Infidel

I just read one of the most interesting, heartbreaking, and challenging books I've read in a while...Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel is Hirsi Ali's autobiography, her story of growing up in a Muslim home in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. As an adult, she basically runs away to Holland to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her, with a total stranger he has known less than an hour.

And I thought I had my tough days.

Infidel is brutal, depicting the lives of women in these traditional Muslim, yet very backwards, homes. Hirsi Ali does not mince words to describe such events of her childhood including abuse, female excision, and the dual standard present in her world, which allowed for honor killings for wives and daughters seen as being too promiscuous.

Despite the often brutal descriptions of a life most of us don't think really exists, I found I couldn't put Infidel down. Hirsi Ali's untamable spirit and intellect (she became a member of Dutch Parliament), her strong conviction to help women escape from abusive homes, to reach out to battered women and women working through the consequences of abortion, her belief that the world can be better through her life is truly touching and inspiring.

I was also absolutely fascinated by Hirsi Ali's discussion of her Muslim faith. This might be a spoiler, but 'infidel' is what many Muslims call unbelievers, and Hirsi Ali ultimately rejects her faith and becomes an atheist.

Here's what she writes, when she is trying to decide if the Quran is truly divinely inspired:

"For centuries we had been behaving as though all knowledge was in the the Quran, refusing to question anything, refusing to progress. We had been hiding from reason for so long because we were incapable of facing the need to integrate it into our beliefs."

Honestly, this gave me shivers....of relief and sadness. I felt relief, that I know the Bible truly is God-breathed, eternal, and as relevant today as the day it was penned. I'm grateful the Christian faith encourages questioning, encourages reasoning, encourages an intellectual, not blindly submissive, faith.

But how heartbreaking, to decide that because the Quran is not (according to Hirsi Ali) divinely inspired, Islam is a farce, and there is no true God. How sad, to be so spiritually broken by your history of suffering and your personal opinions, to choose to live your whole life by your own strength, willpower, and work. Hirsi Ali describes, on the final page of the book, that "It is possible...to think about the degree to which that faith is itself the root of oppression."

Thought question for all of us here: Is my faith oppressing myself or others, or setting myself and others free? Is how I treat others defining God, and religion, as oppression in their minds?

I don't know about you, but I really need to think and pray on that one.

And as much as I admire and support Hirsi Ali's humanitarian work, her intelligence, her honesty in sharing her story, I don't think she's got everything figured out. The more I read, the more I wanted her to become a Christian, to accept Christ, to listen to her Christian friends and see that grace is so much better than works.

One more quote from the book that really struck me:

"I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of sexual emancipation. Having made the journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally because of its values."

Again, I respectfully think Hirsi Ali is wrong. I can't believe that our current culture, filled as it is with suffering, with sin, and exploding with brokenness has values that truly set us free. I can't believe that faith and reason can't coexist, that reason can't strengthen faith. I don't think the world of her childhood is healthy, Scripturally-based, or correct either. In my opinion, she seems to have gone from one extreme to the other, without being willing to accept and learn to live in the tension of a Christian life.

If you like books that make you think, if you are okay reading things you're probably not going to agree with, I totally recommend Infidel as a book to show you the other side, to make us more thankful for reason, grace, and freedom of expression. But I'd ask you in joining me to pray for positive Christian influence in the life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali...grace is greater than works.