The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Book review: 'A Caged Virgin' > Comments

Book review: 'A Caged Virgin' : Comments

By Irfan Yusuf, published 11/12/2006

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's characterisations of Islam have made her a darling of various anti-Islam apparatchiks.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All
Irf says: "Ali and I were born in the same year, and we grew up in middle-class, culturally Muslim families. Yet I found her descriptions of a typical Islamic upbringing almost completely unfamiliar. Perhaps this was due to my north Indian upbringing."

Hmmm. Perhaps the real reason why Irf says that Ali's description of a typical Islamic upbringing "almost completely unfamiliar", is because Irf's a bloke and Ayaan Hirsi Ali isn't.
Posted by EnerGee, Monday, 11 December 2006 9:02:41 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Err..... who cares !

Isn't all religion about whistling in the wind?

If we gave up such nonsense the world might be a more peaceful place.
Posted by Iluvatar, Monday, 11 December 2006 10:40:39 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Irfy... 2 things.

1/ Yep... ur quite right, any Islamic dissenter will be lapped up greedily by those wishing to see some evidence for the evils of that faith. Goes with the territory or dare I say 'kitchen'.. just imagine how I as a Christian felt when I saw Jimmy Swaggart, whos radio programs I and thousands of others listened to regularly in Asia (He had a stint at Far East Broadcasting Association, to which my group also fed program material) was on world wide TV saying "LORD..I have sinnnned" after he was busted for having sex with hookers. The Atheists one and all JUMPED on this (along with every other blemished soul from Televangelism land) to thump the daylights out of Christians "THERE.. SEEEE !" they said....

2/ Please get some more EXercise.. I'm rather concerned for your health.

Now..more on the article. You criticize her point that a Muslims relationship with God is based on fear. I counter that with the obvious.. the hadith in which Mohammed says that a Muslim can only be killed for apostacy. Here is a good treatment of the arguments and sources.
http://www.muhammadanism.org/Government/Government_apostasy_1.htm
So, if the threat of death or severe punishment is always hanging over the head of a Muslim, while it might not be true to say his/her relationship with God is based on fear, his/her adherance to the Islamic community DEFinitely is. I don't see it easy separating the two.

Other than that, you can be sure of one thing, anything negative she says about Muslims or Islam will for sure be taken up by those 'Armchair Nazi's of which you often speak. That does not include me of course :
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 11 December 2006 10:51:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thank you Irfan Yusuf for a balanced and insightful review of this text. I think it is utterly shameful that one would seemingly seek to exploit the general current of ignorance and misunderstanding Islam in the west.

EnerGee – gender is no excuse for lazy assertions with out evidence. This is particularly so when one has already been exposed as a liar, (in this case in the asylum application), and given the track record of author who, it would seem, would sell her ideological standpoint to the highest bidder.
Posted by Billy C, Monday, 11 December 2006 10:52:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Irfan,

Good article Irfan.
Many writers fail to differentiate between Islam as a faith and cultural influences whether Arabic, African, Indian or Persian.
Why they label themselves as 'Muslim writers' is beyond me.
Reading through Irshad Manji books her understanding of Islam is very shallow yet she insists on the 'muslim writer' in the foreward.

I think its a marketing thing.

'Brother' Boaz,

you ignored many of my last postings to you re Mohammed in the Bible.
Well, at least your intellectual dishonesty is consistent!

Peace,

T
Posted by Fellow_Human, Monday, 11 December 2006 12:34:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hello to Irfan and all posters. Not having read the book, I cannot comment on it. I have read "The Glory Garage" and it too would suggest that Irfan's experience of having grown up in a culturally muslim family would be different to Ayaan's precisely because the latter is a girl: that is one of the main themes of 'Garage'.
Irfan also likes to distance female genital mutilation from Islam, but can he explain why it is practised in Indonesia, where it is increasing in extent and severity? Would he like to claim that FGM predated Islam's arrival in Indonesia?
Ayaan's move away from the left, because of the left's unwillingness or inability to criticise Islam, comes also as no surprise to me. The same thought is dominant in left circles here in Sydney, and Melbourne too it would seem. And Ayaan's fall from grace will be jumped upon by all those who wish to disredit those who oppose Islam.
The rest of what Irfan has to say on this book is that the experience of Islam varies around the world. No surprise here, either. What does unite Muslims, however, is the belief that the Koran is literally the word of Allah, and their prophet his final messenger. Until this belief is critically examined, Islam will remain in its cultural ghetto, stuck in a pre-feudal mindset and unable to remove its fascist tendencies.
Posted by camo, Monday, 11 December 2006 12:53:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
camo, "Irfan also likes to distance female genital mutilation from Islam, but can he explain why it is practised in Indonesia, where it is increasing in extent and severity?"

