Book review: 'A Caged Virgin'

The first of these is that a Muslim's relationship with God is based on fear. In this respect, her lack of exposure to key sections of Islamic theology becomes glaringly obvious. Even Western readers are familiar with the works of orthodox Sufi jurists (such as Rumi), who emphasised God's love and mercy and are widely read across the Islamic world.

Ali provides only limited Koranic references for her paradigm and her references to Muslim scholarship are limited to name-dropping. She ignores the influential role of Sufism in Sunni and Shia Islam. And while she makes reference to Somali, Turkish and Arab cultures (of which she claims first-hand knowledge), she makes no reference to religious cultures of a former Dutch colony that is now the largest Muslim country.

Hundreds of Indonesians study in Dutch universities. Indonesian and other sources of classical Islam are freely available in universities such as Leiden, also home to the respected International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World. The Netherlands has no shortage of scholarly material on Islamic cultures and theology, almost none of which is reflected in this book.

Ali now resides in the US. Given her expressed views on abortion, one wonders how long she will last in a conservative environment where even anti neo-cons such as Pat Buchanan regard abortion as a defining issue. Perhaps her next book will be entitled The Caged Republican.