At my father’s deathbed, I knew that his values and mine would never be reconciled. He could never understand my unbelief. He prayed for me until his last breath. And I could never re-adopt his belief in Allah, in prophets, in holy books, angels, and the hereafter. But our unconditional love for one another, the love between a parent and a child, was so much more powerful than that belief. And the proof was the way we clutched each other’s hands at the end. That earthly love is my faith. It is the love I shall always give you.
The AHA Foundation
The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation was set up in 2008 as a charitable organization to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West, especially in the United States, against militant Islam and harmful tribal customs. Its aim is to investigate, inform, and influence against several types of crimes against women including the denial of education for girls, genital mutilation, forced marriage, honor violence, and restrictions on girls’ freedom of movement.
The AHA Foundation seeks to raise awareness in America that some of these violent practices against women are increasingly carried out in the United States. The foundation also exists to provide girls and women in distress with information and assistance, by creating a database of people and institutions qualified to deal with cases of maltreatment and abuse.
www.theahafoundation.org
About the Author
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia, raised a Muslim, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in Africa and Saudi Arabia. In 1992 she went to the Netherlands as a refugee, escaping a forced marriage to a distant cousin she had never met. She learned Dutch and worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women. After earning her college degree in political science, she worked for the Labor Party. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks and became a member of the Dutch Parliament, fighting for the rights of Muslim women in Europe, the enlightenment of Islam, and security in the West. She went on to work for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. She established the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation (www.theahafoundation.org), which aims to combat several types of crimes against women, including female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and honor violence, through education, outreach, and the dissemination of knowledge.
Her book Infidel has been a #1 bestseller in Europe, and she continues to receive honors from around the world. She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2005, one of the Glamour Heroes of 2005, and was Reader’s Digest’s European of the Year. She has also received Norway’s Human Rights Service’s Bellwether of the Year Award, the Danish Freedom Prize, the Swedish Democracy Prize, the Moral Courage Award for commitment to conflict resolution, ethics, and world citizenship, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Unsung Heroes Award.
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA
Copyright © 2010 Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, 1969–
Nomad / Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
eISBN: 978-0-307-39852-9
1. Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, 1969–. 2. Women in Islam. 3. Muslim women—Civil rights. 4. Women’s rights. 5. Women social reformers—Biography. 6. Feminists—Biography. 7. Authors, Dutch—21st century—Biography. 8. Political activists—Netherlands—Biography. I. Title.
HQ1657.5.A45A3 2010 305.42092 C2009-905009-9
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