At a guess it will be like a lot of "christain" cultural bit's and pieces that has travelled along with christianity but are not actually part of it's message. A combination of missionary types not seperating out their own culture from their message and converts failing to to so as well.

A simple means for a convert to learn how to live out their faith is to try and emulate the practices of those who brought them the message even when that includes bits that are not really part of the message.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:16:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear F.H. no mate..I did not ignore your post about M and the Bible but I can't post again to that thread for some hours.... u know..the rules etc.

I've seen that theory before, and must reject it for a variety of reasons, none of which are that I'm just pig headed :)

I've got a good one to use with aliteration, extending what I said about Keiths post..

Hows things up there in Sydney mate ? looks like the Cronulla anniversary has passed without incident...good. I had my 'piece' of Leb Muslims though :) had a spar with one at my gym, but he ran out of puff..(me 57 he 22ish I tried to get the idea through his head that the goal was not to 'kill' me but he kept on coming :) running kinda..buff punch etc..I think thats why he got tired.. too much enthusiasm not enough thinking. But he is only new, been there like 2 weeks.. takes 2 months to get fit. next time "Lakemba" will win and Skippy" Cronulla take a dive eh :) Or.. maybe he just went easy on me because it seemed like hitting his Dad.

Thanx for pointing out what appears to be intellectual dishonesty, I always need such counsel :)

What do you think of my 'ONE NATION' idea ? (see the Creative use of current events thread)
avagood1
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:26:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hello RObert - you make my point exactly - if FGM was spread initially to Indonesia by Muslims, and it's not an 'article of faith' (I've read it's mentioned in the Koran, but not required of a good muslim) why can it not be examined and jetisoned? Or would Islam's clergy (the Ayatollahs, Imams, Mullahs and the like, all from a religion which claims to have no clergy) object and start handing out apostacy fatwas? And even all four Sunni schools still prescribe death for apostacy.
Comparing one religion's faults by saying they're just like another religion's faults gets the reader no-where. And it's a particularly misleading argument when the supposed faults are dissimilar, or belong to a not-named religion (it was judaism which started circumcision, after all, not christianity).
I'm not in favour of any religion, not the least because they can't agree: they can't even agree to disagree. Competing truth claims is their field. People, and societies, must be able to choose to be free from religion. Islam of all of them can't handle this. Islam thinks it's bad enough to have the wrong religion - to have none at all is inexplicable. Did I mention the pre-feudal mindset?
Posted by camo, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:34:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Irfan, Hirsi Ali is a politician and you have to read her articles within the context of dutch politics at the time. Many of the articles in the Maagdenkooi(2004) are a reply to critisims of the Zoontjesfabriek(2002).

De Maagdenkooi is better translated as the "virgin's cage". In it she addresses gender issues in the non western implementation of Islam. ie the female is seen as a lust object. The male as a randy goat who will jump on any unknown woman with in reach. (Shades of Sheik Hilali?) To prevent this, women are placed in a cage. The first level of the cage is that women are restricted to the home and only allowed out under cover and with a chaperon. Genital mutilation forms a further way to protect virginity whether it is the ritual removal of the inner labia or the full removal of the outer labia, clitoris accompanied with the scarring of the vaginal walls.

Hirsi Ali sees herself as a freedom fighter for Muslim women. Whether she will be regarded in the same light as a Mandela or King remains to be seen but as anyone questioning the heart of ones culture her views arouse plenty of passion and controversy.

