Left Wanting
Today on Tablet
February 02, 2012
Today in Tablet Magazine, British historian Andrew Roberts reviews Deborah Scroggins’ joint biography of Pakistani-born convicted Islamist terrorist Aafia Siddiqui and Somali-born Muslim women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, finding Scroggins’ parallels between the two women deeply unsettling and her research lacking.
Roberts writes,
The author’s obvious personal aversion to Hirsi Ali makes it seem that of the two women she is profiling, Scroggins is keener to explain away the actions of the terrorist rather than the target of terrorism. Hirsi Ali, readers will recall, is a human-rights activist who fights against forced female genital mutilation, decries so-called honor killings, and highlights the way the Quran justifies the mistreatment of women. Siddiqui is a viciously anti-Semitic terrorist serving 86 years in prison for attempted murder.
From the editors of Tablet Magazine.
