The caged virgin : an emancipation proclamation for women and Islam / Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Includes bibiliographical references and index

Breaking through the Islamic curtain -- Stand up for your rights!: women in Islam -- Why can't we take a critical look at ourselves? -- The virgins' cage -- Let us have a Voltaire -- What went wrong?: a modern clash of cultures -- A brief personal history of my emancipation -- Being a politician is not my ideal -- Bin Laden's nightmare: interview with Irshad Manji -- Freedom required constant vigilance -- Four women's lives -- How to deal with domestic violence more effectively -- Genital mutilation must not be tolerated -- Ten tips for Muslim women who want to leave -- Submission: part I -- The need for self-reflection within Islam -- Portrait of a heroine as a young woman -- A call for clear thinking.

Muslims who explore sources of morality other than Islam are threatened with death, and Muslim women who escape the virgins' cage are branded whores. So asserts Hirsi Ali's meditation on Islam and the role of women, the rights of the individual, the roots of fanaticism, and Western policies toward Islamic countries and immigrant communities. This controversial book is a call to arms for the emancipation of women from religious and cultural oppression and from an outdated cult of virginity. It is a defiant call for clear thinking and for an Islamic Enlightenment. But it is also the courageous story of how Hirsi Ali herself fought back against everyone who tried to force her to submit to a traditional Muslim woman's life and how she became a voice of reform. She relates her experiences as a Muslim woman so that oppressed Muslim women can take heart and seek their own liberation.