That Hirsi Ali left dutch politics in disgrace is plainly untrue. The immigration minister Rita Verdonk has had strong leadership ambitions and has been critised as not being tough enough. To counter this she revoked Hirsi Ali's citizenship. She was immediately rebuked by the PM and the same week Hirsi Ali was granted honorary citizenship by the parliament which also expressed its regret at how the matter was handled. Verdonk's party lost a quarter of its seats in last months election.

That Hirsi Ali went into hiding is hardly surprising. Her fellow muslim critics Fortuyn and van Gogh were murdered in 2002 and 2004.

I am no expert on Islam but I suspect that the Islam practised in Europe by mostly North African migrants is quite different from classical Islam or the Islam of south and south-east asia encountered in Australia
Posted by gusi, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:38:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Camo. I think you are deliberately misinterpreting what Irfan is saying about culturally different experiences and religion.

On the issue of Gender – If I were a man brought up in an Amish community I that would be aware that in this culture women were supposed to dress modestly, (long skirts and sleaves with a bonnet). Equally, If I were a woman brought up in a Amish community I would be aware that men were supposed to grow there beards long. But there is no doubt that man or women Amish I would not culturally recognise the cultural practices of Mexican Catholicism. Nothing to do with gender – everything to do with collective, male and female, cultural experience.

As for FGM. This is a cultural practice by some, (not all and by no means the majority), African cultures. In fact the extreme practice is quite limited to certain areas. I am assuming the practice has travelled to other cultures the same way MGM, (Male Genital Mutilation - circumcision), has travelled though the west and promoted by the west to other countries. There is no overwhelming medical need for either practice – they are both cruel and inexcusable. But it is difficult to convince an African woman who is a part of one of these cultures that it is the wrong thing to do. Without the practice her daughter would remain marageless and their for condemned to a life of abject poverty, (there are no social benefits in the third world). So the issue is one of poverty and development – not religion.

The ideas are not a ‘left’ conspiracy but rather an attempt at enlightened understanding that may lead to a better world. This means positively dealing with the reality rather than simplistic, ignorant and chauvinistic ideas that are popular precisely because they are simplistic.
Posted by Billy C, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:53:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I've given up on Irfan Yusuf who tries to hide his bigotry behind little seemingly harmless homilies about Islam. It this instance he uses a book "review" to talk about the different cultures practising Islam.

Do these different cultures have different versions of the Koran, one is bound to ask.

I must say, if we are talking about culture and Islam, I feel comfortable about Malaysian Muslims, but not about Arab Muslims who seem to always be the ones in the limelight.

Is there a difference, or does Irfan, like me, prefer cultures other than Arab?

I would be called a racist. How about Irfan?
Posted by Leigh, Monday, 11 December 2006 2:05:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A more complete review of the book should have included the bits about how Ali discovered for the first time in her life the Christian God's love and how that fact was hidden from her in her islamic cultural environment.

It is that single discovery that made her decide to criticise her religion and its many false teachings. She realised for the first time that non-muslims are not all "evil and non-believers" like she was taught.

So Irfan get over FGM, Sufism and other folk islamic practices and discuss the real issues of your religion - like the fear verses that fill 20% of the Qur'an - and how women are to be treated by men here and in the Muslim paradise, etc...

Why is it when muslims discover freedom (usually in the west) and start vocalising their honest opinions, persecutions against them (fatwas) always follows?

Why is Islam so insecure about revealing its beliefs and practices?

If Islam was really THE ONE TRUE religion why does it constantly induce so much criticism from its own members (let alone the rest of the thinking world) who discover its faults?

It’s time for Muslims to question the validity of their religious teachings and practises instead of attacking those who do.
Posted by coach, Monday, 11 December 2006 4:39:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Leigh

Irfan is a racist, take a look at this article by him.....

http://madhabirfy.blogspot.com/2005/11/young-turks-poised-to-take-over.html

In it he compares Turk to arab/leb mossies and their beliefs and he regards Turks as the better of the two. Which in my experience is mostly true having known many Turks in my time.

Imagine swapping Turk with Anglo Aussie and arab with Chinese and had it been written by you or me, it'd be howled down as racist.

