Infidel Book

Any woman born as a Muslim who has the courage to write a book openly critical of Islam has my respect.

A woman who has the brass to title that same book Infidel has my rapt attention.

Infidel by Ayann Hasli Ali is shocking, brutally honest, and captivating. This woman's courage and resilience are a testimony to the human spirit. The letters and phone calls between her and her father are painfully real and troubling, especially when read in the context of the harshness and violence of the culture from which she came.

Most endearing, though, is her indefatigable sense of hope and optimism, despite all that she had seen and been through. She is not blindly accepting of western culture, she calls it like she sees it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, but she draws a stark and real portrait of the contrast between two worlds.

Also important to read was her observations and perspectives of the 9/11 attacks. At the time, Ayann was a political refugee in Holland. These attacks and the world's responses thereafter led her on a spiritual journey of questioning her faith, questions and doubts that had been brewing for some time.

When I was in Iraq back in 2005 (roughly the same time this book was coming out), I met a man named Omar, he was a Kurd, who spoke English and we struck up a conversation. It turned out that we were the same age. I was dumbfounded by the great disparity in our childhoods. While I had enjoyed a pleasant and non-eventful youth in the suburbs of America, Omar had been beaten, shot, and his family had been kicked out of their home. As we talked, I could not help looking at Omar's right arm. He was lucky to still have it; there was a horrific deformity in the forearm, the result of a gunshot wound. Omar explained that he had been taken to the nearest hospital and given rudimentary first aid and sent miles away … to a Kurdish hospital. The first hospital had been only for Arabs.

I could not believe that while I was riding around with my friends and having fun, Omar was experiencing a much harder life. Ayann is my age too, and her childhood was very similar to Omar's. Growing up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and across eastern Africa, Ayann described seeing beatings, punitive amputations and beheadings, and depicted receiving violent beatings and mutilation at the hands of her own family. Her escape to Holland and her emancipation from the darkness of her past is a great story. Her continued fight for civil and human rights and her ongoing struggles and life threatening difficulties are inspiring.