Infidel Reflection #4 (Chp. 12–14)

In the fourth section of Infidel, Ali had settled into her life and work in Europe. However, one day she got a call from her sister, Haweya, who said she was in Europe; she “asked Haweya if this was just a visit, or more, and she said ‘More’” (pg. 226). Ali invited her sister to live with her, but when she heard that her sister had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and had an abortion, their situation took a turn for the worse. Haweya suffered from severe depression and psychotic episodes, and Ali was having trouble trying to incorporate her into Dutch society. Ali said that she “couldn’t stand the way [Haweya] was living, lying on the sofa all day like some vacant life form” (pg. 233). This was a large issue for her to handle, along with her job as an interpreter, her pursuit of a degree in political science, and her social life. Additionally, Haweya did not seem to believe that she had a mental illness, despite having to be taken to a psychiatric ward — she blamed her psychotic episodes on living in Holland (pg. 253). This had a severely negative affect on Ali — she wrote, “my sister was disintegrating right in front of me, and all I could do was watch. I felt helpless, and guilty” (pg. 254). Eventually, Haweya moved back to Kenya with her mother, and things seemed to be going fine, until Ali received what she called “the worst news of my life” (pg. 257) — Haweya had died.

In her grief over Haweya’s death, Ali turned back to Islam, something she had struggled with believing for a while. Many of her beliefs and feelings conflicted with Islamic law, but despite having “all sorts of un-Muslim ideas…[she wrote] I did still think of myself as being, in some larger, more important way, a believer” (pg. 263). Ali’s main struggle with Islam is the sexism and inequality that it preaches, and the expectation that one should put all of their faith in Allah instead of taking matters into their own hands. She had worked hard for years to get a master’s degree in political science, defying the odds to “make myself a place in Holland with my own hands and legs and brain” (pg. 263). This conflicted with Islam — Ali wrote “every Islamic value I had been taught instructed me to put myself last…but Johanna, Ellen, and everyone else in Holland seemed to think that it was natural to seek one’s own personal happiness on earth, in the here and now” (pg. 219). After the 9/11 attacks, Ali began questioning her religion even more. She was caught between her Muslim people, whom she knew supported the attacks, and opposing those terrorist acts. She knew that Islam was not the pure, peaceful religion it seemed. “Most people think that Islam is about peace. It is from these people, honest and kind, that the fallacy has arisen that Islam is peaceful and tolerant. But I could no longer avoid seeing the totalitarianism, the pure moral framework that is Islam. It regulates every detail of life and subjugates free will” (pg. 272). After studying the reasons behind why Muslims integrated into Dutch life so poorly compared to other refugees and reading a book called The Atheist Manifesto, Ali realized that “I already knew my answer. I had left God behind years ago. I was an atheist…and I felt relief” (pg. 281).

Many of the conflicts that Ali experienced in this section of the book were due to the differences between the culture in Holland and the culture in which she had been raised. The obvious divide between the skin-baring, dating European women and the judgmental, withdrawn Muslim women was one that Ali was consistently caught between. She felt a greater sense of freedom in cutting her hair short and not wearing as much clothing as other Muslim women (pg. 230) , and broke free of the social roles of Muslim women to become her own person: an infidel.