Nonie Darwish, daughter of an Egyptian intelligence officer charged with carrying out Nasser's vows to destroy Israel, saw life in Egypt from the Muslim perspective. But she never quite accepted it -- not even after her father became a "shahid," or Muslim martyr, when he was assassinated by Israel. Now a Christian, she has explained her skepticism in "Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror," (Sentinel, 2006).
Her answer is must reading.
So is the cautionary tale Brigitte Gabriel tells in "Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Jihad Warns America," (St. Martin's Press, 2006). Ms. Gabriel, a Maronite Christian, was 10 years old when civil war broke out in 1975 in Lebanon -- a war she explains as an Islamic jihad against Lebanon's ancient Christian community. She spent the next seven years living in a bomb shelter subject to frequent shelling. After her mother was wounded and ministered to in an Israeli hospital, Ms. Gabriel saw Jews in a light her government's propaganda had shut out. Another eye-opener.
Then there is Wafa Sultan, the Syrian-born psychiatrist and self-described "secularist" who became renowned last year in an Al Jazeera debate on the "clash of civilizations." ("It is a clash between civilization and backwardness ... between human rights on the one hand, and the violation of these rights on the other," she said, among many other things.) She hasn't written a book yet, but everyone should read her transcript online at the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Finally, there is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Mogadishu-born, former Dutch parliamentarian who is probably the only ex-Muslim critic of Islam to be profiled in Vogue. ("Ali seems like a calm, reasonable woman in an Escada jacket, not at all like the kind of person who would call Muhammad a pervert or a tyrant.") With her autobiography, "Infidel," just out, Ms. Ali continues, calmly and reasonably, to press home politically incorrect points including the notion that rather than hijacking his religion, Osama bin Laden is following it.
Pedestals may be out, but these ladies deserve more than a box of candy. They deserve a podium.