From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Published May 2010
304 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
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.
"Many personal stories are repeated from her earlier accounts, but here Ali adds the story of her immigration to the U.S ... she has become tiresomely repetitive... the book ultimately reads like a callow exercise in expressing the author's own sense of aggrievement." - Publishers Weekly
"In this achingly honest, human, and heartfelt account of her family and personal history, Ayaan Hirsi Ali offers a cornucopia of riveting, eye-opening insights into the harsh realities of Muslim domestic life and the destructive impact of Islamic dogma on individual freedom and dignity. Everyone who cares about the Enlightenment values that so many of us take for granted in the West will want to read this deeply moving, beautifully written book. In an age of empty celebrity, Hirsi Ali is a truly great woman, and in Nomad she has written an instant classic." - Bruce Bawer, author of While Europe Slept and Surrender
"In this brilliant sequel to her seminal Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali warns the West of the dangers of the failure to integrate the Muslim populations in our midst. Nomad is a 'must read'!"
- Winston Spencer-Churchill
"A controversial book accessible to the general public, unlikely to change any minds." - Library Journal
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