As part of American Bedu goals to further increase readers knowledge and understanding about Saudi Arabia, American Bedu is now part of the Amazon.com Associates Program. Through this program, American Bedu is pleased to provide recommendations of books which can also be purchased with a simple click through Amazon.com. The books which American Bedu has chosen to recommend are divided into categories as provided in the links below.
**Note: If you like to purchase any of the books from the Amazon bookstore. Please click on the book title link or image. Amazon will share a percentage of the proceeds to help support American Bedu blog.
Great new page! I look forward to discovering fascinating books. It’s nice to have a review section from someone who is objective-to-sympathetic, and certainly knowledgable, about her subject.
Thanks, Marahm.
I really appreciate the feedback.
Excellent page. And I always appreciate a good review when contemplating buying books!
Thanks, Aafke!
Dear American Bedu,
First of all thank you so much for your blog. It is extremely interesting and it helps discovering the Saudi culture. I was wondering if you are still part of the amazon.com associate program. Could you please provide me with the link as I am very interested in books related to Saudi Arabia and Islam?
Missturtle,
thank you and welcome! I am indeed a part of the amazon.com associate program. If you are interested in a book I have reviewed, you click on the book review link and you will be automatically transferred to where you can purchase the book if you wish.
Best Regards,
Carol
Dear Carol,
The links just showed up on my laptop (which has been acting pretty weird lately) so now I can go do some shopping online and make sure I click on the book title link or image!
Shoukran!
My pleasure, Miss Turtle! Afwan!
Assalamu’alaikum ya American Bedu…
I am so delighted to read from this blog mashaALLAH you’ve done a good job, may ALLAH Reward you with all khayr ameen.
One question: I am interested to buy some pregnancy books from Amazon but were surprised when read that Saudi is not included amongst the countries they ship to. Maybe i made a mistake or what? How can we buy from Amazon? Afwan, it seems a silly question, i am not familiar with online purchase mashaALLAH.
Any info would be appreciated. Jazakillahu khayr. Wassalamu’alaikum.
UmmFaatima
What most individuals do is set up an account through ARAMEX (I’ll post more info later) but if you visit their website you’ll see that you can establish an account which provides you a US address. This allows you to do online shopping as well as anyone in the US to send items to you via a US address. ARAMEX in turn forwards these items to your Saudi address.
Jarir bookstore also has some selection of books on pregnancy.
walaikum salam,
Carol
Assalamu’alaikum. Jazakillahu khayran. Will ask my husband to check out these inshaALLAH.
UmmFaatima
Thank you for trying to overcome the negative views of Islam and Saudi Arabia =)
i cant seem to find “Bridges: An Anthology” online however can you help me with that plz
Someone: Thank YOU! And I always welcome continued recommendations to review and possibly add to this page. For Bridges, please check the following link:
Bridges: An Anthology
Dear Carol,
I have read many well written books about KSA since coming to the USA. These books are usually not available in KSA. I would like to contribute some titles for your groups’ enjoyment, if that is ok with you.
Thank you
Waw, that would be great!
Bedu, if you want a poll: It´s ok for me
And the new banner is great!
@Mariam – by all means, please make your contributions and reviews!
am abdulai mohammed from Ghana west Africa.please i will like to receive a copy of a holy quran if possible.this is my address
p o box as 505
ashaiman Ghana
w/a 00233
thanks .
Dear Carol,
I feel honored that you chose to list The Burning Veil in the list of recommended books. Thank you so much.
Dear Jean,
I so enjoyed the Burning Veil and definitely recommend it to others!
Hi!
I would like to highly recommend two books that I just finished reading:
Jewel of Medina – A Novel by Sherry Jones. This book is about Ayesha Mohammed, of of many wives of Prophet Mohammed.
The book introduces readers to the turmoil that surrounded the birth of the Islamic faith through the eyes of a truly unforgettable heroine and feminist.
The Sword of Medina – A Novel By Sherry Jones.
This climatic sequel to the international best seller,
The Jewel of Medina, returns to seventh century Arabia to discover whether, after fighting a civil war
(Ayesha versus Ali), a people can truly ever heal.
Hi Harry,
Thank you very much for your recommendations!
The Saudi government has to stop making the Saudi citizens believe that there are successful business producing national products with the claim that they are growing an economy that is not dependent on oil, where in reality they have been subsidizing these businesses for decades with oil money, making these “well connected owners super rich while making other “no so connected “citizens super poor.
In reality the subsidized businesses are going to vanish as soon as the revenues from the oil fade away.
This is a big lie and a propaganda that has to stop, on the other side of the coin you find that most of this business employ a huge number of foreign laborers with no consideration for any labor law and practice the ultimate injustice toward these foreign laborers.
Any short sighted person may not see the eventualities of these practices, where with a deep look you can see that they are the source for the problem of unemployment and the unfair distribution of wealth.
You haven’t included Under a Crescent Moon: Stories of Arabia, available on Amazon Kindle. : )
You are absolutely right, Julia. I’ve been lapse on the book page and if I do not get this oversight corrected in a few days, please please send me a reminder.
ALLAH & LIBERTY & AND LOVE By Irshad Manji
Book Review By X-Moozlum
In the wake of her 2005 book “The Trouble with Islam Today” and related PBS documentary “Faith Without Fear”, Irshad Manji in her latest book “Allah & Liberty & Love” looks toward an optimistic fix for Islam’s woes. She finds this remedy in the ancient islamic practice of COMMUNITY CONSENSUS, an “islamic tradition of dissenting, reasoning, and reinterpreting”, which was banned by muslims many centuries ago. Manji takes readers outside the boxes of “moderation” and “multi-culturalism” to boldly tackle the problems with modern Islam.
