Infidel.

So I read this book Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali ages ago.  She is an amazing individual with a crazy story.  She is an extremely outspoken defender of women's rights in Islamic societies, and she was born in Mogadishu, Somalia.  When she was eight, Hirsi Ali's family left Somalia for Saudia Arabia, then Ethiopia and eventually settled in Kenya.  She escaped an arranged marriage by migrating to the Netherlands in 1992 where she sought and obtained political asylum and served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006. She is currently living in the United States, and in 2005 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.  So she is interesting - need I say more?

So Infidel is her memoir and it is a book I still think about even years later. So I figured I should probably write something about it.  So first off what does the title,  Infidel, actually mean?  Well, according to  Wikipedia an "Infidel (literally "one without faith") is a chiefly archaic English noun, meaning one who doubts or rejects the central tenets of a religion other than one's own or has no religious beliefs; especially in reference to Christianity or Islam."  

When used in an Islamic sense it serves as a translation of the Arabic word kafir (literally "one who denies the blessings of God") referring to those who deny the existence of God, worship more than one god, or worship something else other than God. "Infidel" and "kafir" are often regarded as offensive.

Lets just say this book really made me think about the American culture and what it would have been like to grow up somewhere else.  It opened my ideas to Islam and the Muslim faith. In the intro of the book,  Ayaan says..."people ask me if I have some kind of a death wish, to keep saying the things I do. The answer is no: I would like to keep living. However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice." This comment just made me think about all the things that are left unsaid - all the things that are hushed and never openly discussed. How is one ever going to learn about the struggles going on in another country, village, or relationship if they are never discussed? And one is contributing to an injustice when they are silent about it.

So that was just the intro and I already found something to mention.  In the beginning of the book she discusses female circumcision, genital mutilation, excision.  Call it what you like, whatever title you give it does not disregard the brutality of the act.  Ayaan says, "In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made "pure" by having their genitals cut out. there is no other way to describe this procedure, which typically occurs around the age of five. After the child's clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off, or in more compassionate areas, merely cut or pricked, the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made of the girl's own scarred flesh. A small hole is carefully situated to permit a thin flow of pee. only great force can tear the scar tissue wider, for sex.  Female genital mutilation predates Islam. Not all Muslims do this, and a few of the peoples who do are notIslamic. But in Somalia, where virtually every girl is excised, the practise is always justified in the name of Islam. Uncircumcised girls will be possessed by devils, fall into vice and perdition and become whores. The practice keeps girls pure. " she later goes on to say that her grandma had to tie her legs together when she slept so that she could heal properly.

Truly women - can you IMAGINE that???  Can you imagine just having scar tissue between your legs? This is cruel.  This is inhumane, and the author of Infidel, Ayaan, went through it.  By the age of 10, Ayaan had lived through three different political systems, all of them failures she says.  She mentions that in Saudi Arabia they treated half its citizens like animals, with no rights or recourse, disposing of women without regard.  

I can't help but wonder just HOW I, as a Western woman, would respond to this - going from having rights and equality to nothing at all? Now I know this is all Ayaan knew, but there are so many arguments for the rights of the women.  And I have heard it said that if they have never known freedom than how do you know they would even want it?  But isn't the beauty of freedom being able to choose how you live and whether you live in that freedom or not? 

Somewhere in the book Ayaan mentions her mother's outing to the grocery store and how she had to take her young son with her as an escort because she couldn't leave the house without a male escort. When she was in the shop the cashier would not look at her or take her money, so her mother just left the money sitting on the counter.  The cashier just ignored her entirely. How cruel is that? It is infuriating and irritates me, but then I think, do I think this way because I grew up in an entirely different country and culture?  Therefore, it is difficult for me to fathom being treated as a second class citizen and soo very hard for me to understand this way of thinking.  But as a Christian am I called to respect Muslim beliefs, but not called to believe in them and understand them?

She also discusses this idea of obedience and submission. And in the book she mentions a conversation she has with Boqol Sawm, a sought after lecturer in the community. She says..."he turned to the verses on how women were supposed to behave with their husbands. We owed our husbands absolute obedience...if we disobeyed them, they could beat us. We must be sexually available at any time outside our periods..TOTAL OBEDIENCE this is the rule of Islam." This enraged her and she asked "must our husbands obey us too?" "CERTAINLY NOT!" he replied..."then men and women are not equal", says Ayaan.  He replies..."they are equal"..she says, "but they're not. I am suppose to totally obey my husband, but he is not totally obedient to me, and therefore we are not equal. The Quran says on almost every page that Allah is just, but this is not just."  She later discovered that everything Boqol Swam said was in the Quran. Women should obey their husbands. Women were worth half a man.  Infidels should be killed.

Women were worth half a man.  How can you believe in a religion that states you are half a person - that a man is worth more than you.  Something just doesn't seem right there?  After reading this book my eyes were truly OPENED.  I see the freedom I have as a woman living in the United States.  I do not have to cover my entire body in fear of tempting men and being damned to Hell.  I am able to  receive an education BEFORE I am married.  I am able to choose whom I love and whom I marry.  Family is important to me, but I know that I can choose my own path and make my own decisions without feeling as though I am going to dishonor the family name.  

But more importantly I have the ability to practice the freedom of religion in this country.  I can CHOOSE to believe in something that I believe to be bigger than Islam and the Quran - that states women are worth just as much as men, that violence against your wife is never justified, and I have chosen to believe in the bible, which is the word of God, a God that is just, compassionate, loving  - a God that truly values human life.

Anyhow read the book...and forgive me if I have offended anyone in anyway!  But I am passionate about women's rights, and even more passionate about my God.