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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Heretic
Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now
Harper, 2015
What's inside?
Islam needs a reformation, so where is the Martin Luther of the Islamic world?
Recommendation
Ayaan Hirsi Ali offers a controversial guidebook to the anomalies of Islam. The Somali-American scholar, based at Stanford, argues that casting Islam as a compassionate, peace-loving belief system with the self-identified Islamic State as just a fringe outbreak misses the mark. Instead, she finds that in a literal reading, the Quran – directly or indirectly – sanctions intolerance, resistance to social and religious innovation, death and violence. Hirsi Ali discusses her theory that Islam needs a movement analogous to the Protestant Reformation. She argues that Islam should abandon jihad and embrace reformation. Having been both accused of Islamophobia and lauded as a reformer and an intellectual, Hirsi Ali urges support for reform-minded Muslim leaders. While always strictly neutral in politics and religion, getAbstract thinks readers will be intrigued by Hirsi Ali’s call for change even if they may deem her prescriptions inadequate or too simple.
Summary
About the Author
Somali-American and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Ayaan Hirsi Ali is among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. She is a former member of the Dutch Parliament who fled to the US amid controversy fearing retaliation for her beliefs. An activist in the fight against female genital mutilation, she also wrote the documentary Submission and the books The Son Factory, The Caged Virgin, Infidel: My Life and Nomad: From Islam to America.
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