Well...in all fairness, I would consider her a reformer. She may not be bringing the kind of reformation I'd personally want to get behind, but a reformer nonetheless.
If for no other reason that she's been very successful in terms of getting her message out there. Her books did very well, she was interviewed about the need for reforming Islam (and held herself very well for that interview IIRC) on The Daily Show, which is, frankly, a perfect way to start getting the message across to some of the Western liberal left that there are issues in Islam as it is practiced today, and you don't have to be a right-wing nutjob to agree.
Unfortunately, she can come off as the above, regardless. And she got picked up by the above, regardless. I want to distance myself from her and a lot of the things I know of that she's said in the past, and I'd recommend anyone who is hoping for a more productive and fair style of reformation do the same, but I'd not refuse to call her a reformer, for better or worse.
In everything I've seen of hers, she seems more interested in throwing Muslims under the bus to make a quick buck and get ahead than she is in actually changing Islam to be more compassionate and treat people better. Add to that that most of her stories about her life as a Muslim are lies, and you get a person doing the opposite of what I described in my comment. Not a person who is interested in helping people out, not a person who is interested in reforming the religion to be more caring, not a person who is interested in making people's lives better, not a person who is interested in helping people in Muslim countries.
This article explains why:
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
The Change.org petition that cost Ali her honorary degree acknowledges the legitimacy of her grievances with Islam, but condemns the “hate speech” through which she expresses them. The petition quotes her as saying:
Violence is inherent in Islam – it’s a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder … the battle against terrorism will ultimately be lost unless we realize that it’s not just with extremist elements within Islam, but the ideology of Islam itself …
Ali told Reason magazine in 2007, “There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.”
Ali asks the U.S. government to declare war on the Muslim faith. Her “provocative” ideas aren’t less legitimate because they come from the right. They’re less legitimate because they assert that every “true” follower of Islam subscribes to an ideology of terror.
Ali argues that because some of the Quran’s rhetoric legitimates violence, everything associated with the book is poisoned. It seems only fair then, that the students of Brandeis applied the same logic to Ali herself. Because when neoconservatives and Iraq War cheerleaders rise to defend her, they aren’t defending freedom of expression, or the prerogative to call a violent ideology what it is. They are defending the sanctity of their own jihad.
That's not reforming Islam. That's attempting to wipe it out.
Topic: Looking for some resources for new vid - LYING DAWAHMEN