Her book is all about exceptional re-imagining of islam at its’ best!
In “Allah & Liberty & Love”, Irshad Manji paves a path for both muslims and non-muslims to transcend the fears that stop so many of us from living with honest-to- god integrity: the fear of offending others in a multicultural world as well as the fear of questioning our own communities. Since publishing her first international bestseller in 2005, Manji has moved from anger to aspiration. She shows how any muslim can reconcile faith with freedom and thus discover the muslim god of liberty and love — the muslim god that muslims believe loves them enough to give them choices and the capacity to make them.
Focusing on seven simple yet challenging lessons she has learned about reform, Manji urges readers — whether muslim or not — to challenge those who hide behind social constructions like “moderation,” which perpetuate a culture of violence and intolerance. She makes it clear that islam must be separated from arab culture, which idolizes family and collective honor above individual integrity. Going further, however, Manji calls for a reinterpretation of islam itself by muslims to bring readings of the koran into a 21st-century context, decrying the muslim fear of outside cultures while ignoring Islam’s own severe cultural problems.
Muslims, she writes, must stop having “high defenses against the Other and low expectations of Ourselves.” She also calls upon non-muslims to stop wringing their hands over respect for another culture and to remember that certain things, such as honor killings, hijab issue, wife beating, fgm etc, are simply and universally wrong. Her writing is emotive, penetrating and sassy. I really liked her bold assertion that, “a sovereign creator isn’t threatened by our self-knowledge; only the creator’s uptight gatekeepers are.” Wow, what a beautiful statement and then some!!!!
BTW, Manji is a Ugandan-Canadian muslim of indian/pakistani heritage, and is an open muslim lgbt. I think Manji is among the most visible muslim reformers of our era. She draws on her experiences in the trenches to share stories that are deeply poignant, frequently funny and always revealing about these morally confused times. She asks some deep-thought and self-introspective questions, such as:
1. what prevents young muslims, even in the West, from expressing their need for religious reinterpretation?
2. what scares non-muslims about openly supporting liberal voices within islam?
3. how did muslims get into the mess of tolerating intolerable customs, such as honor killings, hijab, wife beating, fgm etc. and how can they change that noxious status quo?
4. how can muslims ditch the dogma while keeping their faith intact?
5. how can muslims embark on a personal journey toward moral courage — the willingness to speak up when everybody else, especially their governments, want them to shut the eff up?
Allah & Liberty & Love is the ultimate guide to becoming a gutsy global muslim citizen. Irshad Manji believes profoundly not just in her allah, but also in the god/gods/no-gods of her fellow human beings.
P.S. I understand that her book is banned in muslim countries (except turkey), under the guise of sharia law of “for the good of the community”. However, I have heard from quite a few of my overseas muslim friends that they were able to purchase/download the book on their e-kindles via the internet, without any problems
http://www.irshadmanji.com/Allah-Liberty-And-Love
Excellent book review, thank you, I knew she had a new book out and wanted to look into it and now we have an excellent review of it.
These religious oppressors are so behind the times. You can’t ban books anymore, you can carry a 1000 books on a mini usb, you have your own library as a cache on the internet, you can buy or download anything from the internet.
The time of banishing books is past!
Aafke, you are most welcome. And thank you!
X-Moozlum:
Based on your review I intend to obtain a copy. You should get marketing fees.
NOMAD By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Book Review by X-Moozlum
NOMAD is the 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 america. NOMAD is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s second memoir. Her first, INFIDEL, recounts her coming-of-age in somalia and her escape from an arranged marriage to live in holland.
NOMAD 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. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, which represent the challenges faced by most muslim immigrants to the west, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of islam with western values. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, with her devout father on his deathbed, who had disowned her when she renounced islam after the muslim attacks of September 11.
While Hirsi Ali loves much of what she encounters in america, she fears we are repeating the european mistake of underestimating radical islam. She calls on key institutions of the west — including universities, feminists, and christian churches/jewish synagogues — 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. Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells of escaping to America and says the Muslim world needs a revolution in how it treats women and modernity.
The book is essentially a call to arms against islam!
Just to digress briefly, while on a family visit to minneapolis last year, I hopped into a cab at the airport. Those who have used such transport in minneapolis will be aware that the chances of landing an african cabbie are 9 in 10, and this African cohort is predominantly eritrean, ethiopian, sudanese or somali. My driver on this occasion was somali, and after a few pleasantries — How long have you lived in America? Do you like it here? Do you still have family in Mogadishu? How old are your children? — I asked the man a less banal question: “What do you think of Ayaan Hirsi Ali … you know, the Somali lady?” He swiveled his head to fix me with a tense gaze, rolled down the cab window and swished the spit into the air, and then turned his gaze back to the road. “Very bad person,” he said, after a strained pause. “We think she is a bitch. We hate her. Allah willing, she will be killed soon”.
I was in a state of shock! We did not exchange another word for the rest of the brief ride to my destination.
I had cause to recall this ugly episode when I read earlier this year — in just one sitting, it is so brilliant — Hirsi Ali’s new book, Nomad: From Islam to America. It is subtitled, with a very “un-pc” tip of the hat to samuel huntington, “A PERRSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS”. If I had my way, and the resources to pull off the idea, I would commission translations of her book into arabic, urdu, hindi, somali, farsi, turkish, pashto, kurdish, bengali, malay and bahasa, and air-drop thousands of copies into the muslim lands where these languages are spoken. And with any luck, these books would find their way into the hands of some of the immiserated women who live there.
As the historian bernard lewis once said, probably echoing a desert proverb, “women are half the population, and mothers of the other half.” Educated mothers, he said, make the greatest difference to a society, and the muslim world’s greatest drawback is that its women are benighted. Hirsi Ali’s mother was one such woman.
