Ayaan Hirsi Ali Book order

The New York Times bestselling author of Infidel, Nomad, and Heretic argues that waves of Muslim immigration are transforming sexual politics in Europe, threatening the hard-won rights of Western women. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a long-time critic of Islamic extremism, questions the silence surrounding the surge of sexual violence and harassment in European cities, which she links to the influx of over a million migrants from Muslim-majority countries. Having experienced sexual violence herself, including female genital mutilation in Somalia and Saudi Arabia, she believed she had found gender equality in the Netherlands, only to see it jeopardized by new migration trends. In her exploration, Hirsi Ali identifies systemic causes of sexual violence in the Muslim world, such as women's exclusion from public life and insufficient legal protections against abuse. She challenges the West to confront uncomfortable truths: why do authorities and media downplay violence against women, and why do Western feminists focus on workplace issues while ignoring more severe threats? A refugee herself, Hirsi Ali advocates for reforming the immigration system to emphasize integration and assimilation, warning that failure to do so may fuel calls to exclude new Muslim migrants. Despite facing threats for her views, she remains committed to defending women's rights.

Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a position at Harvard, the brilliant and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to address terrorism, sectarian warfare, and the repression of women and minorities. She argues that the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims can be divided into extremists, peaceable observant Muslims, and dissidents risking their lives to question their faith. While acknowledging that some teachings, such as the duty to wage holy war, conflict with free society values, she believes a Muslim Reformation—revising Islamic doctrine to align with modernity—is possible and may have already begun. The Arab Spring, despite its political setbacks, revealed a new willingness among Muslims, especially women, to think freely. She identifies five essential amendments to Islamic doctrine necessary for progress and urges the Western world to stop appeasing Islamists. Asserting that “Islam is not a religion of peace,” she emphasizes the need to support reformers rather than opponents of free speech. Interweaving personal experiences and historical examples, this work is a passionate plea for peaceful change and global toleration in the face of rising jihadist violence.

Explores how Islam can be reconciled with modernity to end terrorism, sectarian warfare and the repression of women and minorities

"This woman is a major hero of our time." —Richard Dawkins Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world’s attention with Infidel, her compelling coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, in Nomad, Hirsi Ali tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made to her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed, and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical journey to freedom and, more crucially, her emotional journey to freedom—her transition from a tribal mind-set that restricts women’s every thought and action to a life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values. In these pages Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after she broke with her family, and how she struggled to throw off restrictive superstitions and misconceptions that initially hobbled her ability to assimilate into Western society. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, on his deathbed, with her devout father, who had disowned her when she renounced Islam after 9/11, as well as with her mother and cousins in Somalia and in Europe. Nomad is a portrait of a family torn apart by the clash of civilizations. But it is also a touching, uplifting, and often funny account of one woman’s discovery of today’s America. While Hirsi Ali loves much of what she encounters, she fears we are repeating the European mistake of underestimating radical Islam. She calls on key institutions of the West—including universities, the feminist movement, and the Christian churches—to enact specific, innovative remedies that would help other Muslim immigrants to overcome the challenges she has experienced and to resist the fatal allure of fundamentalism and terrorism. This is Hirsi Ali’s intellectual coming-of-age, a memoir that conveys her philosophy as well as her experiences, and that also conveys an urgent message and mission—to inform the West of the extent of the threat from Islam, both from outside and from within our open societies. A celebration of free speech and democracy, Nomad is an important contribution to the history of ideas, but above all a rousing call to action.

Nomad is a philosophical memoir, telling how Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to America in search of a new life, and the difficulties she faced in reconciling her two worlds. With vivid anecdotes and observations of people, cultures, and political debacles, this narrative weaves together Hirsi Ali's personal story -- including her reconciliation with her devout father who had disowned her when she denounced Islam -- with the stories of other women and men, high-profile and not, whom she encounters. With a deep understanding and intimate perspective of the situation of Muslim women and moderates in the world today and her singular, unwavering intellectual courage, Hirsi Ali offers her always notable, often controversial analysis of Islam vis a vis the superiority of Western democratic values.

The astonishing and bestselling life story of the renowned campaigner for religious tolerance and women's rights, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

A world-renowned activist and feminist pulls no punches in her efforts to reform Islam in this international bestseller, available for the first time in English.