Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Fourth Estate, 2010 - Democracy - 277 pages

′This woman is a major hero of our times′ RICHARD DAWKINS ′For me, the three most beautiful words in the emerging language of secular resistance to tyranny are Ayaan Hirsi Ali′ - Christopher Hitchens Ayaan Hirsi Ali caused a worldwide sensation with her gutsy memoir INFIDEL. Now, in NOMAD, she tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made against her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical and emotional journey to freedom - her transition from a tribal mindset that restricts women′s every thought and action to 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. Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after breaking 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. This is Hirsi Ali′s intellectual coming of age, a memoir that conveys her philosophy as well as her experiences, and delivers an urgent message and mission - to inform the West of the extent of the threat from radical Islam, both from outside and from within our open societies. 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 experienced and to resist the fatal allure of fundamentalism and terrorism.

About the author

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and raised a Muslim. She grew up in Africa and Saudi Arabia before seeking asylum in 1992 in the Netherlands, where she went from cleaning factories to winning a seat in the Dutch Parliament. She is a speaker, journalist, and founder of the AHA Foundation. She has written several books including Infidel, Nomad, The Caged Virgin, and Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
• Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2010
• ISBN: 0732289777, 9780732289775
• Length: 277 pages