Yousra Imran's Blog

I’ve been meaning to read Selma Dabbagh’s novel Out of It for ages, and finally finished it last night, sad it was over. Dabbagh is a Palestinian British author and editor of anthology We Wrote in Symbols. Her writing is nothing short of beautiful and highly crafted, and always inspires me as a writer.

Out of It is set in Gaza in what appears to be the mid 2000’s, just before Hamas took over control. Against the backdrop of inner conflict between the PLO and an Islamist group, the members of the Mujahed family appear to live quite separate lives even though they’re in one household. Iman is a teacher who is frustrated at the lack of real social action by the Women’s Committee, Rashid is mostly high on marijuana, and Sabri’s life focus is writing a history of Palestine in the aftermath of losing his wife and baby son. By chance both Rashid and Iman find a way out of Gaza, but in their new countries they both soon come to realise that Gaza hasn’t left them. As the plot thickens so do family secrets reveal themselves.

One of the most striking things for me reading the book was how similar it reads to the current situation in Gaza - as Dabbagh writes about Israeli strikes and demolitions, the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza played out in my mind. Also very interesting (and frustrating!) was how the white English characters in the novel were obsessed with trying to get siblings Rashid and Iman to only talk about trauma and violence - it echoes many posts I’ve seen recently by Palestinians regarding the West’s fascination with trauma in the country. This is something Layla Al Ammar also explores in the context of Syria in her novel Silence is a Sense.

I have just finished reading anthology We Wrote in Symbols edited by Palestinian British author Selma Dabbagh (author of Out Of It) and published by Saqi Books - I had been savouring this anthology slowly.

We Wrote in Symbols is a collection of poems, excerpts and short stories on love and lust written by female Arab writers and poets from across the ages, as far back as the pre-Islamic period! The level of writing in this book was simply exquisite. What I really enjoyed - and what I saw as a common thread - was that throughout the ages the poets, writers and female characters in this book were assertive and really did not hold back - they enjoyed their sexuality and they knew what they wanted. In many of the pieces all inhibitions are lost. There’s some great exploration and representation of queer love as well.

My short story “Catch No Feelings” features in the anthology too, and is based on modern hook-up culture in the Gulf.

Jia Khan, a successful lawyer in London, finds herself sucked back into her father Akbar’s world of organised crime in Yorkshire after he is murdered. Not only does she find herself taking his place - a role traditionally saved for men - but she finds herself having to deal with new kids on the block, another organised crime organisation called The Brotherhood. Will she be able to get the Jirga, the male elders, to trust her, and will she be able to uphold her father’s legacy and restore justice to the streets?

It was gripping, and the pacing was perfect. Her Muslim faith and spirituality play an important role to Jia’s life, as well as her family’s, but the book isn’t focussed on her as a Muslim woman. I love that she is an incredibly complex woman, and fits no stereotypes, neither the West’s stereotypes nor is she a squeaky clean perfect Muslim woman either. One of the things I admired most about Jia is her ability to keep her cool in the face of men - there were points where if I’d been in her place I’d want to have answer them back and shut the men in the jirga down, but she was smart and knew exactly what to say and when to bite her tongue.

It’s clearly set in Bradford where I lived for 2 1/2 years, so it was nice recognising the areas Mir described in the book. Since reading The Khan every time I go to Bradford I find myself on the lookout for signs of organised crime! 😅😆

Excited to hear that The Khan has been optioned for a TV adaptation - and that there will be a sequel!

How gorgeous is this book cover? Thank you Unbounders for gifting me with this copy of Cut from the Same Cloth? : Muslim Women on Life in Britain, edited by Sabeena Akhtar. I remember one of its contributors, my friend Sofia Rehman @sofia_reading talking about it as far back as 2018 when I first met her, so it’s been 3 years of me waiting to read it! If you enjoyed It’s Not About the Burqa you’ll enjoy this anthology too.

