One of the highlights my summer was when I went to Martha’s Vineyard. My family rents the same house there every year, and although I look forward to the beach and relaxing with the rest of my family, I also look forward to the books. The house we rent belongs to Evan Thomas, editor of Newsweek magazine, and he has the greatest collection of books in one home I have ever seen. My family stays there for around two weeks, and the time always seems to run out before I can read everything I want to. This year, I did manage to complete quite a number of good books there. The first book I read was Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. For some reason, all books about Middle Eastern culture fascinate me. I have read A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Namesake more times than I can count, but Infidel in particular interested me. The book was a kind of autobiography of Ayaan’s life, and while a book of this type could easily have gone stale and boring, Hirsi Ali’s earnestness and conviction make it a captivating read. In the book, she begins her story as a typical Muslim girl: she prays only sporadically but still believes in Allah. However, throughout the novel, she drifts away from her faith and eventually starts to challenge it. The major inconsistency that Ayaan sees in Islam is in the treatment of women. At one point in the novel, she attends a religious discussion, where an imam is talking about first how “Allah is just,” but then discussing how “women must be subservient to their husbands.” When Ayaan angrily points out this inconsistency and asks “must our husbands obey us as well?” the whole room falls apart in laughter. In the book, she lives in three different countries, and they have different protocols for the treatment of women. Interestingly, it is in Saudi Arabia, the epicenter of Islam, that women have the lowest social status. Many Saudis beat their wives regularly, and women are not allowed to go out on to the street without the company of a man. Ayaan recalls how her mother was humiliated by having to drag her nine year old son with her to the grocery store, and how when her mother got to the grocery store, the salespeople would not even acknowledge her presence. Of all of the countries she lived in, it was Kenya, technically a Christian country, that had the most equal treatment of women in its social system. However, Ayaan was told by her mother that the Christians were gaalo, or unbelievers, and were therefore filthy. Ayaan’s mother and grandmother saw the Christians as little better than pigs. When in Kenya, Ayaan has a teacher named Sister Aziza who greatly affects Ayaan. Sister Aziza taught Islam in a different way than Ayaan was used to, and it was inspiring for Ayaan. When Sister Aziza told the class that they needed to try and convert their Christian classmates in order to save them from eternal hell, Ayaan quickly tries her best. However, her classmates tell her that they don’t believe in her hell, that their God has saved them. Ayaan, panicked, replies, “But you will burn!” which her Christian classmates find amusing. Through all of this her Muslim beliefs have remained strong. It is only after she runs away to Holland that she discovers the failures of her system and ends up becoming an atheist. Being an Infidel is the worst possible crime in the Muslim world, and for the rest of her life, Ayaan is hunted by militant extremists. However, she decides to sacrifice her own safety for that of her cause. She is, even today, working hard at trying to help Muslim women escape from what she calls the “mental cage of Islam.” Her views are radical, to be sure. However, her eloquence and her dedication win over the reader in the end. The story of how Ayaan went from a typical Muslim girl to an outspoken Dutch politician is a good one, and was an inspiring and fun read for summer.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
The Rule of Four by Dustin Thomas and Ian Caldwell
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Caravans by James A. Michener
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
