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Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now
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4.67 15
Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard, the brilliant, charismatic and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail #1 bestselling author of Infidel and Nomad makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to end the horrors of... show more
Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard, the brilliant, charismatic and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail #1 bestselling author of Infidel and Nomad makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to end the horrors of terrorism, sectarian warfare and the repression of women and minorities.Today, she argues, the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims can be divided into a minority of extremists, a majority of observant but peaceable Muslims and a few dissidents who risk their lives by questioning their own religion. But there is only one Islam and, as Hirsi Ali shows, there is no denying that some of its key teachings—not least the duty to wage holy war—are incompatible with the values of a free society. For centuries it has seemed as if Islam is immune to change. But Hirsi Ali has come to believe that a Muslim Reformation—a revision of Islamic doctrine aimed at reconciling the religion with modernity—is now at hand, and may even have begun. The Arab Spring may now seem like a political failure. But its challenge to traditional authority revealed a new readiness—not least by Muslim women—to think freely and to speak out.Courageously challenging the jihadists, she identifies five key amendments to Islamic doctrine that Muslims have to make to bring their religion out of the seventh century and into the twenty-first. And she calls on the Western world to end its appeasement of the Islamists. “Islam is not a religion of peace,” she writes. It is the Muslim reformers who need our backing, not the opponents of free speech.Interweaving her own experiences, historical analogies and powerful examples from contemporary Muslim societies and cultures, Heretic is not a call to arms, but a passionate plea for peaceful change and a new era of global toleration. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, with jihadists killing thousands from Nigeria to Syria to Pakistan, this book offers an answer to what is fast becoming the world’s number one problem.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780062333933 (0062333933)
ASIN: 0062333933
Publisher: Harper
Pages no: 288
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
Thewanderingjew
Thewanderingjew rated it
5.0 It should be required reading!
Read by the author, in a calm and mellow voice of reason, this highly detailed and lucid explanation of the nature of radical Islam should be required reading in the schools. She briefly outlines the history of Islam while admitting that she is not a scholar, merely she is very well read and a victi...
Chris' Fish Place
Chris' Fish Place rated it
4.5
It is coincidence that as I was reading this book and as I write this review that among the many stories in the news there was a shooting in Texas due to cartoons showing Muhammad, six PEN authors have drawn out of Gala where Charlie Hebdo would receive an award, and NPR is doing a piece about an ar...
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