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| Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.87
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Avg. Customer Rating:  256 reviews
Sales Rank: 332
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0743289692
Dewey Decimal Number: 949.2073092
EAN: 9780743289696
ASIN: 0743289692
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 A most remarkable book. March 17, 2007
43 out of 48 found this review helpful
Every now and then, something truly remarkable is written. This book falls into that category. I have read very few books which hit me as hard as this book did.
This is a remarkable woman. She has crossed an impassable divide, and has been able to reach the other side--after considerable suffering, work, and tears. Her journey has not yet ended. I would imagine much more awaits her. She seems to be fated to say what many do not wish to hear.
How well does anyone in the west understand Islam, and all the things it does to people? Do we really understand female genital mutilation, beaten women, arranged marriages, the compuslive need to hide the feminine, and the complete loss of individual freedom? Americans still don't have a clue. This book makes a very real effort to explain a few things. It is painful, but important reading.
One can read the various books on Islam--with great value. This book makes it personal, and painful. It is time the west came to its senses, and faced reality. It is not "one world," all cultures are not equal in value, and the individual matters much more than the collective living in darkness.
On a more mundane level, the book is well-written, gripping, heart wrenching, powerful, painful, touching, and impossible to put down. Read it, and you, too, will feel its remarkable value--and message.
I wish this wonderful woman well . She has done so very much to open our eyes.
Definently a must read book March 17, 2007
26 out of 35 found this review helpful
Because (like too many other Westerners--particularly Americans) I had limited immediate knowledge of Islam, Ali's book provided an invaluable read.
Born in a Somali family, she later sought political asylum in the Netherlands. Reading what experiences she had to document in order to obtain that status honestly gave me great pause for consideration. I and other Western-born feminists might have good intentions when we undertake 'campaigns' to help emancipate our 'sisters' in other countries from FGM, arranged marriages, and many other practices, but we should have wondered if our actions didn't have at least the smidge of condescending paternalism behind them.
We were subconsciously assuming that 'our way' was the only way and 'that religion' was naturally backwards, despite (like most of America) not actually understanding Islam, particularly the positive aspects pertaining to women's status which are too conveniently overlooked by both fundamentalists and Western feminists.
Unable to imagine having to obtain a bodyguard just because I have decided to look at my childhood religion differently, her revelation in the text is both thought provoking and sobering. Still believing that her faith is important, Ali just holds that it should be a tool for respect and equality rather than a weapon of hate and inequality.
This book is infinitely more gripping than any campaign mass-mailing because it shows how a woman successfully and proactively controlled her own life when everything in it initially suggested that others (including older women in her homeland) were going to plan it out for her. Requiring a critical reflection of her upbringing (including prior religious and social customs) this community activism will also transcend to other audiences and their very tough life experiences.
Making real change requires that EVERYTHING be examined---and NOTHING be reserved!
5 stars for Ali's Infidel March 17, 2007
33 out of 40 found this review helpful
I give this book 5 stars for the following reasons:
1)It is a moving account of young female intellectual awakening, which is a point of view we rarely see and desparately need, especially in the United States where the word "Feminism" has been twisted to simply mean "man-hater" which is a ridiculously incorrect and shallow definition.
2)It is a clearly written account of an extremely complicated story with myriad people, places, values and events that most Americans know nothing about and can barely understand. We need this clear presentation. This is certainly my first encounter with many of these ideas, belief systems and cultures, and I appreciate the direct cadence.
3)The importance of literacy, reading, languages and thoughtful questioning are spoken of authentically and throughout the narrative, making it a vital book for all educators to look at and use, especially those of us working with the vast number of illiterate and sub-literate American children and teens alive in this nation--children and teens woefully ignorant of the power of knowledge and full of disdain for education in general.
4)Another refreshing facet of the book is the back and forth emotional struggle of a person trying to determine what she believes for herself in terms of religion and politics. Again, this is a topic that Americans need to start thinking about. It is important for citizens in a Democracy to figure out what they believe and why they believe in it as they grow into young adulthood and beyond. The examined life is crucial to the health of democracy.
5)The irony of this latest twist in her life (being asked to leave the "enlightened" country she was trying to embrace) is an important reality for all Western activists to examine--the political landscape across the world is in such great upheaval and it is time for ALL of us to examine all levels of alliances and political definitions. The world is changing rapidly, and we need to move quickly to help shape this world in a positive and meaningful direction and be open to all kinds of ideas that are brand new! Clearly, the old ways are crumbling. It is up to us to shape the future. Being open-minded and questioning seems to be a crucial first step!
6) This book motivates me to learn and to act--as a feminist, as a mother, as a peace activist, as a teacher, as a poet, and as a human being trying to make sense of the world and in shaping the world. It has been a long time since I've felt so inspired.
Get the book as soon as you can and decide for yourself. I don't know why Ali chose to go to a conservative think tank now, but I trust her and look forward to learning about the next chapter in her journey of discovery.
Her life and words give me great hope for the future.
Surviving a culture of caged virginity. March 15, 2007
30 out of 37 found this review helpful
"I didn't know how I'd escape or what freedom might mean," Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes in this highly recommended memoir of self discovery. "But I knew what course my life would take if I went to Canada. I would have a life like my mother's and Jawahir's, and like the life of this woman with whom I was staying in Bonn. I would not have put it this way in those days, but because I was born a woman, I would never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be a unit in a vast beehive. I might have a decent life, but I would be dependent--always--on someone treating me well" (p. 187).
In 2004, outraged Muslims named Ali as their next target in a death threat nailed with a knife to the chest of slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. At the time, Ali was collaborating with Van Gogh on his film, Submission, which questioned a culture that oppresses women, told through the eyes of five Muslim women. This was also the subject of Ali's 2006 feminist critique of Islam, The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, in which she challenged Western culture and Islam to honestly confront issues of religion and individual freedom.
In her compelling memoir, INFIDEL, Ali shares her extraordinary ordeal in surviving a "culture of virginity" that oppresses women, and threatens their liberty as well as their lives. From her own experiences, she reveals her genital mutilation as a child and then her forced marriage--abuses suffered by other female Muslims. While en route to meet her husband in Canada, Ali abruptly decided to seek political asylum in the Netherlands--where she became a Dutch citizen, enrolled in a university, and then met Van Gogh--a decision that ultimately transformed her into an internationally renowned spokeswoman for the rights of all Muslim women. Ali's ultimate conclusion is that Islamic practices are incompatible in many ways with modern life and democracy, and should not be tolerated in the West without radical transformation. "We in the West," she observes, "would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life." Ali now works with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. For further reading on this timely subject, readers should consider Geraldine Brooks' Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women.
G. Merritt
 Excellent explaination of Islman March 15, 2007
8 out of 24 found this review helpful
At first the book was a little boring until the last section that explained where the true story was coming from.
This review is written by an innocient Californian of her generation who did not realize the magnatude of where she was coming from.
My women have always been equal. This book enlightend me to the culture where woman were less than equal.
This book is well worth reading to explain Islman.
More than worth its money
Michael Kuretich
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