Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I would venture to say that this was one of, if not the, most important books I have read in quite some time. Ayaan Hirsi Ali ventures chronologically through her life, beginning with a youth in Somalia that was shaped by the experiences of her mother and grandmother. Both her family’s religious roots in Islam and the deeply tribal nature of Somalia (and many parts of Africa) heavily influenced her youth and life.

My attention held fast throughout the 350 pages as she struggled through female mutilation, living in Saudi Arabia where her mother sought the roots of the Islamic faith, returning not to the war-torn and Islamic Somalia but the safer and Christian Kenya. She strives to discover how to align her lineage of tribalism with devout Islam and the downcast women she encounters. Without downplaying the strife of her own life – being beaten by her mother and made to live up to unrealistic expectations, Hirsi Ali presents a reality that Western minds often try to ignore or write off as archaic and irrelevant.

When her father, who was present very little of her life, receives a man from their tribe who will marry her, the decision is made. On her way to Canada to re-unite with her “husband,” Hirsi Ali takes advantage of the wait in Germany for a visa and decamps to Holland where she claims refugee status. Eventually she becomes a Dutch citizen and after seeing the torment women endure silently at the hands of their Muslim fathers and husbands, she is encouraged into politics. Her ideas are radical, and eventually a man who collaborated with her to create a film that portrays Islam in a negative light is killed.

It is not an overstatement to suggest that this book will linger in the reader’s mind long after the last page has been turned. As someone who is simply presenting her experience, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells a compelling history that brings into focus issues that Western tendencies gloss over and “political correctness” dares not even look at. As her descriptions never wandered into the grotesquely graphic, I do not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who seeks to see another side of the world and its struggles through the eyes of one who lived and breathed these realities.