Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

One of my very passionate neighbors was quoting from this book to make the case that Islam promotes violence. Rather than argue with him, I decided to read the book and make my own conclusions. Several years ago I read Ms Ali’s autobiographical work, “Infidel” and have a lot of respect for what she has accomplished in life.  However, in this book, she doesn’t quite score a home run in trying to convince the world that Islam needs a reformation. 

 

First, it isn’t clear if she is an observer on the side, or one who is leading this reformation. Actually, if I understood her right, she is neither. If she was an observer, I would have expected her to look at both sides of the equation and maybe spend some time understanding why Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. They certainly have something right, and if we don’t understand what this is, it will be hard to reform it. On the flip side she does say that “I have no weekly congregation. I simply lecture, read, write, think and teach a small seminar at Harvard”. So she is clearly not championing the “New and Improved Islam” herself.  The best analogy I could find is that Aayan is serving as a “commentator” who has witnessed first hand, some of the atrocities in the name of Islam and is urging the faithful to reform their religion. 

In many cases she very naively compares Islam to Christianity. It almost seems like she is writing a guide for someone who is shopping for a religion, and this guide is mainly about why you shouldn’t “buy” Islam. Unfortunately religion is not something that we go shopping for. For most of us it is handed down by our parents and relatives. I would argue that the most likely course is for people to abandon their religion. That is probably the best bet for Islam. Making a transition to another one will require something compelling in the other religion to attract you. Unfortunately, that is not the focus of this book!

There are tons of examples of barbarian killings prescribed by Sharia Law. While these are gruesome to read, we are unfortunately numbed by their everyday occurrence.  To truly appreciate the absurdity of orthodox Islam, I highly recommend the movie “Timbuktu”.  It takes a novel approach at ridiculing some of the absurdity of the rule by muslim fundamentalists.

In her book, Ms. Ali often describes Islam as “Commanding right and forbidding wrong”. She wants  Islam to be less prescriptive on how you pray and what you do. While this is a noble goal, every religion on this planet comes with rituals. In early days we didn’t have a “userid” and “password”, so the only way folks could get access to the religious club, were by following the rituals. The more arcane the rituals the better the signature. Surely we can design a signature that is less imposing on the followers. Unfortunately, by definition, the signature is not up for discussion. 

In summary, the book urges Muslims from all over the world to reform, but has little by way of next steps of how to get there.

Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

Author: Christopher Ryan and Cacida Jetha

A good portion of this book is aimed at questioning conventional wisdom on whether monogamy came “naturally” to prehistoric humans.  For the first several chapters, the authors quote numerous scientific works and poke holes in the claims there. Their primary targets are Darwin, Malthus and Hobbes, but there are several other respected names from the past that are quoted and then argued with. I was very impressed with the sheer number of these references and how the authors use a fine tooth comb to dissect their statements.  While I commend them for their strong stance, the argumentative style gets to be grating after a while.  Anyone suggesting that “war” or “fighting” comes naturally to humans is very quickly put to shame. One of their primary weapons in this debate is that our closest primate cousins, the bonobos are some of the most peaceful, cooperative and over-sexed animals.

Another theme that is consistent throughout the book is that agriculture is the root of all evil. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, typically lived peaceful, cooperative lives and shared their kill with their clan. In contrast, early farmers needed to fight, to protect  their property and crops and that is the underlying reason for all the strife that mankind faces today. The authors even question the research from Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, arguing that they too might have been peaceful, had she not presented them with bananas every day — something they felt the need to fight over! 

To me it seems rather simple. Man was peaceful until he had something to fight for. Since this book is about sex, one interesting way to look at it would be to see if man fought for sex before the dawn of agriculture. This would definitely have made the material much more readable and clear. However, maybe the evidence to support this wasn’t readily available and so the authors chose to argue about it instead :-)

The authors refute common myths about our prehistoric ancestors. Their average lifespan is typically quoted as somewhere in the 40s. They contend that this is due to the confusion between average life expectancy and typical life span. The former is averaged over all adults and children. Since infant mortality was much higher in prehistoric times, this significantly reduced the average life expectancy. In contrast there is significant  archaeological evidence that many prehistoric humans did live to the ripe old age of 80 years.

An interesting side-note is that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies to anthropologists studying primitive tribes. When they take residence with them, they are inherently altering their behavior. The author’s critique Chagnon’s research on the Yanomamo tribe, a society of indigenous Amazonians, saying that, "Chagnon fails to account for the effects of his own disruptive, rather Hemingwayesque presence among the people he studied".

It is only from chapter 15 and onwards, that the book stops arguing with dead and living scientists and starts getting down to making its own claims.  They look at the human reproductive anatomy and use the Darwinian principle of Natural Selection to put forth a theory that early humans lived in packs and lived promiscuously.  Apparently our human anatomy has evolved to select the survival of the fittest sperm! They do present convincing arguments  on how co-habiting with someone for long can make them seem more like a “sibling” thereby killing any sexual libido. After spending the whole book on prehistoric sex, the last couple of chapters offer some good advice on how to look at modern day marriage. Maybe sex is over-rated after all!

This is a must-read for anyone looking to broaden their views on Marriage, Relationship and Sex.

Americanah

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I watched this TED talk on “We should all be feminists”  by Ms. Adichie and I was blown away by how she was such a powerful feminist yet came across as rather balanced in her views. It left me craving for more and I decided I would pick up one of her novels and learn more from her.  Americanah seemed like just the right thing. It had won numerous awards including the “National Book Critics Award” and was on several Best-Seller lists all across the country. 

Americanah chronicles the journey of a young Nigerian girl, Ifemelu as she grows up into an adult and eventually immigrates to America. One of the main thrusts of the book is to educate the reader on what it’s like to be an “African” in the US and how different life is for them than their look-alike “African Americans”.  It is a distinction that most of us would not have labored too much on, but Ms. Adichie uses her keen sense of observation to bring out all the little nuances that separate the two. 

Ifemelu and Obinze are young lovers in High School in Lagos, Nigeria.  The country is struggling with its military dictatorship and the only viable option for most young people is to study abroad. Ifemelu heads to the US to study and Obinze finds himself stuck in the U.K.  The book covers a long period in time and takes you through their years growing up in Lagos followed by their life abroad and then back in Nigeria. I found their years growing up in Lagos most fascinating and the parallels with my own life in India were definitely on my mind. 

Ms. Adichie can tell a great story and the book is an epic in it’s own right. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of Ifemelu’s story is based on Ms. Adichie’s own experiences growing up in Nigeria and America. 

Read this and you will have a great appreciation for African immigrants in the US.