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Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book reflects
a deep-rooted rejection of Islam. That energy was
previously directed into the co-production of the film,
Submission: Part I, which led to the killing of partner
filmmaker Theo van Gogh in late 2004 by Mohammed
Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim. Bouyeri is now serving
a life sentence without parole in Holland.
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Title: The Caged
Virgin
Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Publisher: Free
Press, 2006
208 pages
ISBN: 0743288335
It's obviously what I've been waiting
for all my life: a secular crusader - armed with enlightenment
philosophy, the stamp of the liberal establishment and the
promise of sexual freedom - swooping into my harem and
liberating me from my "ignorant," "uncritical," "dishonest"
and "oppressed" Muslim existence. At least that's what Ayaan
Hirsi Ali thinks I've been waiting for. Her latest book,
The Caged Virgin, is a collection of essays intended to
unveil the sexual terrorism she says is inherent in Islam. In
reality, it is a smash-and-grab aggregation of
inconsistencies, platitudes and poor scholarship.
Hirsi Ali was born Ayaan Hirsi Magan
in Somalia in 1969, but grew up in Kenya. As a young adult,
she moved to Germany and later the Netherlands, allegedly to
escape a forced marriage. She learnt Dutch and put herself
through a degree. She soon became a prominent and
controversial politician - a brown face made welcome by her
shrill denunciations of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and
Europe's "backward Muslims." Last year, Time hailed her
as one of the world's "100 most influential people." The
Economist described her as a "cultural ideologue of the
new right."
However, the publication of The
Caged Virgin couldn't have come at a worse time for Hirsi
Ali, a woman who has built her career on being a victim. In
May, a Dutch television documentary alleged that her story
didn't add up. The programme's makers (who travelled to Kenya
to speak to her family and those who knew her as a child)
claimed that Hirsi Ali had lied to enter the Netherlands and
had fabricated her past. The political friends who had made
her the darling of the Dutch right speedily retreated from her
side. As author and academic Jytte Klausen, who knows Hirsi
Ali, recently claimed: "She wasn't forced into a marriage. She
had an amicable relationship with her husband, as well as with
the rest of her family. It was not true that she had to hide
from her family for years."
Now that that doubt has been cast on
the experiences she relies on to give her arguments authority,
her new book reads more like a whimper than a bang.
Practically all of Hirsi Ali's
conclusions are based on her own "tortured" experiences and
observations of Islam. Besides the superficial references to
Qur'anic verses and the occasional Prophetic saying, she
provides little evidence to back up her claims that the Muslim
woman is a caged virgin - sexualized, segregated, universally
denied human rights - and that Islamic theology is responsible
for this. Hirsi Ali is not breaking new ground.
Others, such as the controversial
Fatima Mernissi and Leila Ahmed, have been here before, except
that their work is meatier, making reference to classical
texts and engaging in important historical debates. The
Caged Virgin is the cheap tabloid version - accessible,
flimsy, forgettable.
The sad thing is that many of the
concerns Hirsi Ali raises - forced marriage, female genital
mutilation, sexual violence, lack of education, economic
underachievement and the obsession with static gender roles -
are genuine challenges facing Muslim (and many other) women.
Hirsi Ali makes some thoughtful points - except that they are
lost among the inaccuracies, exaggerations and omissions. To
demonstrate Islam's obsession with female sexuality, for
example, Hirsi Ali quotes the Qur'anic verse calling on women
to behave modestly, but conveniently omits the first part of
the verse, which demands the same of men before it addresses
women. The picture Hirsi Ali paints of Gestapo-like Muslim
homes is laughable. She writes that "lies are constantly being
told about the most intimate matters . . . Children learn from
their mothers that it pays to lie. Mistrust is everywhere and
lies rule." Perhaps she wrote this so she would have a defence
when her own lies were revealed.
Reading Hirsi Ali, you would think
that she and a handful of other enlightened women, like her
good friend Irshad Manji, are the only ones who have figured
all this out. Apparently, the majority of Muslims women are
conditioned from birth by their religion not to think. This
misrepresentation is a tragic disservice to the women Hirsi
Ali seeks to liberate.
