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.