Qunfuz

I’ve just finished writing a book. It should be in the shops in June. The result of no longer writing a book is that I have more time for reading, and I’m making good use of it. I’ve read some Syria-related books, like the astounding Defiance by Loubna Mrie. I’ve read plenty of wonderful novels – by Isabella Hammad, Yasmin Zaher, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Flannery O Connor. And yesterday, in one swoop, I read Muslim Women and Misogyny by my former colleague Samia Rahman.

I read it so fast because it’s so very readable. Samia’s approach is nuanced, humble, and illuminating. She writes under the influences of amina wadud, Leila Ahmed and Fatima Mernissi, and also uses interviews and conversations with Muslim thinkers, scholars and writers who cross the spectrum from conservative to progressive. Perhaps the best parts, however, are anecdotes from her own life, and from the lives of her friends.

It’s a very up-to-date study covering such contemporary issues as misogynistic social media abuse, the pitfalls of white feminism, anti-Black racism in Muslim communities, and the appeal of ‘manosphere’ icons like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate to some Muslim men – at least until Peterson made his Islamophobia less ambiguous, and Tate joined in the anti-immigrant hysteria.

Throughout the book, Samia refers to the dominant and suppressed traditions of Islamic history, as well as to a range of contemporary Muslim cultures, including the Somali, the Bengali, the Pakistani, and perhaps most of all the British. The reader meets several memorable British Muslim women here, like Syima Aslam and Irna Qureshi, founders of the Bradford Literature Festival, and the managers of Rumi’s Cave, a community hub and arts venue in northwest London.

Samia’s approach is fluent, engaging and intelligent. If you want to read a book on this vexed topic, I suggest you start with this one.