesty is sometimes unpalatable, even if it is couched in civil terms. . . . She has an open mind that has released itself from the old strait-jacketed frame of reference of Right and Left, she is instinctively deeply anti-authoritarian and she is unlikely to stick to straight ideological lines. She will go on asking difficult questions.”

  —The Observer

  “Her mission is too large for any single party. She is urging the West to judge Islam by its own standards. She is urging the Islamic world to take a look at itself. What Islam needs, she feels, is a swift dose of eighteenth-century enlightenment—it’s time to put down the Koran and pick up Voltaire.”

  —Sunday Times Culture

  “A jaw-dropping account . . . freshly riveting. . . . A candid and compelling narrative of survival, personal growth, and cosmopolitan achievement against all odds, Infidel is . . . noteworthy for its passionate insistence that so-called Western values such as free speech and gender equality are fundamental and universal rights—rights still denied to millions of men and, especially, women around the world today.”

  —Elle

  “It’s a page-turner, almost novelistic, the story of a metamorphosis from young girl born to be forced into marriage and subjugated, to an interpreter, to a graduate student in political science, then to a representative [in Parliament]. . . . Beyond the account of Ayaan’s own emancipation, this book is a terrifying exploration of the situation of women in Islamic countries, and a plea for their sexual liberation.”

  —Elle (France)

  “Hirsi Ali’s spirited recollections and defense of women’s rights to independence and self-expression are inspiring to women of all cultures.”

  —Booklist

  “One marvels at the tenacity of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali ‘slave’ turned Dutch MP and now fugitive Muslim feminist . . . If there is one book that really addresses the existential issues of our civilisation, then Ali’s autobiography is it. That it is brilliantly and soberly written is a bonus. That at thirty-eight she has plenty of time for more books—maybe about her impressions of America—leads to keen anticipation.”

  —Sunday Telegraph, lead review

  “Intelligent, passionate, beautiful. And living in fear of her life . . . How she went from devout believer to fearless opponent, from a loyal clan member to being renounced by her family, from Africa to Europe, and from blind faith to unbending reason is the compelling story she tells in her new autobiography entitled, with characteristic bluntness, Infidel . . . Her combination of elegance and eloquence would be impressive in any circumstances. Under threat of death, it is nothing short of incredible.”

  —Observer Review, front cover

  “A charismatic figure . . . of arresting and hypnotizing beauty . . . [who writes] with quite astonishing humor and restraint.”

  —Christopher Hitchens, Slate

  “A remarkable book . . . Infidel shows that a determined woman can change much more history than her own.”

  —Christopher Hitchens, The Sunday Times, front cover

  “Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a maverick, bravely defying the Netherlands’ political correctness to address Europe’s growing cultural rifts . . . the former Dutch politician is a master of self-reinvention. . . . It’s all retold in her eloquent new memoir.”

  —New York magazine

  “Hirsi Ali is a tractarian and a memoirist. . . . Her entire purpose in fleeing to the Netherlands, as she explained eloquently and at length, was to escape a life of submitting to other people’s reactionary opinions and to go bang the table on behalf of individual freedom, and here she is doing what she has intended to do. . . . In her books, . . . she dedicates herself mostly . . . to [describing] and to [decrying] the miseries of women in the . . . Muslim world that she knows best. . . . These passages express . . . a visceral anger at oppression. A moral indignation, and not just a wistful pragmatism . . . Hirsi Ali’s books raise the issue of women’s rights, and not from an outsider’s point of view. . . . Here is the actual insider; the real thing. . . . Hirsi Ali’s writings have the effect of making a large number of nuanced subtleties look ridiculous. . . . [Her] critics have lost the ability to distinguish between a fanatical murderer and a rational debater.”

  —Paul Berman, “Who’s Afraid of Tariq Ramadan,” The New Republic

  “Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the outstanding figures of our time. She is a luminous example of enlightenment and courage, and an emblem of hope not just for women in Islam but for women and men everywhere in all circumstances, because she shows that an undaunted spirit always achieves victory, no matter what. She is a human being of the present and future, who shows how to stand up as a free agent, shaking off the shackles of the past and all its rooted injustices and oppressions. Her experience and how she has transcended it shows the way to far better possibilities for human flourish
ing. Her autobiography is an education and an inspiration: it should be required reading for everyone everywhere.”