By the way Irf, caught up with one of my old NPWS workmates the other day. Just thought you'd like to know that your mossie bros and sistas are still swarming into Sydney parks and not paying for their tickets, blocking access gates and 'no stopping' areas, lighting fires on fire ban days and still leading the way in welfare abuse.

Take care

CARNIFEX
Posted by CARNIFEX, Monday, 11 December 2006 4:43:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Leigh, carnifex, coach and B_D. Thank you for your comments. When something I write causes so much pain to you, I know I've done well.
Posted by Irfan, Monday, 11 December 2006 4:57:35 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Coach,

Confrontation with Christianity may well have caused her to question Islam but Hirsi Ali is a fierce atheist who trod on the toes of many of Verdonk's conservative liberals.

There are huge differences between Muslims from different cultures. Holland is now 5% Muslim from Moroccan origins. These migrants have a different lifestyle from the mostly Malay Muslims in Perth. Honour bashings and killings are common in Holland and unheard of here.

Hirsi Ali has many great insights and we could learn much from her. However to take her political essays out of context of the dutch political scene would be a mistake and can lead to misinterpretation.

If she was too radical for dutch politics she would be way to radical for US congress (an atheist free zone). In moving to the US she yields the power (and the need for compromise) as lawmaker to the inspiration of becoming an ideas person in the worlds most powerful democracy.

If she succeeds in leading her gender out of bondage she'll go down in history with the likes of MLK and Mandela.

Good Luck Ayaan, the world needs you!
Posted by gusi, Monday, 11 December 2006 7:09:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
“Classical Islam are freely available in universities such as Leiden” Irfan Yusef, WOW, that says more about universities then anything else. You need to drop the ‘Classical Islam’ statement and replace it with ‘Primitive desert book’ so as to read your statement as follows ‘a Primitive Desert Book is freely available in universities such as......’

Muslims and this author in general take themselves far too seriously. The Australian culture does not except a group of people who are so highly strung as to kill people due to silly cartoons.
Once again like a broken record I repeat the continual statement that the letting in of Islam into Australia (west) was a very very bad decision, one that’s going to cost us.
I suppose I would be very worried too if I was a single pen stroke away from being deported to an unbearably hot sand pit.

You and most Muslims are never one to except justified criticism of your religion or race, especially by a fellow Muslim as you have highlighted in this article. Yes we get it mr Aurthor sir ‘don’t you dare criticize my primitive literature’ sentiments. You need to come out and say ‘There are many problems with our religion in which most a very serious’.
Heres a few of your problems ‘female genital mutilation, terrorism, complete failure to integrate, inability to look inwards(sign of weakness and possibly not liking what they’d find), take trivial matters far to serious(embarrassingly serious in case of cartoons), Rude, mass murder in peaceful society’s i.e. London. The list goes on my incompetent friend.

Irfan
Until your intellectual ability passes that of a 5 year old, try and refrain from pushing those little plastics keys on that keyboard in front of you.
Posted by obviously, Monday, 11 December 2006 7:10:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I can't speak for the others, Irfan. But you don't cause me pain; you are a pain. Same old blah blah which doesn't seem to have much effect on anything or anyone.

Lack of material today was the only thing that lead me to revisit your nonsense.
Posted by Leigh, Monday, 11 December 2006 7:10:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
As usual Irf you don't reply to anything that we write but just say a few lines completely unrelated to what we wrote, at least you didn't call us armchair nazis. Ho hum.

I've never read Hirsi's book, don't need to. I've worked with mossie women and had them as friends or managed to talk to some when their male rellys were out of earshot. I've talked with dozens of them.

They all agree on one thing, life as a mossie woman sucks.

Take care

CARNIFEX
Posted by CARNIFEX, Tuesday, 12 December 2006 6:23:50 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Good to see the same Mosque-teers,

Boaz,

“none of which are that I'm just pig headed :)”

Maybe you should remove the first ‘n’
Glad you are enjoying the gym with Lebs, I would hire a food taster if I was them :)
I will read your One Nation philosophy and add a comment.

