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How to be a Bad Muslim
Funny, elegiac and chilling, these essays from award-winning New Zealand writer Mohamed Hassan blend storytelling, memoir and non-fiction to map the experience of being Muslim in the C21st.
This is the breakout non-fiction book from award-winning New Zealand writer Mohamed Hassan. From Cairo to Takapuna, Athens to Istanbul, How To Be A Bad Muslim maps the personal and public experience of being Muslim through essays on identity, Islamophobia, surveillance, migration and language.
Traversing storytelling, memoir, journalism and humour, Hassan speaks authentically and
piercingly on mental health, grief and loss, while weaving memories of an Egyptian immigrant fighting childhood bullies, listening to life-saving ‘90s grunge and auditioning for vaguely-ethnic roles in a certain pirate movie franchise.
At once funny and chilling, elegiac and eye-opening, this is a must-read book from a powerfully talented writer.
This is the breakout non-fiction book from award-winning New Zealand writer Mohamed Hassan. From Cairo to Takapuna, Athens to Istanbul, How To Be A Bad Muslim maps the personal and public experience of being Muslim through essays on identity, Islamophobia, surveillance, migration and language.
Traversing storytelling, memoir, journalism and humour, Hassan speaks authentically and
piercingly on mental health, grief and loss, while weaving memories of an Egyptian immigrant fighting childhood bullies, listening to life-saving ‘90s grunge and auditioning for vaguely-ethnic roles in a certain pirate movie franchise.
At once funny and chilling, elegiac and eye-opening, this is a must-read book from a powerfully talented writer.
- GenresNonfictionMemoirEssays
208 pages, Paperback
Published May 31, 2022
16 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 10, 2022
I first encountered Mohamed Hassan at the Word Festival in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2020. He spoke at the launch of a book called “Ko Aotearoa Tātou: We Are New Zealand” an anthology in response to the Christchurch terror attack on the Al Noor Mosque on 15th March 2019. He didn’t read his poem like everyone else, he recited it from memory. From deep in his heart. The room went quiet, we all collectively held our breath. Later that night he performed more poems, read this time from his poetry collection “National Anthem’. His rendition of ”(un)Learning my name” was beautiful and the tears ran down my cheeks and I didn’t care who saw them. It is a poem about being taught to say your own name in an acceptable Western way:
He has so much to say that is worth listening to that I was ready for his essays. And I was not disappointed. The first in this collection, ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ was so powerful that I stopped reading for a few days, gave it a chance to roll around my head. Then read it again. It is as frightening as it is powerful. It surprises you and, as a parent, it also introduces an element of dread about what is happening in the world. Everything starts innocently enough, talking about the Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg and his massive following. Online gaming and his off-colour commentary that appeals to youngsters. Each time he got into trouble his pubescent army of followers sprang to his defence. The more he did wrong the more followers he gained. Soon there were sixty million and he was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. He began to compete with T-Series in India. The #SubscribetoPewDiePie slogan went wild and although eventually the Bollywood T-Series hits grew larger, Felix ended up with 110 million subscribers. But
YouTube was just desperate to capitalise on the exponential growth of content. But a trend started to emerge where ‘once seemingly harmless meme politics of the internet had left the keyboards and entered the Real World’ of shootings and mass protests. And then the essay produced its first icy shiver. At home in all this mayhem was Brenton Tarrant. That might not be a name that the world knows, but here in New Zealand we all know it. The Christchurch gunman who killed 51 and attempted to kill another 40 Muslims at Friday prayers. As he live streamed his attack for the world to watch, he had one message for those watching “Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie.”
The essay from which the book title is taken is also confronting. In 2014 Mohamed was working as a reporter at TVNZ, our state broadcaster, our equivalent of the BBC. It was the time of the ‘Sydney Siege’ when an Iranian-born Australian gunman took eighteen hostages in the Lindt Chocolate Café in Martin Place, central Sydney. As he arrived for work, Mohamed sees every television screen across the open workplace tuned to the siege. He walked across the room towards his desk:
The gunman had a violent past, multiple counts of sexual assault, banned from most local mosques, and a diagnosed schizophrenic. Eighteen people had alerted the police to his radical online behaviour, including Muslims, but the police had done nothing. The Australian Prime Minister accused the Muslim community of failing to prove they stood for Australian values.
Mohamed goes on to dissect some of the words we see used when talking about Muslims on the news. From Sharia law to jihad or jihadis. What we seem to have missed is that jihad “simply means ‘struggle’ in Arabic, and is used to describe everything from fighting to fasting to financially supporting your parents when they get old.” He talks about his sister Basma who said that wearing the hijab in New Zealand had become exhausting.
