Ali on Ali

A (somewhat) critical review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new memoir Infidel from Newsweek. The writer Lorraine Ali is an Iraqi-American.

L. Ali begins by listing the cruelties--and God knows there were many--inflicted on the young Ayaan as a Somali girl. And these parts move the reviewer. The Newsweek journalist sees the book as not only a memoir of abuse as a child but of a distinctly political edge as well.

Lor. Ali writes:

But Hirsi Ali's memoir is as much about her political agenda as it is her life, andin between tales of her youth she wedges harsh and uncompromising declarations: "True Islam," she writes at one point, "leads to cruelty." If her coming-of-age story—and the saga of her nomadic family, who moved from prewar Somalia to Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia and finally Kenya—were allowed to breathe on its own, "Infidel" would prove an eye-opening look into the plight of African Muslim women. But throughout the book, you can't help but feel manipulated, rather than moved. In describing the 9/11 hijackers, she comes up with an inflammatory conclusion tailor-made for her right-wing constituency: "It was not a lunatic fringe who felt this way about America and the West. I knew that a vast majority of Muslims would see the attacks as justified retaliation against the infidel enemies of Islam.

L. Ali mentions Muslim reformer women Asma Barlas, Leila Ahmed, Asma Afsaruddin as counterpoises to Hirsi Ali, an avowed but by her own words, "non-proselytizing" atheist. As even Sam Harris noted in his discussion with Reza Aslan, while Harris does not of course believe in God, he realizes that Reza represents a future for human peace, even from a purely utilitarian point of view, in a way Harris can not. As Harris says of himself, "I'm not a diplomat."

I'm not equating Hirsi Ali with Sam Harris by any stretch, but there is a difficulty that Lorraine Ali points to in Hirsi Ali--how will her message reach young Muslim women without forcing them to abandon their religion as did Hirshi?

As Lorraine Ali puts it:

Hirsi Ali says overhauling Islam is not her responsibility: she just lays out "the facts" and leaves it to others to go about fixing this supposedly broken faith. But her facts are often subjective: at one point she characterizes "every devout Muslim who aspires to practice genuine Islam" as a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood. That may have been true in Hirsi Ali's experience, but it hardly speaks for the globe's 1.3 billion other followers. It's ironic that this would-be "infidel" often sounds as single-minded and reactionary as the zealots she's worked so hard to oppose.

This not to deny the sincerity of Hirsi Ali's beliefs. I can understand given the horrible experience of Islam her reactions. She is a profoundly courageous woman, even if I don't agree with every position she advocates. I don't believe the religion can be abandoned long-term as per Hirsi Ali--because all children will be born at the starting line and will have to work through magical and mythic thinking in some fashion or other, Muslim or otherwise.

I agree with Lorraine Ali that Hirsi Ali too quickly lumps Islam with violence. She believes, and here I disagree with her, that bin Laden is basically correct in his estimation of Islam. He is the true believer, which means the religion is evil, hence she must renounce it.

Atheism mixed with classical humanistic liberal political views is a well worn path through the modern orange meme. It just isn't particularly common in the Muslim world, which in part explains both the fascination and vehement hatred heaped upon her. That is not the path I followed but I certainly respect it. What I don't find helpful is what I see as the cutting off a reformist (orange) Islamic thread. That would also support women's rights, scientific education, and pluralistic political order.

The lone difference I guess is that I see Hirsi Ali's renunciation being a true renunciation of tribal and imperial Islam not Islam itself. But I will admit the reformist trend is non-existent in Somalia and barely alive in Europe. It is in North America that Islam has the most forward thinking theology. So in that sense I'm glad Hirsi Ali is living in America because that may force her to rethink some of her equating of bin Ladenism with true Islam with the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. Of course she won't get that view at the American Enterprise Institute, so hopefully she will interact more with the women mentioned above as well as Aslan, Irshad Manji, etc.

The other day my religious pluralism class went to local mosque here in the lower mainland. Listened to a very kind older member of the community, who gave a very traditional Sunni reading---here is what the Quran and hadith says, we do it, no one can abrogate what God has written. There was not much discussion of issues like terrorism and treatment of women. He certainly was well aware he was living in North America and speaking to a non-Muslim audience and emphasized the best elements no doubt of his faith.

Towards the end I asked him if he would recite a few verses in Arabic from the Qu'ran. He chanted them and as soon as he did his posture changed, he melted into the words, and everyone in the place grew still and quiet. It was a holy moment. It was a gift only the Islamic path has given the world.

I agree with AH Ali about empowerment, political freedom and the like, but her renunciation of Islam for me can not account for how that holiness came straight from the Quran.

Nevertheless I definitely want to read the book.