Read this book!
Ali's biography is easily the most powerful one I've ever read. It is devastating, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating by turns, and as such it is at times a page turner and at times the kind of book you have to set aside and come back to once you're again emotionally ready to handle it. It is well worth the effort and the inevitable shock and tears. Ali has faced unspeakable abuse herself and been witness to a historically and religiously empowered system that continues to abuse, subjugate, devalue and even murder women, and she has come out swinging. You will cringe and seethe at many of her experiences, and you will weep tears of joy and relief upon reading about others. That any woman could have survived with body and mind intact, and then to have risked so much to live on her own terms, not to mention to have completed a Master's degree in a language she had started to learn a mere 4 or 5 years earlier, is a testament to sheer human willpower and determination.
Ali admires the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, and through her own hard, honest work and her refusal to be silenced, has assured herself a place in history on equal footing with Wollstonecraft. I know the word "hero" is overused, but really, Ali reminds us of what a real hero is. She has literally risked her life, bravely faced her own family’s contempt, refused to cower to threats and political pressure, and continues to do so in order to give voice to the millions of Muslim women around the world who have been infantilized and rendered mute.
Read “Infidel”. It is quite possibly the most important book of our day.
Read “Infidel”. It is quite possibly the most important book of our day.
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