Uneducated—and as unenlightened as it was possible to be, on earth, in the 1970s — she physically hit and seriously inflicted pain on Hirsi Ali when she first got her period, a sickening blow that was part of an ongoing pattern of violence and misogyny that holds sway not merely in every somali family, but, in the author’s contention, in almost every muslim family in the world.
After all, she writes, male domination and female subjugation are koranically prescribed, and who is man enough to challenge the immutable word of god — especially when god’s arrangements ensure perpetual male domination? This punitive patriarchy is not confined to muslims in their own lands; it thrives, she points out, in the west, in the lands to which muslims immigrate, but whose “degenerate” and “sinful” societies they abhor.
In a blistering passage, written with the forthright elegance that characterizes the book, Hirsi Ali asserts that “the subjection of women within islam is the biggest obstacle to the integration and progress of muslim communities in the west. It is a subjection committed by the closest kin in the most intimate of all places, the home”. Evidently, she asserts, it is sanctioned by the two greatest figures in the imagination of muslims: mohammed & allah themselves.
Now hark back to what the somali cab driver mentioned earlier told me: “We think she is a bitch. We hate her. Allah willing, she will be killed soon”. It is easy to see why Hirsi Ali has bodyguards, and round-the-clock protection. She would be dead if she did not.
Of somali birth and upbringing, Hirsi Ali fled to the netherlands as a young woman to escape marriage to a much older man, forced upon her by her father; there, she learned dutch, became dutch, and was elected to parliament, only to leave for america after her forthright criticism of islam made her too radioactive for the disappointingly timid Dutch officials to handle. Much of her story has been narrated in INFIDEL, her haunting previous memoir. And in her new book, Hirsi Ali widens her personal narrative to tell us of her parents, siblings, and cousins, as well as of the wider muslim community in the west (of whom she is as unsparingly critical as she is of the scripture and structure of Islam).
NOMAD is an electrifying book. An apostate and an atheist, Hirsi Ali has rejected islam as her personal creed, and she calls on muslims, effectively, to do the same. In a moving chapter titled “Letters to My Grandmother,” she addresses the deceased mother of her mother in words that would incite riots if uttered in public anywhere in the muslim world (with the marginally possible exception of taksim square in istanbul): “Salvation lies in the ways of the infidel, grandmother. Grandmother, I have compared the infidels’ morals to those that you taught us, and I must report that they have, in practice, a better outcome for humans than the morals of your forefathers. Grandmother, … I will even strive to persuade my fellow nomads to take on the ways of the infidel.”
Hirsi Ali writes beautifully, and with an unerring critical precision. Contrasting the western nuclear family with the suffocating family structure in somalia, she says, “the infidel is loyal to his wife and children; he may take care of his parents but has no use for a memory filled with an endless chain of ancestors.” Elsewhere, she writes that “virginity is the obsession, the neurosis of islam,” and that “the fundamentalists seem haunted by the female body and neurotically debate which fractions of it should be covered, until they declare the whole thing, from head to toe, a gigantic private part or a walking vagina.”
The author laments the self-censorship in the west, driven by a well-meaning, but ultimately corrosive and self-defeating politics of multicultural accommodations. There have been numerous honor killings in the united states (and canada), in which muslim fathers or husbands or brothers kill daughters or wives or sisters who have “sullied” the family name in some way; and yet, Hirsi Ali observes, not once has the achingly non-judgmental american or canadian mainstream media has used the phrase “honor killing” in its reports on the murders. Writing of Nidal Malik Hasan, the islamist u.s. army major who gunned down 13 people at fort hood couple of years ago, she finds it “astonishing” that the media regarded all explanations for the murders plausible “except the one explicitly stated by the killer, namely his religion.” Bet she will cease to be astonished once she spends a few more years here in america
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Hirsi Ali ends her book with some muscular suggestions: “The muslim mind needs to be opened. Above all, the uncritical muslim attitude toward the koran urgently needs to change, for it is a direct threat to world peace.” She proposes an “enlightenment project,” in which public education and social policy in the west is “geared toward grooming citizens, not preserving the separateness of tribe, the sanctity of faith …”.
Western feminists, who too often allow the muslim suppression of women to go unchallenged, must take it upon themselves to embrace the emancipation (from muslim men) of muslim women. Finally — and perhaps most pugnaciously — she calls on christian churches/jewish synagogues to enter the fray: “I have had the pleasure of meeting christians and jews whose concept of god is a far cry from allah. Theirs is a reformed and partly secularized “faith” that could be a very useful ally in the battle against islamic fanaticism.” The christianity and judaism of “love and tolerance remains one of the west’s most powerful antidotes to the islam of hate and intolerance.”
These are powerful, polemical words with which it is very hard, in our present circumstances, to disagree. There will be many, however, who will shriek loudly in outrage, and not all of the fulminators will be muslim but also their apologists (Hirsi Ali calls them “islamophilliacs”). My greatest personal fear is that people will react only to fragments of this passionate book without having read the humane whole, and this will lead to distortions and imprecations, maybe even to book-burnings and death-fatvas.
I am mighty glad Ayaan Hirsi Ali has police protection. And I am mightier gladder still that she lives in our midst, in our America!
Amazon.com: Nomad eBook: Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Kindle Store
Hey XM,
A great book review albeit a tad bit too long!
There are a few things that I agree with Hirsi on and then again there are a few things that I disagree with her …..
Hirsi is most frequently criticized for her scathing attacks on Islam, but the problem with her work is not her furious rejection of her former faith. She has earned her right to revile it, even if she does engage in gross generalizations.
