The WSJ Online has an article on Hirsi Ali, describing her as a Free Radical.
It discusses her background then gets into her remarks
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is untrammeled and unrepentant: “I am supposed to apologize for saying the prophet is a pervert and a tyrant,” she declares. “But that is apologizing for the truth.”
[..] That partly explains why Ms. Hirsi Ali’s new autobiography, “Infidel,” is already a best seller. It may also have something to do with the way she scrambles our expectations. In person, she is modest, graceful, enthralling. Intellectually, she is fierce, even predatory: “We know exactly what it is about but we don’t have the guts to say it out loud,” she says. “We are too weak to take up our role. The West is falling apart. The open society is coming undone.”
Many liberals loathe her for disrupting an imagined “diversity” consensus: It is absurd, she argues, to pretend that cultures are all equal, or all equally desirable. But conservatives, and others, might be reasonably unnerved by her dim view of religion. [This is outrageous especially for the WSJ. She is not attacking religion, she is attacking Islam.]
She does not believe that Islam has been “hijacked” by fanatics, but that fanaticism is intrinsic in Islam itself: “Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous.”The Muslim faith has many variations, but Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the unities are of greater significance. “Islam has a very consistent doctrine,” she says, “and I define Islam as I was taught to define it: submission to the will of Allah. His will is written in the Quran, and in the hadith and Sunna. What we are all taught is that when you want to make a distinction between right and wrong, you follow the prophet. Muhammad is the model guide for every Muslim through time, throughout history.”
This supposition justifies, in her view, a withering critique of Islam’s most holy human messenger. “You start by scrutinizing the morality of the prophet,” and then ask: “Are you prepared to follow the morality of the prophet in a society such as this one?” She draws a connection between Mohammed’s taking of child brides in the first century A.D. and modern sexual oppressions–what she calls “this imprisonment of women.” She decries the murder of adulteresses and rape victims, the wearing of the veil, arranged marriages, domestic violence, genital mutilation and other contraventions of “the most basic freedoms.”
These sufferings, she maintains, are traceable to theological imperatives. “People say it is a bad strategy,” Ms. Hirsi Ali says forcefully. “I think it is the best strategy. . . . Muslims must choose to follow their rational capacities as humans and to follow reason instead of Quranic commands. At that point Islam will be reformed.”
This world view has led certain critics to dismiss Ms. Hirsi Ali as a secular extremist. “I have my ideas and my views,” she says, “and I want to argue them. It is our obligation to look at things critically.” As to the charges that she is an “Enlightenment fundamentalist,” she points out, rightly, that people who live in democratic societies are not supposed to settle their disagreements by killing one another.
And yet contemporary democracies, she says, accommodate the incitement of such behavior: “The multiculturalism theology, like all theologies, is cruel, is wrongheaded, and is unarguable because it is an utter dogmatism. . . . Minorities are exempted from the obligations of the rest of society, so they don’t improve. . . . With this theory you limit them, you freeze their culture, you keep them in place.”
The most grievous failing of the West is self-congratulatory passivity: We face “an external enemy that to a degree has become an internal enemy, that has infiltrated the system and wants to destroy it.” She believes a more drastic reaction is required: “It’s easy,” she says, “to weigh liberties against the damage that can be done to society and decide to deny liberties. As it should be. A free society should be prepared to recognize the patterns in front of it, and do something about them.”
She says the West must begin to think long term about its relationship with Islam–because the Islamists are. Ms. Hirsi Ali notes Muslim birth rates are vastly outstripping those elsewhere (particularly in Western Europe) and believes this is a conscious attempt to extend the faith. Muslims, she says, treat women as “these baby-machines, these son-factories. . . . We need to compete with this,” she goes on. “It is a totalitarian method. The Nazis tried it using women as incubators, literally to give birth to soldiers. Islam is now doing it. . . . It is a very effective and very frightening way of dealing with human beings.”
All of this is profoundly politically incorrect. But for this remarkable woman, ideas are not abstractions. She forces us back to first principles, and she punctures complacencies. These ought to be seen as virtues, even by those who find some of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s ideas disturbing or objectionable. Society, after all, sometimes needs to be roused from its slumbers by agitators who go too far so that others will go far enough.
I wrote that I would not provide a joke with my previous post, but it is late at night and I need a bit of relief from the serious matters of survival. So I will share this one with the readers. It is a joke of the European shetl, but as with all humor is reflects the underlying tensions of the society that produced it.
Saturday night a man’s daughter found him on line at the local brothel. When she asked him why he was there, he responded, “It did not want to “mitcheh” (annoy or aggravate) your mother for a paltry five kopeks.” I could analyze this joke until the cows come home, but I leave that task to the reading audience. However, I will say that if you do not find it funny, then you are probably not very Eastern European Jewish. And by the way, it takes very little stretching to see why this joke is appropriate for the Ali Hirsi post. An tension-filled sharp-edged image rises in my head as I consider a match between Ali Hirsi and Woody Allen’s male caricature.