Being a good or a bad Muslim in the eyes of others is the theme, and I love the way it shines the light right back at us, the ‘Westerners’, and our own prejudice and bias. The same things recurs in ‘The Last Sober Driver’, an essay that deals with the fact he has never drunk alcohol. Difficult in New Zealand society, where even poetry nights are full of booze. But Christmas parties were worst.
‘How to be a Bad Muslim’ is full of broad ranging essays. It would be wrong to leave you thinking they are all about terror attacks. Within some you can travel far and wide through the world and through time. For example ‘My Country My Country’ begins with a Nigerian born boxer entering a ring to fight under the flag of his birth, when not long before he had accepted national accolades in New Zealand as a New Zealander. We move to the referendum that attempted to change our national flag and potentially remove the Union Jack from the top corner, to attempts to change flags in various Arab nations where arbitrary lines had once been drawn on maps to divide lands and people who belonged to the same ethnic groups. We see Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his motorcade bringing the streets of Cairo to a halt and finally we see Narcissus and his infatuation. All in the same story; what a selection.
In the essay called ‘A Stranger in No-Man’s Land’ Mohamed tell us what it is like to travel the world as a Muslim. The interrogation, intense search of bags, belongings, phones and laptop, the delays and detentions. Being a journalist as well as a Muslim has made the burden even harder in some places:
it takes me nineteen years
to learn / how to pronounce
my own name
/ in public
the first time I say it
the way my mother
did when she named me
it feels like I have
/ stolen
something back
He has so much to say that is worth listening to that I was ready for his essays. And I was not disappointed. The first in this collection, ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ was so powerful that I stopped reading for a few days, gave it a chance to roll around my head. Then read it again. It is as frightening as it is powerful. It surprises you and, as a parent, it also introduces an element of dread about what is happening in the world. Everything starts innocently enough, talking about the Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg and his massive following. Online gaming and his off-colour commentary that appeals to youngsters. Each time he got into trouble his pubescent army of followers sprang to his defence. The more he did wrong the more followers he gained. Soon there were sixty million and he was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. He began to compete with T-Series in India. The #SubscribetoPewDiePie slogan went wild and although eventually the Bollywood T-Series hits grew larger, Felix ended up with 110 million subscribers. But
Hidden in the forgiving shade of this circus tent of impertinence were those with more complex intentions…crawling under the skin of the forum community were a group of people who could conveniently mask their real hatred and misogyny in edgy memes. They made racist and sexist jokes and no on batted an eye, because no one really meant what they said. Not on the internet.
YouTube was just desperate to capitalise on the exponential growth of content. But a trend started to emerge where ‘once seemingly harmless meme politics of the internet had left the keyboards and entered the Real World’ of shootings and mass protests. And then the essay produced its first icy shiver. At home in all this mayhem was Brenton Tarrant. That might not be a name that the world knows, but here in New Zealand we all know it. The Christchurch gunman who killed 51 and attempted to kill another 40 Muslims at Friday prayers. As he live streamed his attack for the world to watch, he had one message for those watching “Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie.”
The essay from which the book title is taken is also confronting. In 2014 Mohamed was working as a reporter at TVNZ, our state broadcaster, our equivalent of the BBC. It was the time of the ‘Sydney Siege’ when an Iranian-born Australian gunman took eighteen hostages in the Lindt Chocolate Café in Martin Place, central Sydney. As he arrived for work, Mohamed sees every television screen across the open workplace tuned to the siege. He walked across the room towards his desk:
And that’s when the atmosphere in the room shifted, rupturing along the seams.
One by one, they all looked up from their screens to see me. One by one, their faces went white. First the producers of the evening news desk, then the reporters, then the cameramen, then the shift manager. A blanket fell over the newsroom and no one spoke.
…
The moment I walked through the door, they had looked up from an image of a Muslim man committing an act of extreme violence to see another Muslim man enter their space. Their space. And they were caught off guard, defenceless and vulnerable. In that moment, even if just for a second, they believed I was the same as the man in Martin Place.
The gunman had a violent past, multiple counts of sexual assault, banned from most local mosques, and a diagnosed schizophrenic. Eighteen people had alerted the police to his radical online behaviour, including Muslims, but the police had done nothing. The Australian Prime Minister accused the Muslim community of failing to prove they stood for Australian values.
Mohamed goes on to dissect some of the words we see used when talking about Muslims on the news. From Sharia law to jihad or jihadis. What we seem to have missed is that jihad “simply means ‘struggle’ in Arabic, and is used to describe everything from fighting to fasting to financially supporting your parents when they get old.” He talks about his sister Basma who said that wearing the hijab in New Zealand had become exhausting.
As long as she wore it around her face, she would be judged for all of her actions by both Muslims and non-Muslims. Was she Muslim enough? Good or Bad? The answer depended on who you were talking to.
‘I’m tired of always having to smile and be happy so that people don’t think I’m a terrorist.’