Cut from the Same Cloth? contains a collection of essays written by British Muslim women from a variety of ethnicities, professions, and walks of life, writing on what matters to them. Essay subjects range from being Muslim and disabled, motherhood, the struggle of modesty in today’s world, Islamophobia, racism, and more. There are some very important essays in here from black Muslim women on the discrimination and racism faced by black Muslims within the community, and I’m really glad that they’re in this anthology.

I whizzed through the book and favourites included Ruqaiya Haris’ essay The Quest for Modesty in the Digital Age, Fatha Hassan’s So I Can Talk to Guys Now? and Sumaya Kassim’s Riot, Write, Rest. Then there was Sofia Rehman’s essay The Gift of Second Sight that really embodied everything I believe as a Muslim woman today. I love the word play in the title - a reminder that as Muslim women we are indeed linked by our faith, and some of us may wear the hijab, but it doesn’t mean we are one cookie cutter shaped Muslim woman - we can have different outlooks and views on life. I learned so much from this anthology; it got me thinking about my own writing and how I should not feel as a Muslim female writer that I need to only write about my hijab, or write to break any stereotypes, or answer daft questions.

Through my contribution to the anthology We Wrote in Symbols I was delighted to come across fellow author khuld khamis and discover her novel Haifa Fragments. I purchased a pre-loved copy as I was desperate to get my hands on one, but you can still purchase copies from her Australian publishers @spinifexpress.

Maisoon is a tradition-defying Palestinian Christian woman who lives in her own apartment in Haifa, and is on her way to becoming a successful jewellery designer. Her father Majid disapproves of her relationship with Muslim Ziyad, and Maisoon just can’t understand her father nor her lover s’ apathy for the atrocities happening to fellow Palestinians. As residents in Israel, they believe they should just get on with their lives while Maisoon is passionate about helping her people in whatever capacity she can. When she crosses paths and becomes close to Shahd, a young woman living in a refugee camp, Maisoon becomes even more involved in her people’s plight, causing tension with both Ziyad and her father. Trying to balance all these relationships, Maisoon finds that she needs to forge a life path that is true to herself. In a quest to better understand her father, Maisoon works hard to piece the fragments of his history together.

An exquisitely written novel, full of imagery that will give you a glimpse of Haifa and the surrounding areas that were once inhabited by Palestinian families until they were forcibly displaced. I thoroughly enjoyed Maisoon’s complicated but evolving relationship with her father. khamis did a wonderful job of highlighting the differences in everyday life for Palestinians living in Israel and those living in the refugee camps.

I read Being Amani, Annabelle Steele’s debut YA novel, in two sittings, after being in a reading slump for weeks!

Being Amani is a tender and moving novel in which female protagonist Amani is trying to find her own happiness after she and her mother leave her abusive father behind in London and move in with her grandad in Manchester. Just as she thinks life has settled down, people from her past make a reappearance and Amani’s friendships suffer as she struggles to confide in them about her worries. The novel explores mental health issues, domestic violence, and other issues faced by many young women today such as consent. The novel was easy to read and flowed beautifully.

Amani is instantly likeable and you will find yourself rooting for her the entire way.

I recently finished reading Nawal El Saadawi’s Zeina, published by Saqi. Zeina tells the story of literary critic Bodour El Damhiri, who is in a loveless marriage to writer Zakariah El Khartiti who married her for her family’s high status and wealth. Bodour harbours a secret - before she got married she was in love with a revolutionary and had his child out of wedlock. She abandons her baby girl who is then brought up by housekeeper Zeinat, and is named Zeina bint Zeinat. Zeina grows up to be a well-loved musician and entertainer. Bodour tries to reclaim her narrative by writing a novel based on her life. As Egypt’s streets are hit once more by revolution Bodour realises there are forces out to get Zeina - will she be able to warn her in time?

In Zeina El Saadawi highlights the darker realities in Egyptian society - rape and pedophillia being among them. She also demonstrates the hypocrisy of men who on the face of it are in “respectable” positions in society, but behind closed doors mistreat their wives, cheat and believe they have the right to have sex with any girl or woman they want. They have an obsession with sex, yet in their everyday lives are self-righteous and quick to announce this or that as unIslamic or blasphemous. It’s clear to see why this book is banned in Egypt.

