My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir Book

I was very interested in this memoir and enjoyed reading about the author's spiritual experiences. Sometimes he was incredibly detailed about conversations and feelings; other times he seemed to skip over essential incidences, leaving me feeling like something was slightly missing. His response toward a fundamentalist Chrsitian in an early chapter left me a little uncomfortable, but I kept reading, trusting the book wouldn't descend into a "bash-the-Christian" leftist diatribe (and it didn't!) It is amazing to see how someone can be led from a position that views a fundamentalist Christian as naive and narrow to one that accepts a religion that won't let you wear pants past your ankles or be in the same room with a woman. Talk about narrow and restrictive! But I was interested in seeing how he found his way OUT of Muslim fundamentalism, even though some of his decisions are a little vaguely represented.



[Whenever I read anything about Islam, I so often get frustrated because the radicals use our own freedoms and our own lingo against us: "we just want freedom"'; "we should be allowed to express our religious ideas without restriction." But when your religious ideas involve turning women into second-class citizens and advocating the killing of anyone who changes their minds about being a Muslim, why can't the U.S. media be open about it. Why are we (the American public) always being bashed about "not being sensitive to Muslims," when radical Muslims REALLY DO believe very bad things.]