Being a good or a bad Muslim in the eyes of others is the theme, and I love the way it shines the light right back at us, the ‘Westerners’, and our own prejudice and bias. The same things recurs in ‘The Last Sober Driver’, an essay that deals with the fact he has never drunk alcohol. Difficult in New Zealand society, where even poetry nights are full of booze. But Christmas parties were worst.
Everyone was drunk enough to not pay attention
Except this guy.
I would remember every messy awkward thing that happened, every racist thing that was said, each awkward romantic gesture left unrequited on the office floor. I was the silent witness to all of it, and as a result no one trusted me.
‘How to be a Bad Muslim’ is full of broad ranging essays. It would be wrong to leave you thinking they are all about terror attacks. Within some you can travel far and wide through the world and through time. For example ‘My Country My Country’ begins with a Nigerian born boxer entering a ring to fight under the flag of his birth, when not long before he had accepted national accolades in New Zealand as a New Zealander. We move to the referendum that attempted to change our national flag and potentially remove the Union Jack from the top corner, to attempts to change flags in various Arab nations where arbitrary lines had once been drawn on maps to divide lands and people who belonged to the same ethnic groups. We see Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his motorcade bringing the streets of Cairo to a halt and finally we see Narcissus and his infatuation. All in the same story; what a selection.
In the essay called ‘A Stranger in No-Man’s Land’ Mohamed tell us what it is like to travel the world as a Muslim. The interrogation, intense search of bags, belongings, phones and laptop, the delays and detentions. Being a journalist as well as a Muslim has made the burden even harder in some places:
I’m not sure who to blame for all of this – my colleagues in the media and their lust for hyperbole; the politicians lullabyed into the arms of dog-whistle populism; or the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks that have irreversibly changed international travel forever.
June 26, 2022
essays full of poetic clarity!!! breathtaking collection - i highly recommend
June 13, 2022
I wish I had taken my time to completely take in every word. I need to revisit a few of these essays again but from the very first page, I was hooked.
I love this book because as Mohamed recounts different parts of his life through the essays, it feels so authentic because it’s almost as he is narrating parts of my life. It’s feel so authentically kiwi Muslim that I feel like there is a part of me in this book.
I love this book because as Mohamed recounts different parts of his life through the essays, it feels so authentic because it’s almost as he is narrating parts of my life. It’s feel so authentically kiwi Muslim that I feel like there is a part of me in this book.
July 25, 2022
I loved this collection of essays. I first came across this writer when he released a spoken word about how people mispronounce his name. The words really spoke to me as I understand what it’s like to have people refuse to pronounce my name correctly even after I have corrected them. He blends storytelling, memoir, non-fiction and journalism in the most wonderful way. He writes about the personal and public experience of being a Muslim by touching on issues of identify, islamophobia, surveillance, migration and language. He also writes about mental illness, grief and loss, memories of growing up in Cairo, childhood bullies, 90’s grunge music that saved his life and auditioning for vaguely-ethnic roles in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Highly recommend.
“And that’s when the atmosphere in the room shifted, rupturing along the seams.
One by one, they all looked up from their screens to see me. One by one, their faces went white. First the producers of the evening news desk, then the reporters, then the cameramen, then the shift manager. A blanket fell over the newsroom and no one spoke.
…
The moment I walked through the door, they had looked up from an image of a Muslim man committing an act of extreme violence to see another Muslim man enter their space. Their space. And they were caught off guard, defenceless and vulnerable. In that moment, even if just for a second, they believed I was the same as the man in Martin Place.”
“And that’s when the atmosphere in the room shifted, rupturing along the seams.
One by one, they all looked up from their screens to see me. One by one, their faces went white. First the producers of the evening news desk, then the reporters, then the cameramen, then the shift manager. A blanket fell over the newsroom and no one spoke.
…
The moment I walked through the door, they had looked up from an image of a Muslim man committing an act of extreme violence to see another Muslim man enter their space. Their space. And they were caught off guard, defenceless and vulnerable. In that moment, even if just for a second, they believed I was the same as the man in Martin Place.”
August 13, 2022
‘I spent the better part of twenty-five years waiting for someone to hand me a certificate that tells me that I am the same as everyone else. That promises safety and warmth for my two little nephews, dancing around our feet in their uncomplicated joy. This is not the world I want them to inherit.’
Not many books make me cry, but this one sure did. An exquisite series of essays on what is means to be Muslim, particularly in New Zealand. Hassan’s writing is so beautiful and impactful. A must read for all I would say.
Not many books make me cry, but this one sure did. An exquisite series of essays on what is means to be Muslim, particularly in New Zealand. Hassan’s writing is so beautiful and impactful. A must read for all I would say.
October 20, 2022
My new favourite book
October 29, 2022
Stunning. Raw. Powerful. Honest. Hassan is an absolute wordsmith. His writing is beautiful, even at its most painful.
September 10, 2023
Read this just after reading Noelle McCarthy's memoir and it was a nice companion read, both of them reflecting on the experience of migrating to Aotearoa and also follow a similar journalist/author career path through NZ media orgs. Hassan offers some vital insights into race and being a muslim in NZ that taught me a lot, and his poetic style of writing was so enjoyable to read.
November 15, 2022
An important read to support your understanding of what it is to be an immigrant in Aotearoa. How it feels to have a country turn on you once the global media does. And being torn when you're heart is in many different places. I particularly appreciated the explanation of a few words like Sharia and Jihad that have been misinterpreted by the media and used against the Muslim world. I have since researched more so I don't make these errors again.
December 10, 2022
Hassan has a beautiful style of writing that is equal parts very intelligent but also very easy to read. This collection of essays is fresh and eye opening, particularly for an audience in Aotearoa New Zealand. My students read the How to be a bad Muslim essay in class and the rich discussions we had were amazing.
June 21, 2023
Nineteen essays cover topics as diverse as the racism shown towards Muslims and playing computer games with friends. The essays are largely autobiographical and several cover his mental state while a journalist in Turkey. Some poignantly cover the Mosque killings in Christchurch – what led to the killer’s actions and its aftermath. A recurrent theme is the lack of understanding of Muslims by non-Muslims and racism shown towards them. One describes the sort of revelation the author would like to see in the minds of the bigoted. Written in a free-flowing style, often mixing historical information with recent events, the collection provides an insight into what it means to be without a place to call and feel is home.
Positive features
1. The essays give a further insight into Muslim’s feelings of being different, misunderstood and unwelcome in New Zealand. In that, they are important reading for non-Muslims.
2. The style has moments of poetic insight, combined with passages of interesting historical information.
3. The essays are easily read and the pace is good, with each being a reasonable length.
Negative features
1. I felt the selection of the essays lacked a consistent theme and development, which could have much increased their power and importance. The heavy-hitting essays on the Mosque shooting and the author’s mental state are diluted by two or three essays on computer games and rock music, which seem odd inclusions.
2. The descriptions of anti-Muslim actions tend to be angry rather than presenting a future path. Similarly, the essays on his mental state do not point towards a resolution. The final essay on the 10 stages of Arabic love use his own romance and marriage, and miss an opportunity to address something cultural, aligned with the rest of the essays.
I am grateful to the New Zealand Book Discussion Scheme for providing my review copy.
Positive features
1. The essays give a further insight into Muslim’s feelings of being different, misunderstood and unwelcome in New Zealand. In that, they are important reading for non-Muslims.
2. The style has moments of poetic insight, combined with passages of interesting historical information.
3. The essays are easily read and the pace is good, with each being a reasonable length.
Negative features
1. I felt the selection of the essays lacked a consistent theme and development, which could have much increased their power and importance. The heavy-hitting essays on the Mosque shooting and the author’s mental state are diluted by two or three essays on computer games and rock music, which seem odd inclusions.
2. The descriptions of anti-Muslim actions tend to be angry rather than presenting a future path. Similarly, the essays on his mental state do not point towards a resolution. The final essay on the 10 stages of Arabic love use his own romance and marriage, and miss an opportunity to address something cultural, aligned with the rest of the essays.
I am grateful to the New Zealand Book Discussion Scheme for providing my review copy.
January 14, 2024
These essays are, on the whole, lyrical, showcasing Mohamed's background as a poet, whilst still being easy to read and to grasp. The commentary on early adult life in NZ really resonated. I found some of his writing on Turkey a bit jarring. It felt overly romanticised and a bit lacking in the self awareness present in the rest of the book.
November 18, 2022
Very easy to read, not because the language is simple but because it is delightful. His words sit you gently in the bow of his boat as he paddles you down a beautiful stream of thoughtful stories and anecdotes.
August 14, 2022
Honest and poetic collection of essays
September 21, 2022
A brilliant window into lived experiences. Hassan has a beautiful mastery of storytelling, this collection of stories is engaging and easy to read
October 9, 2022
excellent
June 15, 2023
A beautiful self portrait of a book by Mohamed that deeply spoke to me, an immigrant still figuring out my identity. Loved it
July 6, 2023
This book changed the way I think about the world. Super glad I read it.
October 20, 2025
Beautifully written. This is a book that'll stay with me for a long while.
December 21, 2025
Such a good book. Truly eye opening. Beautifully written. An essential read for so many kiwis, now more than ever.
September 2, 2024
Interesting book of essays - enjoyed reading it and the tension that it creates. As a writer, Hassan holds back bits that leaves you curious and hungry for more. There aren’t enough voices that speak to the power-burden-freedom that intersectionality provides.
December 13, 2023
Excellent collection of essays.
January 10, 2023
I loved this book so much I've given it to people to share the experience.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews