The Caged Virgin
I finished reading Hirsi Ali’s book, The Caged Virgin, it was fascinating, if disturbing at times.
Hirsi Ali points to three major problems with Islam that prevent it from modernizing and result in numerous abuses, particularly against women, all over the world.
The first is the concept that Mohammad was perfect, the Koran and the hadiths are perfect, complete and unchangeable. This is in some ways the central problem, reform in Islam is ‘impossible’ if Islam as it is currently understood is perfect. Of course there are similarities to this belief and fundamentalist Christian beliefs in the Bible, but the trend seems to be stronger in the Islamic world, both in degree and in the percentage of believers who feel this way.
The second problem Hirsi Ali points to is an over focus on virginity. Why I don’t disagree with her necessarily, I am not certain that this is a ‘core’ problem. I think that the real issue is the third problem she explores and how it combines with this one.
The third problem is collective responsibility and collective guilt. A person who sins reflects badly not just on themselves, but on their family, their clan, their nation and all Muslims. This is a lot of why honor killings happen, if a woman has sex, it isn’t just her sin, it is the sin of all the males in the family as well, and only killing her will purge this sin. Similar issues arise with anyone who attempts to criticise Islam, as the blasphemy is not just the fault of the individual, but of the larger group as well. This group responsibility and group morality effectively locks things up and results in rather horrible consequences. Another dimension of this that Hirsi Ali poinst to is it makes it difficult for Muslims to route out problems. She talks about how Mohammad Atta’s father refused to acknowledge his part in 9/11 and explains that even though fathe Atta is a fairly moderate person, he is psychologically unable to accept, or explore his sons guilt because that would make him, and his entire family and even all Muslims guilty of this crime. Lying, Hirsi Ali claims, is constant is a Muslim household as an effect of this collective guilt.
One of the darkest aspects of this effect that Hirsi Ali talks about is incest, child abuse and rape. Family members will refuse to even talk about such things because if an uncle is abusing his neice it reflects on the entire family. The young girl who brings up such a thing is ‘dishonoring her uncle and the entire family.’ It seems that with this collective guilt, many people would rather ignore any problems and pretend that they don’t exist than admit them. And of course, if the girl gets pregnant she is a ‘whore’ and must be killed.
I don’t believe that Christianity has ever embraces this notion of collective guilt (excepting perhaps original sin.) That might account for why Christendom was able to successfully reform while Islam has stagnated.
Some have claimed that Hirsi Ali is exagerating these problems. I of course can’t address that claim directly. She does seem though to have plenty of evidence from women’s shelters in Holland as well as her own personal expiriences.
Hirsi Ali also explores how this subjugation of women damages Muslim men and results in anger and the violence that seems to prevalent in the Muslim world. In addition, she rails against the failure of Western Governments, particularly the Netherlands, to address these issues within their own borders out of a misplaces respect for religious practices. Certainly I have to agree that no religious practice justifies murder, rape, or the other horrors Hirsi Ali describes.
The book was certainly informative, and well written even if it was difficult to read at times, not due to the writing style but the rather horrible situations it described. Certainly I would recommend it to anyone.