We know that El Saadawi was critical of the patriarchal nature of major world faiths, and in Zeina her female protagonists question the way in which Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are practised in Egypt, with patriarchal interpretations and misogynistic practises meaning that women are considered by society as deficient in intellect.

El Saadawi repeats such misogynistic views throughout the novel, and it’s important to note that these are the perceptions of certain characters/members of society and not El Saadawi’s herself. It is El Saadawi’s bravery in writing about the hypocrisy and double standards of men in Egyptian society which makes me admire her so much - I know too well that when you “expose” the way men behave behind closed doors in Arab societies you get called a liar, “siding with the West” or “ruining” the country’s reputation.

It’s such an exciting time seeing beautiful memoirs written by Muslim women, writing touchingly yet honestly about their life stories, on their own terms. Thank you to Oneworld Publications for the advance copy.

The title of Ayesha’s memoir is inspired by a verse in the Qur’an that mentions Allah’s “sibghah” but more commonly sibghah is used in Arabic when talking about a dye - after reading the memoir I felt this sense of the title referring to the richness, complexity, depth and beauty there is to God and to Islam as a faith - a richness and beauty that in the author’s life experience got stripped back somewhat when shortly after immigrating from Pakistan to Canada, her parents joined Tanzeem E Islami, an Islamic organisation founded in Pakistan that teaches a puritanical and patriarchal interpretation of Islam.

What is fascinating about Ayesha’s memoir is that she also tells her parents’ story - how the constant and blatant racism they faced in Canada led to them joining this organisation, and how they genuinely believed they were protecting their children. We learn about Ayesha’s experiences wearing the niqab, and of the countless assumptions people made of her while wearing it, and people’s comments made later on after no longer wearing it but learning she once wore it.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ayesha’s memoir; I appreciated how candid and honest she was while also providing a wealth of nuance and context. She writes about some uncomfortable truths while clarifying that she knows there will be those out there who will try to use her experiences to fit their own agendas. It’s a challenge that many of us continue to face - how do we write about our uncomfortable truths and be honest without repercussions from those who are racist and Islamophobic and then repercussions from within our community? Ayesha has done a fantastic job.

I spent last year very excited for Neema Shah’s debut novel Kololo Hill to be published, and I’ve just finished reading it feeling as if I didn’t want it to end!

Set against the backdrop of Idi Amin’s Uganda in the 1970’s, Kololo Hill is a beautiful and emotional family saga that recalls the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Asians from Uganda under Amin’s orders, through the story of one family. It’s a history that until recently we have seldom got to read about. Shah charts mother Jaya, sons Vijay and Pran, and Pran’s wife Asha ‘s escape from Uganda where they had a relatively comfortable life which they had built up from scratch, to losing everything and having to start from scratch all over again in England.

The most chest-tightening part of the book is the escape itself, and I thoroughly enjoyed Shah’s descriptions of their resettlement in England; the descriptions were just so vivid. There’s also lots of mention of food throughout the novel. What I particularly liked about the novel is just how strong the female characters are - arguably stronger than the male characters. I can’t wait to see what Shah writes next!

Salma, Moni and Iman are members of their local Arabic Speaking Muslim Women’s Group in Scotland, and when Salma organises a trip to visit Lady Evelyn Cobbold, the first British female revert to perform Hajj ‘s grave, everyone except Moni and Iman drop out of the trip upon seeing the grave has been defaced.

Salma, Moni and Iman embark on the trip themselves. Three women of differing ages and their own family circumstances and problems. Each woman believes her circumstances are the hardest, and fails to see their own shortcomings while behaving self-righteous and judgmental towards others.

Their trip turns out to be a journey in which each woman has to rediscover herself and collectively learn to understand the true meaning of friendship.

Towards the end of the novel the narrative structure takes a dramatic shift as Aboulela uses magic realism. It was indeed surreal; at one point I felt like I was tripping! You can definitely see that Aboulela was inspired by certain fables, Islamic and Sufi folk tales, and the hoopoe, a bird mentioned in the Qur’an, plays a special role in this novel. A highly enjoyable read.

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