Coach,

I was worried about your long disappearance.
Good to have you back, add this link to your biblical reading.
"Mohammed in the Bible”

http://www.jamaat.net/muhinbible/muhinbible.html

PS: FGM pre dates Islam and if you visited the lovely Addis Ababa you will find it’s practiced by followers of your faith. Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Sudan still conduct FGM and MGM.

Ignorance and hypocrisy are two different stances but one is intentional.

Peace,
Posted by Fellow_Human, Tuesday, 12 December 2006 10:36:23 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Back to the topic of Ayaan's book.

In the son-factory Hirsi Ali describes how in Somali Islam and perhaps arab as well, the role of women is to produce sons. Daughters don't count as children and a woman's sole value is her ability to produce sons.

In the caged virgin she describes how women and girls are protected from being taken by other men by being locked in the house, only being allowed out under cover and with a chaperon.

Female suffering is of course the first consequence of this virgin's cage. A second consequence is the retardation of such a society. Not only is it deprived of half its resources (the females), much of the efforts of the males is directed to keeping its females locked up. With so many of its resources deployed in such unproductive roles the society stagnates into a cesspool of oppression, unfullfillment and introversy.

Hirsi Ali's work is based much on her own life experiences rather than academic research. The books contain many anecdotes of her family life and her professional life as a student, interpreter, social worker and politician.

One example is the fate of a woman tried for social security fraud. Her husband orders her to sign a form. She does not know what it is for. She also doesn't know that her husband also has a job as she does not dare question his whereabouts in the daytime.Because she cosigned the form she is legally guilty of fraud.

Another anecdote occurs where Ayaan and her sister burst out laughing when told that God placed paradise underneath a woman's feet. They compare her farther feet in expensive Italian shoes to her mother's feet worn and tattered from wearing cheap thongs all her life. They get a clip around the ears as her mum has no time for blasphemy.

The book should be seen in its dutch context where many Muslim women are "importbrides" from Berber villages.

As will all books of this scope there are many generalizations and no doubt there will be many exceptions.
Posted by gusi, Tuesday, 12 December 2006 4:19:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
G'day Fellow Human

'FGM pre dates Islam and if you visited the lovely Addis Ababa you will find it’s practiced by followers of your faith. Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Sudan still conduct FGM and MGM.'

That it does. However who are the ones practising it over here in Oz?
The mid wives and healthcare professionals I've talked to say they've only seen it in the mossie population.

This is an article from the Minnesota Medical Association, Minnesota is home to up to 150,000 somalis...

http://www.mnmed.org/Protected/00MNMED/0012/Ohmans.html

who happen to be mossies.

Note how FGM is reffered to as 'genital cutting' and not the mutilation it is. Bend over Minnesota.

In addition, if you go to blogs run by Minnesotans you'll find accounts of somali gangs running around doing the things that lebs do over here.
Posted by CARNIFEX, Wednesday, 13 December 2006 4:34:29 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

Hear, hear.
Posted by EnerGee, Wednesday, 13 December 2006 9:27:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gusi,
No-one has responded to your posts, but I find them the most interesting here.
One thing we need to remember, whenever a prominent Muslim woman questions the treatment of women in Islam, they end up having to run for their lives. At the very least, we should acknowledge the courage and committment it must take for such women to speak out. How many others would like to, but dare not?
I hold no truck with any religion, they are all, at bottom, mysogynistic - far more interested in controlling female sexuality and women's lives and behaviours than mens. But arguing that your religion is being constantly misinterpreted, whether we're talking Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Calathumpianism, always reminds me of old fashioned Marxists who, when the excesses of Stalin's Russia, Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia were pointed out, kept saying there had never been a true Marxist state, and these were all misinterpretations.
Maybe it just indicates that religions don't work very well in the hands of ordinary humans, just as communism didn't either.
Posted by ena, Thursday, 21 December 2006 9:35:19 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"One thing we need to remember, whenever a prominent Muslim woman questions the treatment of women in Islam, they end up having to run for their lives."

Perhaps you could make this statement more meaningful by defining what you mean by "the treatment of women in Islam". Do you mean the treatment of women in Islamic theology and sacred law? Or do you mean the treatment of women under the law of a particular Muslim-majority state? Or do you mean something else?
Posted by Irfan, Saturday, 10 March 2007 6:56:10 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy