Born in Somalia and raised Muslim, but outraged by her religion's hostility toward women, Hirsi Ali escaped an arranged marriage to a distant relative and fled to the Netherlands. There, she learned Dutch, worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women, earned a college degree, and started a career in politics as a Dutch parliamentarian. In November 2004, the violent murder on an Amsterdam street of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom Hirsi Ali had written a film about women and Islam called Submission, changed her life. Threatened by the same group that slew van Gogh, Hirsi Ali now has round-the-clock protection, but has not allowed these circumstances to compromise her fierce criticism of the treatment of Muslim women, of Islamic governments' attempts to silence any questioning of their traditions, and of Western governments' blind tolerance of practices such as genital mutilation and forced marriages of female minors occurring in their countries.

Hirsi Ali relates her experiences as a Muslim woman so that oppressed Muslim women can take heart and seek their own liberation. Drawing on her love of reason and the Enlightenment philosophers on whose principles democracy was founded, she presents her firsthand knowledge of the Islamic worldview and advises Westerners how best to address the great divide that currently exists between the West and Islamic nations and between Muslim immigrants and their adopted countries.

An international bestseller — with updated information for American readers and two new essays added for this edition — The Caged Virgin is a compelling, courageous, eye-opening work.

Contents

Preface: Breaking Through the Islamic Curtain

1 Stand Up for Your Rights!: Women in Islam

2 Why Can't We Take a Critical Look at Ourselves?

3 The Virgins' Cage

4 Let Us Have a Voltaire

5 What Went Wrong?: A Modern Clash of Cultures

6 A Brief Personal History of My Emancipation

7 Being a Politician Is Not My Ideal

8 Bin Laden's Nightmare: Interview with Irshad Manji

9 Freedom Requires Constant Vigilance

10 Four Women's Lives

11 How to Deal with Domestic Violence More Effectively

12 Genital Mutilation Must Not Be Tolerated

13 Ten Tips for Muslim Women Who Want to Leave

14 Submission: Part I

15 The Need for Self-Reflection Within Islam

16 Portrait of a Heroine as a Young Woman

17 A Call for Clear Thinking

Notes

Index