I think she’s wrong to dismiss the possibility of a moderate Islam. There’s not a word in Nomad about the mystical, tolerant Sufi tradition, which has deep roots in countries like Pakistan, Turkey and India and makes far more sense as an alternative to religious militancy than Christianity or Judaism do. Nevertheless, there’s clearly a lot of truth in her depiction of conservative Islamic society as monstrously repressive. It’s hard to blame her if, as the Islam she takes most seriously, is the Islam that she herself has had to endure and experience.
XM, for example, if a young woman escaped from an extremely reactionary Mormon or Evangelical background, and then wrote about it, it is unlikely that critics would lecture her for failing to appreciate the diverse glories of her abandoned religion. But let’s face it: We treat Islam differently. We tread more carefully around it because of the prevalent political correctness. Or the fear of being beheaded
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Many Muslims have accused Hirsi of blatant blasphemy. On this, she definitely deserves defending. She is absolutely right to demand for Muslim women the same rights that Western women take for granted. But reading her, it’s clear that she has maintained one significant habit of mind from her fundamentalist Wahabi youth — she sees a world cleanly divided between those inside the house of Islam and those outside. Worse, her prescriptions for dealing with Islam would require the West to abandon crucial civil liberties and commit itself to perpetual war.
In some ways, she makes sense and in some other ways she does not. Anti-Muslim bigotry has been used to garner support for unjust wars and harass beleaguered immigrants. But it’s also true that, as Hirsi correctly argues, Westerners, and particularly Western apologists, treat Islam too gingerly, and thus capitulate to its illiberal tendencies.
mooz – i liked your both book reviews. i haven’t read any of these books. now i will. blessings …
I’ve been behind the curve ball on providing more book reviews. I’d like to encourage readers to keep reviews coming on books you recommend!
Ex Muslim,
Yes, I agree with a previous commenter that your book reviews (especially one on Nomad) were rather too long. The purpose of the book review is to summarize/highlight salient points in the book; not to re-write the entire book. Sorry
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Ms. Hirsi is a mesmerizing speaker, indeed! A few months ago, I had the opportunity to hear her at our local university campus. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the fantastically brave, inspiring, and completely maddening feminist opponent of Islam, was the keynote speaker. The security in the auditorium was airport-like, with metal detectors and swarms of stern men in headsets, because, as the world’s most outspoken Muslim apostate, Hirsi Ali lives under constant threats of assassination from Muslim fanatics.
Onstage, despite the ever-present danger, she didn’t seem at all anxious or intimidated. She was funny, erudite, a little self-mocking, and transfixing as she spoke, seemingly extemporaneously, about her childhood in Somalia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya; the daring flight from forced marriage that brought her to Holland; and her slow, painful shedding of and eventual apostasy from her Muslim religion.
Her demeanor was particularly striking during the question-and-answer session, when several outraged and extremely rude young fanatic Muslim men lined up to challenge her, some of them barking Koranic verses at her in Arabic while others hurled abuses and obscene gestures at her in multitude of languages. She coolly ignored all the obscenities and then translated the verses for the audience and then elaborated on.
She stuck relentlessly to her message: Islam oppresses women. Secularism must be protected at all costs. Every person — particularly, every woman — must be the absolute master of her own life, body, and conscience, freed from the dictates of religion, family, or clan. According to my personal notes, she probably used the phrase “reproductive rights” a half-dozen times.
She related that as a child, she underwent infibulation — her external genitalia sliced off, the wound sutured shut. Her mother, her father’s second wife, went nearly mad when he took a third. Mostly abandoned by him, she lived a life of frustration and shame. When Hirsi Ali was a teenager, her Koran teacher, enraged by her insolence, cracked her skull open. She had to escape a forced marriage to a man she never met. She’s seen the lives of her sister and her cousins blighted by sexual guilt and denial. A Muslim fanatic slaughtered her friend in Holland, where she thought she’d found a safe refuge.
A few strange/weird things to share here about her book: Nomad brims with attacks on unrecognizable straw feminists, bizarre statements about the United States, and, strangest of all, a tendency to romanticize religions outside of Islam. Hirsi Ali remains, she says, an atheist, but she’s developed an odd admiration for the Catholic Church, which, she suggests, should try to civilize Muslims through conversion. There is also in Nomad a new concern for private property and a shout-out to gun rights. She ladles praises on Charles Murray, author, most infamously, of The Bell Curve, which purported to demonstrate the intellectual inferiority of black people. Go figure!
And now she must live a furtive and threatened existence, surrounded at all times by a grim cordon of armed bodyguards. Hirsi Ali is one brave woman and one brave human being!
FYI, Ex M, Hirsi Ali is married to the British historian Niall Ferguson. She gave birth to a son, Thomas, in December 2011.
Thank you to ALL who commented on my book reviews. I will be reviewing a few more in the days to come ….
Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, Edited by Ibn Warrak
Book Review By X-Moozlum
In “Leaving Islam”, Warrak has assembled a compelling list of writings from individuals who renounced their muslim faith. It serves as a companion of sorts to his own personal statement, Why I Am Not a Muslim, and opens a window into an usually hushed topic, revealing internal muslim debates concerning history, faith, and culture. Leaving Islam is a book that inspired many muslims to awaken and question their cherished faith.
The problem of dissent within Islam has been a troubling issue from the earliest moments of muslim history. Although the koran famously declares that “there is no compulsion in religion,” apostasy (meaning, adopting another belief or non-belief) is a capital offense in islam, punishable by death. Hence, muslims’ fear that dissent might be viewed as apostasy serves as an insidious weapon for political leaders. Often in collaboration with religious scholars, leaders use this tool to silence freethinkers and spread a blanket of totalitarian control over muslim communities.
Despite the crucial importance of apostasy, it has not seriously been documented or investigated. Warrak’s breakthrough collection of essays offer a compelling and vivid insight into the minds of those individuals who have struggled with their muslim faith and tradition, eventually departing from the belief of their parents and ancestors to become free of what they considered as oppressive or demeaning to living as rational and independent individuals.
The phenomenon of muslims leaving islam is about as old as islam itself, starting with apostasy wars, soon after prophet’s death. Warrak handily summarizes some of the most notable cases from the early centuries of Islam, such as many eminent freethinkers: Ar-Rawandi and Ar-Razi or skeptical poets such as Omar Khayyam and Hafez or Sufi (mystic) practitioners among whom the most notable victims of orthodoxy were Mansur ibn Hallaj (beheaded/922) and As-Suhrawardi (beheaded/1191).
But the testimonies Warrak collects of contemporary individuals from across the muslim world make for a particularly fascinating reading. They offer insight into the biography and psychology of muslim men and women contending with a faith that they find irreconcilable with the requirements of modernity.
The voices are those of men and women from Bangladesh and Pakistan, India and Iran, Tunisia and Turkey, Malaysia and Morocco. They are intelligent, aware of their past and tormented by present realities of obscurantism, dogmatism, and intolerance within muslim societies.
Warrak is a courageous writer on islam and a passionate defender of reason, who continues to struggle on behalf of reason with a culture that seems to be at odds with reason. In this respect, his work, as in the preparation of this edited volume, is an indispensable tool for muslims themselves so they can wage their struggle for enlightenment and reform of their faith tradition.
And here, therefore, lies the conundrum for those, be they muslim or non-muslim, who are concerned about the world of islam and its relationship with others: the act of leaving Islam, however courageous on an individual basis, amounts to abandoning the reformist struggle needed within Islam. Mohammad infamously said, “If anyone changes his religion, kill him”, and the death penalty for apostasy is still part of islamic law in the 21st century.
Those who choose to leave Islam have to live with a death sentence over their heads for the rest of their lives — even if they live in the U.S, like I do. Muslim “civil rights” organizations who whine about “islamophobia” never say a word about the human rights of apostates from islam. Who stands up for muslim apostates? Nobody!
http://www.apostatesofislam.com/index.htm
X-Moozlim:
I have read this book and several others from Ibq Warraq and I find him to be an extremely informed individual. I found his books to be detailed, sometimes difficult to read as the material was dry but highly informative depending on the book, but all in all extremely valuable in conveying concepts, deceptions, and consensus.
I found “Which Koran” highly interesting but at times dry. He does an excellent job of pointing out the differences in the variants, manuscripts and linquistics. In addition, “the origins of the koran” and “why I am not a muslim” is chalked full of information that makes one think and leads one to do more research. This above all else is why I like him as he opens the door to questioning, thinking and researching.
I must say you have a talent at book review. Have you read, The hidden origins of Islam by Karl -Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin?
Bigstick – Thank you for your comments. I agree with you that Warrak is highly informative but his dry writing style can put one to sleep.
Oh yes, I have read Ohlig/Puins’ hidden origins of islam and found their book fascinating. My most favorite writer is another ex-muslim friend of mine, Dr. Ali Sina. If you haven’t already, do read his book “understanding mohammed: a psychoanalysis”. It is available in pdf free on the internet or through him directly at his website:
http://alisina.org/understanding-muhammad/
X-moozlum:
I have heard of him but not read his works. I look forward to it.
Next:
There is a book written by Bertrand Russell that quite frankly is historical in nature at this point. It is a book that gives an understanding of Bolsheivism during the early 20th century Russia. It is called The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. It is based on the classic and enduring analysis of Marxism in practice and how Bolshevism became in practice a theology.
I found it to be an excellent source for the backdrop of Russia/Soviet Union prior to WWII.
I point this out as many like to levy Lenin as an atheist but they fail to understand that he believed in a quasi religious/quasi political dogma. This is an exceptional book that provides a better understanding of the times and the social aspects of the society.
I found many books written by Russell to be thought provoking.
It’s a logical fallacy anyway to blame ”atheists” for evil done by somebody who happens to be A-theistic, or wanting to replace the local theistic belief with a dogma of his own.
Hitler was vegetarian, nobody claims that vegetarians are more evil than meat-eaters because Hitler was a vegetarian.
The fact is that A-theists are nothing more than people who are not convinced there are invisible non-provable gods. They are not a group, they have no dogma.
btw, Stalin had trained for priesthood and he certainly used the tricks of religious trade to further himself and his goals.
Islamic Sex: Fighting Jews to Return Islamic Sex to the World
Authored By Obedient Wives Club / Malaysia
Since Carol is encouraging her “readers to keep reviews coming on books”, here I come ….
I am going to review the book mentioned above authored by the Obedient Wives Club, headquartered in Malaysia. I can barely understand the first part of the book title “Islamic Sex”, as though “sex” varies from religion to religion or no-religion to no-religion. However, I am completely baffled and at udder loss by the by-line “Fighting Jews to Return Islamic Sex to the World”.
Is there jewish sex or christian sex or atheist sex??? Did jews “steal” the “islamic sex” that muslims are trying to reclaim???? Perhaps someone knows and can throw more light on this.
Obedient Wives Club or OWC for short, was launched in Malaysia in early 2011 and has over 25,000 members worldwide. OWC has branches in UK, Australia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Afghanistan. Let’s count our blessings that it has not made it to the US …. YET
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Not surprisingly, the book is banned in Malaysia, like many many other books there. But since I was so curious to read this sickening book, a friend of mine in Australia sent me the scanned english pdf version (about fifty pages) via email. It was in the trash bin for a while and then “deleted forever” from my computer. This book is enough to give you a mega headache and make you vomit.