  —A. C. Grayling

  “Infidel is a riposte, controversial and compelling, to all her critics. Ali has invited them to walk a mile in her shoes. Most wouldn’t last 100 yards.”

  —Evening Standard

  “Infidel is the autobiography of a woman who has battled to free herself from enslavement to Islam, carried along almost entirely by her own impetus to become an individual. . . . What stands out the most is the personal integrity that has allowed her to distance herself first from Islamic fundamentalism and then from European political correctness. Through her direct, clear, convincing and intelligent written style, the former MP in her book unveils the dramatic story of a personal revolution.”

  —El País

  “As a woman whom radical Muslims have marked for death, her message deserves every American’s attention.”

  —National Review Online

  “Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a crusader . . . an Infidel indeed. . . . This articulate autobiography is worth reading for both its political and religious perspectives and because Hirsi Ali’s life is so fascinating.”

  —The Age

  “The death threat received by Ayaan Hirsi Ali demanded to be taken more seriously, mostly because of its mode of delivery: staked to the dying body of Theo Van Gogh, her collaborator in producing the film Submission, Part One, which depicted abused women with verses from the Koran inscribed on their semi-naked bodies. Van Gogh’s murder provides Hirsi Ali’s autobiography with an arresting opening and lends moral weight to her unrelenting critique of Islam.”

  —The Weekend Australian

  “This is the extraordinary story of a woman born into a family of desert nomads, circumcised as a child, educated by radical imams in Kenya and Saudi Arabia, taught to believe that if she uncovered her hair, terrible tragedies would occur. . . . She now espouses a controversial conclusion: that Islam is in a period of transition and that as practised now it is often incompatible with modernity and democracy so must radically transform itself to become so.”

  —Australian Financial Review

  “Ayaan Hirsi Ali has survived genital mutilation, civil war, a forced marriage and numerous death threats but she won’t be silenced. Infidel is the story of her life and is one of the most absorbing books I have read in a long time. . . . Her book offers an illuminating look at Islam, and emphasises the view that religious tolerance should never come at the cost of basic human rights. Infidel is a must-read”

  —Sunshine Coast Daily

  “From her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia to her rise as one of the world’s most eloquent and determined champions of free speech, this enlightening memoir of an admired and controversial political figure reveals how Hirsi Ali developed her beliefs and maintains her resolve to fight injustice and change the world.”

  —Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin

  “Too many people still don’t understand what our country is up against. They might if they read [Hirsi Ali’s] book.”

  —Fred Thompson, former U.S. Senator and author of At That Point in Time

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  Contents

  Foreword by Christopher Hitchens

  Introduction

  Part I: My Childhood

  Chapter 1: Bloodlines

  Chapter 2: Under the Talal Tree

  Chapter 3: Playing Tag in Allah’s Palace

  Chapter 4: Weeping Orphans and Widowed Wives

  Chapter 5: Secret Rendezvous, Sex, and the Scent of Sukumawiki

  Chapter 6: Doubt and Defiance

  Chapter 7: Disillusion and Deceit

  Chapter 8: Refugees

  Chapter 9: Abeh

  Part II: My Freedom

  Chapter 10: Running Away

  Chapter 11: A Trial by the Elders

  Chapter 12: Haweya

  Chapter 13: Leiden

  Chapter 14: Leaving God

  Chapter 15: Threats

  Chapter 16: Politics

  Chapter 17: The Murder of Theo

  Epilogue: The Letter of the Law

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Group Guide

  To Abeh, Ma, Ayeeyo (Grandma), Mahad And in loving memory of Haweya

  Foreword

  The volume that you hold in your hands is really two books. The first is a fascinating memoir of participation in one of the modern world’s most imposing new realities: cross-border and cross-cultural migration. Tens of millions of people, for reasons of either dislocation or aspiration, now live far from their country of origin. This displacement involves not just a journey in miles but also a journey in time: citizens born in the conditions of the medieval village work amid European and American skyscrapers. Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in circumstances that would be unimaginable to most inhabitants of the “developed” world; she even wonders at one point how many of the girl babies born on the same day as she was, in the same hospital, have survived, let alone flourished as she has. A few lucky accidents, a tenacious mother, and, in my opinion, her early acquisition (while in Kenya) of the English language have made the crucial difference. Not only does the author relate her own escape from one sphere to another, but she also describes how she tried to help others to manage the transition and, ultimately, how her past tried to pursue her into her future.

