Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Clarion Call for Islamic Reformation

Encouraging Critical Examination for a Path to Modernity

In an important article in the Wall Street Journal, “Why Islam Needs a Reformation,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls for a kind of reformation that actually can happen.

Although in some parts of her article Ali speaks of reforming “Islam itself”—a goal made impossible by the fact that Islamic scripture is historically set—her overarching aim is to persuade certain…