"Sidelights"

Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a prominent defender of women's rights in Islamic societies. Born in Somalia, Hirsi Ali was made to participate in an arranged marriage by her father and subsequently fled to the Netherlands in 1992. Hirsi Ali became a prominent figure in the Netherlands as she promoted Muslim women's rights and was voted to the parliament in 2003. The following year, she wrote the screenplay for a short film titled Submission Part 1. Shortly afterward, the film's director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered by an Islamic extremist because of the film's exploration of women under oppression in some Muslim societies. Hirsi Ali also received numerous death threats and had to go into hiding before coming to the United States to work as a fellow in the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

As a result of her experiences, Hirsi Ali has written several books. The first, titled The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, is a collection of essays, columns, lectures, interviews, and autobiographical sketches previously published in the Netherlands. The primary focus of the writings is the liberation of Muslim women who are, according to the author, under oppression because of certain beliefs held by both moderate and radical members of Islam. "Throughout the book, Hirsi Ali draws upon her experiences as a Somalian girl who was raised as a Muslim, educated in religious schools, circumcised at an early age, and forced into an unwanted marriage with a distant cousin," wrote Kathy Davis in the Women's Review of Books. "She makes a passionate and convincing argument for the necessity of freeing women from the constraints of tradition and religion, which rob them of their self-determination, turning them into little more than 'production plants for sons.'" Among the topics the author discusses are female circumcision, domestic violence, education, and legal equality.

Most reviewers gave high praise to The Caged Virgin. Writing in the Library Journal, Anna M. Donnelly called the book a "thought-provoking collection of essays." America contributor David Pinault called the author "the most controversial--and courageous--thinker to address the status of Muslims in Western societies today." Despite the laurels heaped by most reviewers, many also sounded a note of caution. For example, Women's Review of Books contributor Davis noted: "Read The Caged Virgin less as a contribution to understanding the complexities of multiculturalism or the complicated realities of the lives of Muslim women than as a manifesto or wake-up call. You will not always agree with what Hirsi Ali says, but she has managed to get the most important and troubling issues of the day on the agenda."

Hirsi Ali followed The Caged Virgin with a memoir, Infidel. The author begins by providing the reader with a look at her childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya as she lives with a strict Muslim family and receives beatings for her free-thinking ways. The book then follows Hirsi Ali's decision to flee oppression and obtain citizenship in the Netherlands, where she becomes...