An unbelievable smear job at Newsweek on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s excellent new book Infidel: The Controversial Memoir of a Muslim Woman.

But Hirsi Ali’s memoir is as much about her political agenda as it is her life, andin between tales of her youth she wedges harsh and uncompromising declarations: “True Islam,” she writes at one point, “leads to cruelty.” If her coming-of-age story—and the saga of her nomadic family, who moved from prewar Somalia to Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia and finally Kenya—were allowed to breathe on its own, “Infidel” would prove an eye-opening look into the plight of African Muslim women. But throughout the book, you can’t help but feel manipulated, rather than moved. In describing the 9/11 hijackers, she comes up with an inflammatory conclusion tailor-made for her right-wing constituency: “It was not a lunatic fringe who felt this way about America and the West. I knew that a vast majority of Muslims would see the attacks as justified retaliation against the infidel enemies of Islam.”

And Hirsi Ali was right. Poll after poll shows overwhelming support in the Islamic world for Osama bin Laden and for terror attacks against America. To Newsweek, this simple fact is “inflammatory.”

But notice: Newsweek writer Lorraine Ali doesn’t say it’s false.

A Bombthrower’s Life [A ‘bombthrower?’ That accusation is outrageous, when you’re talking about a person who’s been targeted for death by the kind of people who literally throw bombs. —ed.]

Other Muslim women interested in reform aren’t exactly in step with Hirsi Ali. “I wish people had been nicer to her,” says Muslim author and feminist Asra Nomani. “But I don’t blame Islam. I blame really messed-up people who’ve used religion to justify their misogyny.” As staunchly patriarchal strains of Wahhabi Islam infiltrate Muslim cultures outside the gulf region, many modern female followers are wondering how to embrace their religion without succumbing to its more sexist demands. And they’re coming up with answers that don’t require them to abandon either their religion or their culture. In the Middle East and South Asia, a strong majority of Muslim women recently polled by Gallup believed they should have the right to work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government. Here in the United States, dozens of scholars like Ithaca College’s Asma Barlas, Harvard’s Leila Ahmed and Notre Dame’s Asma Afsaruddin have challenged widely accepted interpretations of the Qur’an. “They are Islam’s Martina Luthers,” jokes Nomani. “They are my heroes.”

Hirsi Ali is more a hero among Islamophobes than Islamic women. That’s problematic considering she describes herself in “Infidel” as a woman who “fights for the rights of Muslim women, the enlightenment of Islam and the security of the West.” How can you change the lives of your former sisters, and work toward reform, when you’ve forged a career upon renouncing the religion and insulting its followers?

An absolutely disgraceful, utterly distorted and deliberately misleading hit piece.

UPDATE at 2/27/07 6:44:01 pm:

Newsweek writer Lorraine Ali has been recognized by the Wahhabist propaganda site Islam Online, as an advocate for the radical Islamic agenda in the United States: Arab And Muslim Journalism Conference Ends In Chicago.

Lorraine Ali, music critic for Newsweek magazine, was awarded the National Arab Journalists Association’s Excellence in Journalism Award. Ali, who is of Iraqi descent, urged young people to get into the mainstream media and make their voices heard, saying that the American public is seeking out the truth, as can be seen by the recent popularity of The Holy Qur’an.

“It is up to us to give the American people another perspective,” she said.