Her outspoken critique of the mistreatment, subjugation, and genital mutilation of Muslim women; the Dutch government's ignoring calls to violence by extremist Dutch Muslim clerics; and the unrestricted migration of Muslims into Europe have landed her death threats from radical Islamists. Since 2002, two bodyguards have been at her side at all times. While nearly all Dutch Muslims regard her as an Uncle Tom, her supporters hold her up as an icon of civil courage and a champion of free speech—unafraid to point out that Muslim culture and Islam's blind adherence to the Koran makes it incompatible with western ideas of democracy and freedom. Neither is she kind to "left wing secular liberals" of the enlightened West whom she says, "have the strange habit of blaming themselves for the ills of the world, while seeing the rest of the world as victims."

She dares to chastise the West and its silencing lockstep of political correctness that emphasizes the need for multiculturalism and religious tolerance yet turns a blind eye to the "the repressive and degrading treatment of Muslim women and girls" who live "like slaves" and are subjected to genital mutilation, disownment, and honor killings—not only in Muslim countries but also in Europe and the US.

Listed as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2005, Glamour's Hero of the Month, and Reader's Digest's European of the Year, a Dutch Imam insists she should not be taken seriously simply because she was born in an Islamic country: "It is the same thing as asking a Swiss to repair your Swatch: not all Swiss are expert Swatch repairers."

Some would beg to differ.

Born in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1969, Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up as a refugee in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Saudia Arabia. In the recently published English translation of her book, The Caged Virgin, Hirsi Ali explains, "Islam dominated the lives of our family down to the smallest detail. It was our ideology, political conviction, moral standard, law, and identity. We were first and foremost Muslim and only then Somali. Muslims are chosen by God, and unbelievers are impure, barbaric, uncircumcised, immoral, have no respect for women, their girls and women are whores, many of their men are homosexual, and their men and women have sex without being married." Circumcised secretly behind her father's back by her grandmother, Hirsi Ali later, at age sixteen, became enthralled with a charismatic Islamic teacher. Imitating her in piety, she willingly donned black coverings, began to sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood, and desired to become a martyr to bring her "closer to God."

Then she got a boyfriend ("a forbidden thing"). There was kissing ("worse than forbidden").  Although the boyfriend was very religious and extolled the strict Koran-based beliefs of male-female relationships, in actual life, he "did not obey the rules," says Hirsi Ali. "The more religious I became, the more I found myself lying and deceiving. That seemed wrong."

Strong doubts about Islam sprouted and were strengthened by exile in refugee camps where Hirsi Ali witnessed the plight of Muslim women raped during Somalia's civil war. Abandoned or left for dead, these women bore a stigma too great to bear by a patriarchal authoritarian hierarchy that viewed the needs of the tribe or group as primary over those of the individual, and most important the protection of the group's honor at all costs. Protection of the virginity of Muslim women is an obsession of the group, Hirsi Ali explains, and its premarital loss—whether by rape or consensual sex—damages the image of the group and is viewed as the woman's fault. "The value attached to a woman's virginity is so great it eclipses the human catastrophes and social costs that result from it." Punishments against women's sexuality—consensual or forced—range from name-calling, expulsion, and confinement to marriage to the man who did the deed or to some "generous man" willing to salvage the family's honor. In extreme cases, the girls are murdered—some by family members. The UN reports that 5,000 girls are murdered each year in Islamic countries, including Jordan, by way of these "honor killings."