Infidel: My Life [Print] [Paperback]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2008

An international bestseller, Infidel shows the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished--and sometimes reviled--political superstar and champion of free speech. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali (the author) survived civil war, female circumcision, brutal beatings, an adolescence as a devout believer, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four countries under dictatorships. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam, earning her the enmity of reactionary Islamists and craven politicians. Under constant threat, she refuses to be silenced. Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright, curious, dutiful little girl evolves into a pioneering freedom fighter. (text copied from rear cover of book)

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; First Edition edition (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416526242
• ISBN-13: 978-1416526247
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (614 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,029,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, was raised Muslim, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in Africa and Saudi Arabia. In 1992, Hirsi Ali came to the Netherlands as a refugee. She earned her college degree in political science and worked for the Dutch Labor party. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks and now serves as a Dutch parliamentarian, fighting for the rights of Muslim women in Europe, the enlightenment of Islam, and security in the West.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

663 of 716 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A vivid chronicle of a triumphant escape from cultural confinement February 17, 2007

By Steve Summers VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Autobiographies often suffer from late-life authorship--a time when the fires are damped and the events foreshortened by time. This one--by a woman still in her thirties--is an exception to nearly every rule of the genre. Not least for its electrifying readability: it consumed every free moment of the two days it took to finish it. Putting it down was simply not an option.

This book will grab your imagination like no other, transplant you into a world you have probably never known, and introduce you to the intimate world of a muslim family swept by circumstance all over Africa, Arabia, and Europe. The complex interaction of tribes, clans, cultures, extended families and nations (and their consequences) isn't dryly analyzed, it is woven into a personal drama with the momentum of a locomotive. The love of family rides perilously over the jarring railbed of refugee life, of ancient and modern Islamic conflicts, all of it recounted with real compassion in beautifully clear English. This multilingual immigrant needs no ghostwriter.

Unlike the collection of editorial essays which comprised "The Caged Virgin", "Infidel" is a consistently focused narrative of a spectacularly eventful life launched almost inadvertantly into an unparalleled adventure in moral courage. But there's far more here than a clash-of-cultures story well told. There is no targeted rush toward a predestined liberation. The revelatory discovery of western freedoms comes late in the book and gathers like a slow-motion sunrise. Only in the final chapters does she defect from Muslim culture, graduate from the University of Leiden, become a Dutch legislator, a target of Islamic terrorists, and an incendiary revolutionary for Muslim womens' rights....

More than simply discovering western libertarian values, she shows a deep and critical understanding of their history, how they've shaped the modern world, and shows their prognosis for dealing with the festering problem of Europe's Islamic subculture. Her extraordinary life seems more an ongoing work in progress than a settled iconographic career. She has recently moved to America--the adopted home of another famously eloquent and consequential revolutionary: Tom Paine. Read more ›

165 of 185 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A most remarkable book. March 17, 2007

By Jeff Peirce

Format:Hardcover

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.

187 of 213 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-Read By a Heroine of World Historical Importance March 5, 2007

By Danusha V. Goska

Format:Hardcover

"Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a must-read book by a heroine of world historical importance.

Years from now, maybe even centuries from now, her depth and integrity, and the depth and integrity of others like her, will still be having a positive impact on the world.

Please don't misunderstand this book. "Infidel" is NOT a right-wing tract or a left-wing tract; it is not a feminist pamphlet or an apologia for the West. "Infidel" is NOT an attack on Muslims.

"Infidel" is a beautifully written work of art. If you were living on another planet, where there were no Muslims, no Westerners, no 9-11, you would still want to read this book for its profound human depth and its literary value.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali takes the particular -- her own extraordinary life lived in Africa, Saudia Arabia, Europe and North America, lived as a hyper- devout Muslim and lived as a new atheist -- and, with the clarity of an electron microscope, depicting every detail, she creates a work of universal resonance.

Have you ever been afraid to defy convention? Have you ever suffered to learn that your family's and people's traditions were not as benign as you had been taught to believe? Have you ever witnessed injustice and not known what to do? Have you ever wanted to be a hero or a heroine?

If so, then you will see yourself in this book, even given its exotic details.

Its exotic details include a heartbreaking scene that describes how madrassah -- Koran school -- pupils brutalized a girl they dubbed "kintirleey," that is, a girl whose private female anatomy had not yet been mutilated, as per Muslim-African custom.

This scene is written in the most simple of language. You could read it with the television on in the background.... And yet it falls on your heart with the weight of lead.

What makes Ayaan Hirsi Ali a voice of world historical importance is partly her great art, exhibited here; it is also her shining courage. Simply, in an age where truth is penalized, banned, distorted, Ayaan Ali Hirsi simply speaks the truth.

Hirsi Ali refuses to participate in nonsense. I want to type a word other than "nonsense" -- B.S.

Hirsi Ali resists lies. That insistence on truth has made her life hard. She and her colleague, Theo van Gogh, made the film "Submission," about the fate of women in Islam. A Muslim assassin killed van Gogh on a public street, shooting him, stabbing him, slitting his throat, and, with a knife blade, affixing a note to his chest; the note threatened Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The words you read in "Infidel" have a high price. Hirsi Ali lives in constant danger for telling the truth.

This book is so good and so important, that one knows that Ayaan Hirsi Ali's great courage is worth any price. Read more ›

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Infidel August 20, 2007

By Amira Mansour

Format:Hardcover

This is a fantastic description of life in Islam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains in very honestly what she has had to deal with in her life. As an ex muslim myself, she is a brave example for the rest of us women struggling with the threats and violence of Islam. This is a must read book for those who do not have the time or patience to study Islam and Islamic culture. It should be mandatory reading for High School Students in the west. Anyone who has to risk their lives to tell the truth is revolutionary. These days the truth is a revoluntionary act and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a pioneer and my hero.