Ayaan Hirsi Ali
PHOTO BY ELISABETTA VILLA/GETTY IMAGES
[From review]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now, which, among other theses, points out the intellectual bankruptcy of a political/religious ideology that preaches a return to seventh-century law and disorder while utilizing the tools of twenty-first century Western progress.
[. . .]
Heretic, as its subtitle suggests, is not a third bio but rather Ali’s most academic and aspirational book to date. It clearly and cleverly offers five “amendments” to Islamic orthodoxy in order to alleviate its violent and oppressive tendencies.
[. . .]
Heretic carefully separates Muslims into three categories. “Medina Muslims,” as Ali calls them, are the jihadists and their supporters, who intertwine the faith with seventh-century political and martial order, as Muhammad did during his time in that city. A low-ball estimate puts this population at 48 million, a tiny fraction of the world’s Muslims—but, considering that it took only 19 men armed with box cutters and the “Medina” ideology to bring us 9/11, it’s a number to be concerned about. In the second group are the apostates and heretics, like Ali herself, who have left the faith altogether or are so critical of it that they can no longer be considered “true” Muslims. This population is tiny but growing. Finally, what Ali terms the “Mecca Muslims” comprise the majority of Islam’s adherents. These are the hearts and minds to whom she preaches reform: devout Muslims who desire access to Western thought, education, technology, and civil law, but who find that “pure” Islamic scripture and discipline (or their government’s adoption of sharia law) renders accommodation all but impossible. Torn by this conflict, many of these Muslims find themselves ripe for jihadist plucking: better to side with the devil you kinda know (Medina Islam) than the one you don’t (hell-bound apostasy).
[. . .]
She dedicates whole chapters to diagnosing the five root problems in Islam that manifest themselves via violence and oppression: 1) The Qur’an’s status as the immutable word of God and the infallibility of Muhammad as the last divine messenger; 2) an emphasis on the afterlife over the here and now; 3) sharia’s claims to be a comprehensive system of law governing the spiritual and temporal realms; 4) the obligation of ordinary Muslims to command right and forbid wrong; and 5) the concept of jihad, or holy war.
[. . .]
The intended audience might do better to read Ali’s earlier books first.Page after page is filled with disconcerting statistics.
The second quibble is with Ali’s case for optimism.
[. . .]
[. . .]
Heretic carefully separates Muslims into three categories. “Medina Muslims,” as Ali calls them, are the jihadists and their supporters, who intertwine the faith with seventh-century political and martial order, as Muhammad did during his time in that city. A low-ball estimate puts this population at 48 million, a tiny fraction of the world’s Muslims—but, considering that it took only 19 men armed with box cutters and the “Medina” ideology to bring us 9/11, it’s a number to be concerned about. In the second group are the apostates and heretics, like Ali herself, who have left the faith altogether or are so critical of it that they can no longer be considered “true” Muslims. This population is tiny but growing. Finally, what Ali terms the “Mecca Muslims” comprise the majority of Islam’s adherents. These are the hearts and minds to whom she preaches reform: devout Muslims who desire access to Western thought, education, technology, and civil law, but who find that “pure” Islamic scripture and discipline (or their government’s adoption of sharia law) renders accommodation all but impossible. Torn by this conflict, many of these Muslims find themselves ripe for jihadist plucking: better to side with the devil you kinda know (Medina Islam) than the one you don’t (hell-bound apostasy).
[. . .]
She dedicates whole chapters to diagnosing the five root problems in Islam that manifest themselves via violence and oppression: 1) The Qur’an’s status as the immutable word of God and the infallibility of Muhammad as the last divine messenger; 2) an emphasis on the afterlife over the here and now; 3) sharia’s claims to be a comprehensive system of law governing the spiritual and temporal realms; 4) the obligation of ordinary Muslims to command right and forbid wrong; and 5) the concept of jihad, or holy war.
[. . .]
The intended audience might do better to read Ali’s earlier books first.Page after page is filled with disconcerting statistics.
The second quibble is with Ali’s case for optimism.
[. . .]
Voltaire, Locke, Luther, Spinoza . . . it’s tempting to call Ali the modern incarnation of one or another of these. Yet just being the Ayaan Hirsi Ali of our own time is more than enough: she’s the heretic who risks her life with rich intellectual treatises and memoirs to hasten an ideological reformation that could liberate millions. We ignore her quill to our shame and peril.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/bc0427ke.html
KATHERINE ERNST
The Heretic We Need
Once again, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s pen is mightier than any barbarian’s sword.
April 27, 2015
Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/bc0427ke.html
KATHERINE ERNST
The Heretic We Need
Once again, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s pen is mightier than any barbarian’s sword.
April 27, 2015
Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Harper Collins, 288 pp., $27.99
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