Simply, the book strongly mandates wives to be completely subservient to their husbands. Of course, OWC quotes koranic verses and mohammedan sayings to justify its positions. Here is one sickening quote from the book: “In Islam, if the husband wants sex and the wife is not in the mood, she has to give in to him. If not, the angels will curse her. This is not good for the family”.
The OWC claims that it’s islamic manifesto can curb things like prostitution and gambling by showing Muslim wives how to be submissive and keep their husbands happy in the bedroom. How “misguided” and sickening this so-called islamic doctrine can get! The book claims that amongst its 25,000 muslim members worldwide, it has around 15,000 involved in polygamous relationships; a group called Global Ikhwan launched this Global Polygamy Club early last year.
Here are a few more “gems” from this udderly sexist book (make sure to store extra-strength tylenol and barf bags by you:
“The word obedient is insulting for some but we live in a metrosexual world, there are many out there who feel that men should reclaim their manhood”.
“OWC teaches how husbands and wives should behave in multiple-partner/polygamous marriages”.
“The feminist movement, OWC believes, has emasculated not just Muslim men, but men in general”.
“Marriage cannot be equal regardless of whatever you do. Allah has made rules and regulations that there should be a leader. In this situation the husband is the leader, the wife and children are followers.”
“OWC strongly believes that Islam expects wives to act like “first-class prostitutes” in bed”.
“The woman is supposed to treat the husband the way the Prophet’s [Mohammad] wives did, but we are way after the Prophet so we can’t picture [how that is]. When we say ‘first-class prostitute’ we have an idea, it’s a comparison.”
“A good, pious husband will not normally force his wife into bed, or into sexual relationships. There is always discussion and give and take. But there are greater rewards given by Allah and Prophet for the wife to be obedient, so as to avoid being cursed by angels and of punishment of the grave”.
I am sorry folks but I gotta stop! I am getting a terrible headache and almost ready to barf ….
Guess there are wackos in every religion/no-religion and cultures. Here is a brief minute long clip on this wacko group:
carol – i posted a book review but it didn’t get posted. i did it again and still no cigar. thx, rosemary c
Rosemary,i am a Malaysian qnd i rmbr when this issue of OWC came up but i can assure you that the club hqs been shunned by the majority of Muslims in Malaysia.it created quite q controversy to say the least.the members of tht club were mostly from existing clubs tht were bannee by Malaysian government for these very reasons,extremism and fundamentalism. Disgusting is wht i can say to their preachment.
Rosemary C, on June 11, 2012 at 1:34 am said: “Is there jewish sex or christian sex or atheist sex??? Did jews “steal” the “islamic sex” that muslims are trying to reclaim???? Perhaps someone knows and can throw more light on this”.
RC, each religion has their own take on “sex” couched as “sexual ethics”. If you go through the link I have provided below, you will see it’s all they same crap. Each gives it their own unique spin claiming that their religion has the best sexual ethics, but trust me, they are all the same BS …. male domination over women.
Regarding the book title “Islamic Sex: Fighting Jews to Return Islamic Sex to the World”, especially the byline attacking the jews, I think it has to do with allah/koran/mohammed calling them apes and swines, etc etc.
What else could it be? Jews couldn’t have stolen the sexual ethics from muslims, since Islam was the last to come on the scene having stolen/copying their holy book, and “mohammedan sayings”, verbatim word for word (also from christians).
Here is the link comparing sexual ethics amongst various religions:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/rs/relationships/
@Rosemary C.
Obviiously you haven’t explored the many sexual exploits of the religious. Here is a nice Christian one (Sarcasm intended).
http://www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com/how_to_discipline.html
Thank you, Bigstick, for sharing a most wacko link. I am like ROFLMAO
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Looks like to me as if muslims lifted the christian’s “how to discipline your wife” edict and inserted into their koran calling it “how to beat your wife with a toothpick and/or toothbrush”. I have some very dear muslim friends who are also colleagues of mine. They gave me an english koran once to read and to ask them any questions I have (methink they were trying to convert me).
Anyways and anyhows, everytime I brought questions back to them (kill the infidels, jews as apes and pigs, obligation to carry an armed jihad, kill the apostates, stoning to death of “loose” women”, etc), instead of answering my questions directly, they will bring the chapter and verse from bible/talmud, and say to me, see it is in your holy books too. Like all the muslim teachings made it alright just because they were in “others” holy books too!
That experience made me think that koran is definitely a carbon copy of christian/jewish holy books. And XM reinforced it in his reply to my book review.
Thx again, Bigstick!
@Rosemary C.
I find it interesting that women are actually born feminine but somehow lose their feminity upon marriage that now they must be beaten/disciplined in order to locate it again.
Christianinty is great as well for child abuse as well as domestic just like other religions.
“Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam”
Hi, my name is Louise Enakai from Maui. Today I am going to do a book review for American Bedu. I haven’t done a book review since college and that was long long long time ago. I have always been interested to learn more about other countries and other cultures. My saudi friend at work referred me to Carol’s blog as the best in the business to learn about muslim religion and culture.
I told my friend oh about three weeks ago that I wanted to review a book for Carol and if she has any suggestions. Next day, she brought me couple of pretty fat books titled “STANDING ALONE IN MECCA” and “TANTRIKA”, both by someone named Asra Nomani. The first book about Mecca was a hard read and it took me close to two weeks to finish it. I haven’t even touched the other one yet. Just by looking at the back cover, it sounds like it is about sex/love/romance (tantrika/kama sootra) in the hindu/buddhist culture.
Now back to the book review about Mecca. Standing Alone in Mecca is the story of author’s (Nomani’s) hajj pilgrimage and an exploration of the historical rights of Muslim women. The book includes what Nomani calls the “Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques” and the “Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Bedroom.” Along with her book, Nomani also launched the Muslim Women’s Freedom Tour, a series of women-led Muslim prayer services and non-separation of men/and women at friday and other prayer services; in cities across the U.S.
