Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations »

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the author of The Caged Virgin and Infidel, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her commitment to conflict resolution, ethics, and world citizenship, including the Martin Luther King Jr. unsung Heroes Award. In 2007 she established the AHA Foundation (www.theahafoundation.org), to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West against militant Islam.

"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.

The New York Times - Nicholas D. Kristof

Since Hirsi Ali denounces Islam with a ferocity that I find strident, potentially feeding religious bigotry, I expected to dislike this book. It did leave me uncomfortable and exasperated in places. But I also enjoyed it. Hirsi Ali comes across as so sympathetic when she shares her grief at her family's troubles that she is difficult to dislike. Her memoir suggests that she never quite outgrew her rebellious teenager phase, but also that she would be a terrific conversationalist at a dinner party. She is at her best when she is telling her powerful story.

Introduction

PART I A PROBLEM FAMILY

1. My Father 3

2. My Half Sister 13

3. My Mother 23

4. My Brother's Story 41

5. My Brother's Son 61

6. My Cousins 73

7. Letter to My Grandmother 85

PART II NOMAD AGAIN

8. Nomad Again 95

9. America 109

10. Islam in America 127

PART III SEX, MONEY, VIOLENCE

11. School and Sexuality 149

12. Money and Responsibility 165

13. Violence and the Closing of the Muslim Mind 185

PART IV REMEDIES

14. Opening the Muslim Mind: An Enlightenment Project 205

15. Dishonor, Death, and Feminists 219

16. Seeking God but Finding Allah 237

Conclusion: The Miy b1 s and the Magaalo 255

Epilogue: Letter to My Unborn Daughter 263

The AHA Foundation 275