Ayaanhirsiali and Aafia Siddiqui are forceful, intelligent women who were born around 40 years ago in the heart of the conservative Islamic world, into families of some prominence. Later, they moved to America. Like tens of millions of others who made similar journeys, they had to negotiate the interface between an immigrant sub-culture that harked back to the homeland and a liberal society where very different options existed. Presented with two sharply contrasting value systems, two diametrically opposed ideas about the meaning of virtue, success and fulfilment, they had to make their choices. There, it would seem, the resemblance ends. Somali-born Ms Hirsi Ali is an admired public intellectual who denounced Islam as an oppressor of her sex and the source of many other woes. Ms Siddiqui is serving an 86-year prison sentence in Fort Worth, Texas, after being convicted of shooting at the American officers detaining her in Afghanistan. A Pakistani-born neuroscientist who excelled in her studies at leading American universities, she has been described as the only senior female member of al-Qaeda and "the most wanted woman in the world". Her alleged complicity in terrorist plots has not been tested in court (her trial had a narrower remit) but there is no doubting her jihadist zeal.
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