Throughout the book, Nomani is filled with self-doubt, pity and healthy frustration with her Islamic faith. The portions describing hajj, particularly the other pilgrims’ warmth towards her infant son, are original and enjoyable. The second half of the book, which I found to be a lot lot more enjoyable than the first half, records Nomani’s pioneering struggle at her mosque in Morgantown, WV for equal treatment of women, and elimination of separate but equal treatment for women.
Daring to enter the men’s door at the mosque, Nomani is repeatedly ostracized, and her father — a founder of the mosque — vilified by his counterparts. Nomani decries the Wahhabi takeover of American mosques and demands reform — a call that will resonate with the average American Muslim. The stories of her preteen niece and nephew introduce readers to a new generation of Muslims who are American and equality-minded. Through memorable personal narrative, Nomani gently instructs readers about modern Islam and her role as a woman within it.
Although written mainly for an American Muslim audience, Nomani’s book tells an absorbing story for other readers as well whose knowledge of Islam may be limited, and I include myself in that group, by whatever happens to be the day’s news. Nomani, best described as a reformer within the American Muslim community, accomplishes two things: describing in detail the compelling experience of hajj, a pilgrimage with her family to Mecca in post-9/11 Saudi Arabia; and opening the doors of the mosques to reveal the fiercely intense political struggles that were being waged there between hard-line conservatives and moderates.
The polarizing issue (and its magnitude may surprise some of us in the west) is the role of women in the mosque, where the near absolute dominance of men prevents women from worshiping as equals before the Creator. Simply insisting on the right to enter by the front door of her family’s mosque in Morgantown, WV causes an uproar, and her Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques has the impact of Luther’s 95 Theses in shaking the foundations of rigidly held Islamic dogma.
Meanwhile gender intolerance, as she notes, is accompanied by the anti-Western, anti-democratic politicizing of Islam that is being advocated within the walls of many mosques in America. Her’s is a disturbing account of a religious community under siege. Nomani is not a scholar but a journalist (WSJ I believe), and her book is more the story of a personal journey than a reasoned argument in support of toleration, compassion, and equality, which she holds as the core values of Islam now betrayed by religious extremists.
Along the way, she struggles with doubts and uncertainties, confronts obstacles, and over a period of time overcomes barriers both within and without to assume leadership as an advocate for Muslim women’s rights. It’s easy to find fault with some aspects of her book. While her story is fascinating and worth reading by anyone wanting to understand more deeply the political and cultural complexities of Islam both in the rest of the world and here in the U.S., it’s probably not the only author a person should read.
BTW, my saudi friend who loaned me these books to review for this blog, has told me that Ms. Nomani is her role model that she looks upto. My friend followed the map/model laid out by Ms. Nomani in her book. She formed a group of couple of dozens of muslim women (and their husbands) here in Maui towards de-segregation of the islamic center here, so that men and women can pray side by side without any veils or barriers in between. My friend was successful here in Maui just as Ms. Nomani was in Morgantown!
FWIW, if you decide to check her book out at the library to read, my advice will be to skip the first part of the book about hajj entirely …. trust me, it’s really boring and damn technical. My suggestion will be to plunge right away into the second half of the book where she describes her battles for sitting in front of the bus (mosques) ala Rosa Parks; which you will enjoy immensely.
Here is a wonderful video which is a great accompaniment to Nomani’s book:
http://www.nfb.ca/film/me_and_mosque/
Peace and Blessings!
Louise
We’ve all heard about the Death of the West. But the Muslim world is on the brink of an even greater collapse. So says the author of the book that I recently finished reading:
How Civilizations Die: And Why Islam Is Dying Too by David Goldman
WILL WE GO DOWN IN THE IMPLOSION? Thanks to collapsing birthrates, much of Europe is on a path of willed self-extinction. The untold story is that birthrates in Muslim nations are declining faster than anywhere else — at a rate never before documented. Europe, even in its decline, may have the resources to support an aging population, if at a terrible economic and cultural cost. But in the impoverished Islamic world, an aging population means a civilization on the brink of total collapse — something Islamist terrorists know and fear.
Muslim decline poses new threats to America, challenges we cannot even understand, much less face effectively, without a wholly new kind of political analysis that explains how desperate peoples and nations behave. In How Civilizations Die, David P. Goldman — author of the celebrated “Spengler” column (“Spengler” is nom de plume) read by intelligence organizations worldwide — reveals how, almost unnoticed, massive shifts in global power are remaking our future.
David Goldman has written an essential book for understanding what lies in the future for America and the world. In How Civilizations Die, the author offers six significant paradigm shifts:
1. How extinctions of peoples, cultures, and civilizations are not unthinkable — but certain;
2. How for the first time in world history, the birthrate in the West has fallen below replacement levels;
3. Why birthrates in the Muslim world are falling even faster;
4. Why the “Arab Spring” is the precursor of much more violent change in the Islamic world;
5. Why looming demographic collapse may encourage Islamist terrorists to “go for broke”;
6. How the United States can survive the coming world turmoil.
It’s an interesting analysis of the demographic collapse of the Islamic world that’s being pretty much ignored in the West. It also includes Goldman’s theories as to why Christianity in America has proven so much more resilient that it has in Europe. The book is organized quite well, and very easy to read. But if you don’t agree with Goldman’s political opinions going in, this book probably won’t change your mind.
Do I believe the authors theory that civilizations die because people stop having children? No, he argues that a sense of despair about your culture or religion results in families no longer making the commitment to raise children and the presence of an inverted pyramid in which population distribution leads to the collapse of civilization. Hard to swallow. Worth the read to at least challenge our own conceptions of how the world works and what the future holds.
