Jahiliah

I was paying for some books at Barnes & Nobles and noticed a row of books behind the counter. It was a display of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel. It had a picture of her on the cover, this tall and thin Somali woman staring back at me, sort of defiantly. "Infidel" is a word commonly associated with Islam, most people think Muslims regard a lot of people living in this world as infidels, so I guessed the book must have something to do about Islam. So I was curious. So when I came across the book again at Target (where you can get laundry detergent, a coffee table and clothes by Isaac Mizrahi all under one roof) I decided to buy it.

At the same time, just on a whim, I picked up Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin, which is proof that God is indeed watching over what I read because if not for that book, I would still be seething with anger right now.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was a member of the Dutch parliament, championing women's rights and freedom from being oppressed by "Islamic mysogyny". She made a film called Submission, Part I with Theo Van Gogh, who was later shot in the middle of an afternoon on his way to work. His throat was slit, and a letter to Ayaan was left stabbed on his chest. Since then, she has had to live under armed guard, forced to leave Netherlands and is now living in the States. Infidel is a book about her childhood and her life before and after Theo's death.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali denounced Islam, the catalyst of this being the 9/11 attacks which prompted her to think of which side she's on. This shouldn't really be important to you and me, because who or what she believes in is irrelevant to us, just like my choice of laundry detergent is irrelevant to you. What is important, though, are the things she's saying about the religion. It's so important, and so effective that a lot of people are paying attention to her, enough to make her, as the book's dust-jacket proclaim, the "darling of Conservatives." If you watch enough Bill O'Reilly and Pat Robertson, this can not be a good thing for Muslims.

When a friend told her that the people who commited 9/11 are just fanatics, that they are just a fringe of the Muslim world, that the rest of the Muslims are peaceful, she says no, "this is belief. This is Islam." She equates violence to Islam, every injustice commited to women, the honor-killings, the genital mutilations in the name of female circumcision, the rapes, the domestic abuse, the arranged marriages, the refusal to send girls to school, all of this, she says is because of Islam.

[Islam] regulates every detail of life and subjugates free will. True Islam, as a rigid belief system and a moral framework, leads to cruelty. The inhuman act of those nineteen hijackers was the logical outcome of this detailed system for regulating human behavior.

I understand where she's coming from. She had a hard childhood. She was abused, mistreated and mutilated. I think all the violence and abuse she had been subjected and witnessed to, had been commited in the name of Islam. So it's all she knows. Islam was the Bogeyman plaguing her miserable childhood, it wasn't the calm and peaceful solitude we are accustomed to. So it was easy for her to come to that conclusion. But she's wrong. She doesn't seem to see that every single injustice done to women in her life in Somalia, Nairobi or Saudi Arabia was a result of a purely patriarchal society rooted in a culture and tradition that subjugates women. Culture and tradition, not religion. She pretty much says it herself when she realizes that Islam is interpreted in a very "tribal and Arab version of events" that "spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women". So why then can't she make the difference between those clearly one-sided interpretations and the true meaning of the religion?

She complains that Muslims in Holland do not want to integrate with the rest of the society. She keeps pointing out that they call the Dutch kafir and will not eat or talk with them, thus not learning from them. She says the Muslim officials in the community are corrupt, keeping money to themselves and not doing anything to help others. Women are abused, barred from learning, not allowed to make friends. The Muslim immigrants are content to continue taking welfare money instead of looking for permanent jobs. She keeps insisting that Islam is the root cause of all these oppression, fatalism, corruption, laziness and submission. Does she not see that those are human flaws, that everyone, whether they be Muslim or not, are capable of these things. The only difference I see is that these immigrants, because of the culture and tradition they were brought up with, are fooling themselves into thinking their behavior is sanctioned by their beliefs, their religion.

When asked how many women from Somalia are married against their will, she said practically all of them, conveniently forgetting that her own parents married out of their own choosing, producing her and her siblings. And when asked if arranged marriages happen in other countries, she said "I think in every Muslim country." Wrong. And oh the things she said about Prophet Muhammad. Whatever we know about the Prophet's life is based on accounts from the Caliphs and those who knew him, right? So those are stories, right? So some might be true, some might not. Some might be skewed to fit a certain person's perspective, some might not. Heck, even something that happened 10 years ago can easily be rewritten to fit someone else's propaganda. So I don't see how she can question the validity of the Quran and then later, tout the stories she knows about the Prophet Muhammad as "truth".

She says people who say Islam is about peace and tolerance are wrong, and that they are afraid to face up to the 'truth' because they don't want to be called racist. As for the Muslims who believe that Islam is not about violence, she thinks we've been misled.

Most Muslims never delve into theology, and we rarely read the Quran; we are taught it in Arabic, which most Muslims can't speak. As a result, most people think that Islam is about peace. It is from these people, honest and kind, that the fallacy has arisen that Islam is peaceful and tolerant.

I am sure there are plenty of Arabic-speaking Malaysian Muslims who will disagree with her on that. It's her "honest and kind" that gets to me, that patronizing way of sympathizing with my so-called stupidity for believing that my religion does not condone killing thousands of people. She considers herself brave for trying to speak out against this "fallacy" about Islam. It is at this point I realize what this woman is doing is actually dangerous. While I applaud her efforts in trying to stop injustices done to women in the name of Islam, I wish she would just step back and see the real reason the abuse is commited, I wish she would see that it is not the religion that is at fault, it is the flawed human, I wish she would see that there are many Muslim women who are educated, who are not abused, who are not oppressed or subjugated, not made to be slaves and who are still proud of their religion. While I applaud her found voice, I wish she didn't use it to besmirch her former religion.

Can you imagine some Christian fundamentalist in rural Arkansas picking up this book and reading it? It confirms every single thing they think Islam is all about. Because of her, they'll have no way of getting the other side of the story, the full picture, the real way moderate Muslims live and practice the religion. Soon, if enough people think Ayaan Hirsi Ali's view of Islam is right, we, the 'honest and kind' people who believe in the peaceful and tolerant Islam, will only be thought of as a fringe community in the Muslim world. Now, that is scary.