It's strange how many times she says
"we Muslims" in her book. For someone who is an atheist and
claims not to be a "Muslim," such appeals to sisterly
solidarity are disingenuous. It's a not-so-clever attempt to
lend authenticity to her argument: clearly, if a Muslim
criticises her religion, then it must be bad. Muslims are not
homogenous - they do not all think, act and believe in the
same way. Islam manifests itself through a vast array of
experiences. As a British Muslim, for instance, I am as
Western as I am anything else. Hirsi Ali has fallen into the
trap of identity politics. Being a Muslim is a religious
moniker - Muslims are not a tribe or a race. You don't have to
be Muslim to criticise Islam or Muslims, but at least be
honest about it.
Long before Hirsi Ali arrived in
Europe, Muslim women were fighting against ignorance,
religious prejudice and cultural misunderstanding. They are
still pushing the boundaries, playing an increasingly
important public role and advocating real long-term change -
slowly but surely. For groups such as London's An Nisa
Society, which pioneered programs in sexual health, domestic
violence and mental health two decades ago, Islam is a potent,
powerful ally. Many Muslim women want to maintain a strong,
spiritual connection with their faith - a choice Hirsi Ali
seeks to deny them. These brave women sadly do not have the
luxury of monetary resources, bodyguards, spin doctors and PR
agencies - things that Hirsi Ali takes for granted.
She recently said that her audience
consists mainly of Muslims. Nonsense. Her hatred of Islam and
her patronising attitude towards Muslim women who disagree
with her makes her ideas palatable only to the "white
liberals" whose prejudices about Islam and Muslims she
reinforces. In fact, anyone who works with Muslim communities,
respecting their faith but seeking positive change, is accused
of forging a "satanic pact . . . [making] their living by
representing Muslim interests, extending aid to them, and
cooperating with them in their development."
For Hirsi Ali, the answer is clear:
Islam is at fault and needs to be discarded. But her
experiences are not mine, or those of the many Muslim women I
work with every day. We are, it seems, to believe that the
obsession with female virginity is at the heart of every
Muslim malaise. Such pseudo-sociological scat wouldn't pass
muster in an A-level exam.
Hirsi Ali also suffers from
historical amnesia. She is so caught up in her undergraduate
political science training that she can't see beyond Spinoza,
Voltaire and Kant. "Reading works," she says, "by Western
thinkers is regarded as disrespectful to the Prophet and
Allah's message." Who says this? Nor does Hirsi Ali add that
the catalyst for the Enlightenment lay in the
knowledge-transfer from Muslim civilisation to Europe through
Andalusia. The notions of female personhood, independence of
wealth and the right to education are as old as Islam itself.
The biographies of scholars and saints during the classical
age include thousands of female ulama (religious
scholars), with many leading universities being established by
wealthy women of means.
Prophet Muhammad's first love was a
woman 15 years older than himself. Khadija was not only a
widow (a non-virgin, I'll have you know), she was a
businesswoman who proposed marriage to the young Muhammad, an
honest and trusted worker in her business. They lived 27 years
together before Khadija died. Fast forward to today, where I
am surrounded by loving, functional Muslim families that defy
Hirsi Ali's statements. Even Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatar-based
cleric who Hirsi Ali condemns, is married to a sprightly
senior al-Jazeera journalist. I met her at a conference in
Istanbul last weekend. She defies every stereotype, sitting at
the head table with her husband and other major scholars.
Muslims, frankly, pay too much
attention to Hirsi Ali. She isn't interested in a genuine
engagement with Muslim women. She is content to be an outsider
posing as a co-religionist. This may win her favour elsewhere,
but not in the communities she seeks to reform.
Incidentally, Hirsi Ali has just had
her Gloria Gaynor moment. The Dutch political establishment
now wants her forgiveness and has put pressure on the
immigration minister to reverse her decision to take away
Hirsi Ali's citizenship. But Hirsi Ali has found new chums at
the American Enterprise Institute, the neo-con high temple in
Washington, DC. The trouble is that it is Hirsi Ali herself
who is caged - by her lack of scholarship and her myopic sense
of identity and history. These credentials may carry weight
with the neo-cons she will now advise. They ought not to with
the rest of us.