I figured this was just another ‘we are doomed’ book and the first third focuses on demographic trends, etc that are standard to the genre. But it’s not just “now” that he is talking about. He goes back to ancient Greece and Rome and ties the story of their demise to our projected problems. He brings in religion and how it influences our decisions, pointing to the initial conversion of Europeans as a root cause of issues we still deal with today. He points to elements in Islam that appear to be different causes for the same results.
Fascinating!
Here are couple of links for a preview of the book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/159698273X/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
isbnlib.com/preview/159698273X/How-Civilizations-Die-And-Why-Islam-Is-Dying-Too
@Abe – this sounds like it would be an intriguing read. I’ve got to see about getting this book.
XM,
You may or may not have seen the following news item. Since you recently did a book review of Irshad Manji’s book, ‘Allah, Liberty and Love’, thought you might be interested in this news flash: Malaysia arrests bookstore manager for selling Irshad Manji’s latest book.
No doubt much of the world has forgotten, let alone taken note, of the Malaysian government’s decision to ban Irshad Manji’s latest book ‘Allah, Liberty and Love’. Rest assured that Malaysia’s ruling Muslims have not. In a move surely designed to keep bookstores safe for Believers and to keep unauthorized thoughts from entering their vulnerable minds, Malaysian religious police have arrested a bookstore manager for daring to have (or perhaps inadvertently having) Manji’s haram tome on the premises
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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/6/19/nation/20120619130829&sec=nation
RC, hey, thx for sharing the article, “malaysia arrests bookstore manager for selling irshad manji’s latest book”. somehow and i don’t know why I missed it! i read an equally dreadful article today, “Malaysian government views lgbt community as a ‘spreading problem’ to be stopped”.
and why? because lesbians/gays/bisexuals/transsexuals (lgbt’s) are considered to be against Islam, and hence must be removed from society by the government. the stop of the ‘spread’ of lgbt’s is to be done via such coercive measure such as the islamic religious police and the enforcement of sharia laws that are already on the books. i’ll tell ya malaysia is becoming another saudi arabia with each passing day. it didn’t use to be that way.
western gay rights organizations will of course take no heed or notice of the explicitly islamic character of the oppression of the lgbt community in malaysia. It seems that as far as these groups go, along with at least one western government is concerned, the only religion that really oppresses homosexuals is christianity. malaysia and all the other muslim countries don’t realize that lgbt is not a disease but a lifestyle choice. Also HIV is not merely confined to homosexuals
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RC, below is the link to The Malaysian Insider, 19 June 2012:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/litee/malaysia/article/putrajaya-reining-in-lgbt-spread-says-deputy-minister/
Why the West is Best:
A Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy
By Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq, a former muslim, gives a cogent, detailed and persuasive analysis of why western civilization is the crowning achievement of humanity, and how it is threatened by encroachment from without and self-doubt from within. Mr. Warraq is an apostate from Islam and made a daring escape from Pakistan to avoid being beheaded, which he briefly describes in his book.
Ibn Warraq pulls no punches nor uses PC-lingo, laying out where he stands right there in the prologue:
“The West does not need lectures on the superior virtue of societies where women are kept in subjection, endure genital mutilation, are married off against their will at the age of nine, have acid thrown in their faces or are stoned to death for alleged adultery, or where human rights are denied to those regarded as belonging to lower castes. The West does not need sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems for their populations, that cannot educate their citizens but leave 40 to 50 percent of them illiterate, that make no provision for the handicapped, that have no sense of the common good or civic responsibility, that are riddled with corruption”.
“… Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said there are no jokes in Islam. The West is able to look at its own foibles and laugh, even make fun of its own fundamental principles. There is no Islamic equivalent to Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Can we look forward to The Life of Mo anytime in the future?”
His book is chock full of excellent arguments against western self-defeatism and self-abasement. I agree with him that “we are far from perfect, but we children of The Enlightenment represent the best that humanity has to offer”. And yes, it’s time we started vociferously saying so. Warraq, an immigrant to the west, does mankind a great service in his book.
A strong critique of current intellectual trends that say, for example, that the west is fatally tainted by imperialism, colonialism, racism, the history of the slave trade etc. Ibn Warraq doesn’t deny these things happened, but shows that islamic imperialism and arab slave traders were far worse. He gives an example where the Arabs traded in slaves for over a thousand years and systematically castrated their African male captives.
The question of why the west is superior in wealth, technology, political and religious freedoms is complicated to say the least, but Ibn Warraq makes a strong case for showing that it is in the dna of our western culture, with its roots in ancient Greece and in Christianity, which accounts for the West’s superiority in so many fields. Current trends towards multiculturalism (replacing the earlier “melting-pot” approach to absorbing immigrants) is undermining the West and creating problems for the future.
Whether one agrees with Warraq or not, his book is extremely thought provoking and is a good easy read. Although a few of his other books that I have read are hard reads (can force one to take repeated siestas), this one particular book is an easy read. Admittedly, though, there were quite a number of high class “words” and “phrases” that I had to look up in the dictionary/thesaurus.
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Here is a brief preview of the book:
Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy
My most favorite writer is another ex-muslim friend of mine, Dr. Ali Sina….
Ali Sina in truth – http://www.examinethetruth.com/ali_sina_on_the_run.htm
http://examinethetruth.com/Ali_Sina_Gone_Wild.htm
“Dr.” Ali Sina http://muslim-responses.com/Ali_Sina_exposed_/Ali_Sina_exposed_
This “Dr” said “As long as Muslims are Muslims they do not deserve to be treated in accordance to the Universal Declaration of Human Right”
Wow!