Munaeem should be more truthful or he is just ignorant. He says,
Islam teaches you to be kind to your fellow beings.
Islam teaches you to be kind to your neighbours.
Islam teaches you to be kind to your women.
Islam teaches you not to have illicit sexual relationship.
Islam stress you spend money in charity….
But to leave it that gives a false impression and he should know this. In the conservative tradition of Islam the world is divided into two components: dar al-Islam, the house of submission and dar al-Harb, the house of war. In the latter anything is permissible including killing rape and theft to conquer the lands for allah. None of the principles set out above apply.
In the former, they don’t apply also to Dhimmis. If Islam teaches charity, why are the Palestinians refugees left in refugee camps for fifty years and not supported by Muslims. Why are Muslim women treated so abominably. What charity do Muslims give to Africa, Christian or Muslim.
Furthermore, while there are some positive statements or obligations in Islam, they were announciated very early by Mohammed when he was trying to convert Jews. They all came from the Torah. But when Jews wouldn’t convert Mohammed became very aggressive and violent to the Kafirs. By the Doctrine of Abrogation all earlier obligations are superceded by the later ones.
True or not true?
I don’t understand why you claim that liberals hate this lady for what she says…myh liberal friends tend very much to like any and all people who challenge any mainstream view, who are willing not to go along with the group.
Munaeem requires some education with regard to traditional Jewish sexual practices. First, only a savage forces sex on a woman – even more so for a menstruating woman. Contrary to ancient and common popular belief among some groups of men, human females are not constantly in estrus. Ancient Jewish law required a seven-day separation period, to which Jewish women added four more days. This eleven-day period is now common practice among Jews who care about these matters. Even during the remainder of the menstrual cycle, if the husband cannot win his wife’s attention, he cannot have her. This circumstance has led to many jokes among Jewish comics – not for repetition here. Interesting as well is that while a man may seek a divorce because his wife refuses him sex, she too can sue for divorce for the same reason. Should both agree that sex is unnecessary for their relationship to continue, they can choose to remain married – it is their mutual choice. This is a common circumstance among gentile and Jewish couples. The rule of one wife per man in the Western Jewish tradition is now over one thousand years old and was designed to prevent financial ruin to a divorced woman. However, all traditional strains of Jewish practice recognize the problems associated with having more than one wife. The Talmud refers to two wives as “tzarasam” – trouble, or better yet, double-trouble. Islam has yet to incorporate this insight into their practice, for, since, if Muhammad had more than one wife, then it is permissible. On the other hand, decadent Western culture (but not all Western culture) seems to have jettisoned the practice of traditional marriage entirely, thus failing to provide children with an extended period of family stability so that they may reach emotional maturity intact. This cultural twist, known as “sexual freedom,” has resulted in reduced birth rates in Europe and the coming Eurabia.
munaeem,
There are some things in Islam that show respect and care for women, that is true. And other positive things you point out are also true, like giving some money to charity–though really it is a small percent. But if you are honest, you will admit that Hirsi Ali was not talking about Khadija, but about the questionable parts of Muhammed’s moral example. She mentioned his taking for a wife a child (under 10, was it 6 with sex at age 9, I forgot?), but other behaviors of his that should be questioned include his taking of someone else’s wife, his revelation that he could have more than the usual 4 wives, the breaking of treaties, killing of Jews, raiding of caravans, and so much more.
Let’s just be fair munaeem and not be one-sided one way or the other. For all the bad things in Islam, are the few good principles really worth it? Can it even be fixed or should it just be rejected? Kindness, women’s rights to vote, sexual faithfulness, and such things you mention can be practiced without Islam.
Really, really look at the Islamic culture and view of the world–can’t you see the hate? Yes, there is hate everywhere, but with Islam the hate is very deep and wide. Maybe Muhammed really was just having seizures or delusions. Think about it munaeem.
She does not believe that Islam has been “hijacked†by fanatics, but that fanaticism is intrinsic in Islam itself: “Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous.â€
Islam teaches you to be kind to your fellow beings.
Islam teaches you to be kind to your neighbours.
Islam teaches you to be kind to your women.
WHEN DID WESTERN WOMEN GET SHARE IN THE PROPERTY?
WHEN DID WESTERN WOMEN GET RIGHT TO VOTE?
How do Jews treat woem when when they are having menses ?
Hindus use dto burn their women with their husbands.
Women are thrown into dustbin , when their beauty fades.
Islam teaches you not to have illicit sexual relationship.
Islam stress you spend money in charity….
She draws a connection between Mohammed’s taking of child brides in the first century A.D.
How old she ?
What are the ages of Mohammad’s (PBUP) other wives?
When he married Khatja , her age was forty . He was 25 years.
Did Mohammad live a life of debauchery like Arabs in those days ?
Any example
Can one do that and still be a Muslim?