  Onto the “Third World” conditions of warfare, clan rivalry, scarcity, and repression are superimposed the man-made tyrannies of religion and superstition. Ayaan—as I shall call her from now on, proud as I am to be counted as her friend—was while still a child subjected to the gross torture of genital mutilation. Numerous were the men (and older women) who had the right to beat her, and who exercised that right with gusto. Denied autonomy even in respect to her own private parts, she was also expected to acquiesce in any arrangements for her own nuptials that others might determine for her. And all of this had to be accepted fatalistically, because it was the will of a supreme being. Thus the other journey described here, and a no less arduous one, is the gradual emancipation of the self from the “mind-forged manacles” of theocracy. Ayaan used to believe in the existence of djinns and devils, in the workings of an international Jewish conspiracy, in the literal truth of a single book, and in the necessity of covering female limbs and faces. It is inspiring to read of her gradual liberation from these delusions, and of her eventual rejection of belief in the supernatural altogether.

  In a conversation that we had in the fall of 2007, I asked Ayaan about the good-humored tone of this book, remarkably free as it is of the rancor that might, given the story it tells, have been forgiven. Her response was twofold. First, she said, she felt on balance fortunate. She was, after all, alive to tell the tale. Second, she had seen what anger had done to her mother, a woman “imprisoned” in resentment at the many ways that life had maltreated her. (You will be meeting this unusual woman in the following pages and perhaps imagining what a brilliant mother she could have been in more propitious conditions.)

  We then discussed the triad of mentalities that, in my opinion, go to make up Islamist fundamentalism. These are self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred. “In the Muslim world there is hardly a self,” was her first comment, “because the only real human moments are stolen ones. This leads to hypocrisy, which is the main cause of self-righteousness.” A strong feature of this book is the clear-eyed approach that it takes to matters of sex. Ayaan believes that sexual repression is at the root of all the related problems, because “without sexual freedom there is no self.” The corollary to this is that anybody who wants to possess sexual self-respect will have to embark on a collision course with
religious orthodoxy. The cult of virginity, which is one of the centerpieces of the Quran, absolutely mandates both male supremacy and female misery. She talked quietly and demurely but graphically of the ways this cult makes the lives of women a misery, either by depriving them of a sex life altogether or by forcing them into expedients (painful anal penetration, the resealing of the hymen) that are dangerous as well as unpleasant and degrading.

  One of the many ways this book succeeds is in reconstructing the confused mentality of a young girl who was bewildered by the endless demands of a cruel faith. “One of my first moments of alarm,” she told me, “was when I was five or six years old and found my granny with her bottom in the air, talking to herself and addressing somebody. I thought it was a game and started to play around, and she told me I was an evil girl. The thing was—I could swear that though she was talking to someone, there was nobody there.” (I told her the old joke: when people say they talk to god, we may call that prayer. When people say that god talks to them—that’s schizophrenia.) Religious cults often emphasize the role of the precocious child who utters words of wisdom, but it is equally true that children can be quick to see through the devices of religion. “Islam is so crude because it insists on such strict prayer routines and exercises. I had to attend but I couldn’t concentrate and so I felt guilty.” Here is the very encapsulation of the sado-masochism of religion: it makes impossible demands on people and then convicts them of original sin when they fail to live up to them.

  The fear of eternal punishment is a wicked thing to inflict on a child. Ayaan told me that she wasn’t completely free of her repressive upbringing until she had lost her terror of hell. “In Muslim teaching, hell is intensely real and very close. You could be feeling the flames at any moment.” To throw off this reign of mental terror isn’t an easy matter. Some intelligent adults never quite lose their fear of damnation. It wasn’t until she had crossed this Rubicon that she could declare her full independence. But this is perhaps to get slightly ahead of the story.