Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brett Kavanaugh, and imperial feminism

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This article contains an extended criticism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA); in the present comment I shall only address the section of the article that is headed "Getting Islam wrong" and that discusses her book "Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation". Quotations from this book will be given in Swedish since I use the Swedish translation of the book, but I shall indicate their location so that they can be retrieved easily in the English original.

The section in question discusses the five proposal for reformation of Islam that Hirsi Ali specify towards the end of the book's introductory chapter, and which she discusses in detail in chapters 3 through 7. I shall consider them one by one.

1. "Prophet Muhammad's semi-divine status". The article writes "Prophet Muhammad is not considered semi-divine but repeatedly described in the Quran as 'only human'. Fine, but AHA refers to 'status' that Muhammad enjoys in the muslim world, and which is manifested by the harsh and sometimes violent reactions to critical or ironical remarks about him. She does not argue against the Quran, but only against the prevalent attitudes in major parts of the muslim world.

2. "The supremacy of life after death". The article writes: "Far from discounting the importance of earthly life, the Quran represents actions in this life as the basis for reward or punishment in the afterlife". But this is also what AHA writes, in particular in chapter 4. She describes how, as a child, she had learnt to direct her actions, her thoughts, and her creativity towards the afterlife, whereas the life on earth was just of temporary importance. This is the attitude that she reacts against.

3. "Shariah, the vast body of religious legislation [that has been derived from the Quran, the hadiths, and the islamic jurisprudence". The article writes: "Shariah is not a book of codified legislation, but rather 'a body of Quran-based guidance that points Muslims toward living an Islamic life'." Chapter 5 in the book contains numerous examples of how shariah rules are used as the basis for verdicts and punishment in shariah courts..]

4- "The right of individual Muslims to enforce Islamic law". The article does not comment on this point.

5. "The imperative to wage jihad, or holy war". The article writes: "Islamic theology does not recognize the idea of a sacred or consecrated war". Possibly so, but in chapter 7 of her book AHA gives several extensive examples of how the call for jihad have resulted in violent action.

In summary, it seems that the article discusses AHA's five points only using a twisted interpretation of their concise wordings, and without taking AHA's detailed discussion of each them into account. This is not a serious way of arguing, and it borders on being dishonest.