I absolutely devoured this book, a cutting blend of memoir, religion and politics. Blending the personal and the political is something Nadeine Asbali was forced to become uncomfortably familiar with when she decided to start wearing the hijab in a country that claims to have ‘multicultural’ aspirations, but remains stubbornly hostile to anyone not conforming to so-called British ideals. 

As a British-Libyan Muslim woman, Asbali, as she puts it, lives at the dangerous intersection where racism, Islamaphobia, misogyny and white saviourism all converge. When she decided to start wearing the hijab, Asbali was staying with family in Libya over summer, surrounded by women who had made the same decision. But when she returned to the UK, she was met with everything from dismay to outright hostility and abuse. Teachers confused her with the one other hijabi student, men shouted at her from cars to ‘go home’, white women weaponising misplaced concern for her freedom.

Asbali is such a fantastic writer, her style ridiculously engaging, passion pouring from the pages. She makes points so clearly that it makes you wonder how people can continue to argue against such sound logic. I loved the point made about how Asbali refuses to combat racists commenting on her non-Englishness by whipping out trump cards like her white mother or evenings spent eating potato smileys and baked beans. Doing so would be to assert that those who are racialised in the same way but do NOT have these trump cards, somehow deserve to be discriminated against. 

Veiled Threat is set up into chapters that cover a vast array of issues that Muslim women contend with on a daily basis. From the damaging, one-dimensionality to Muslim women’s representation in the media (subjugated, trapped and suppliant or literal terrorist), to the dangerous rise in misogyny among Muslim men thanks to online ‘alpha males’ (read, predators) like Andrew Tate. This chapter was particularly compelling, as Asbali laments how Muslim men, who should represent a safe space for Muslim women, buy into internet misogyny and the vitriol spews from a new and unexpected direction. At the same time, she unpacks the structural failings that lead young Muslim boys straight into the arms of men like Andrew Tate. There is no room for nuanced portrayals of Muslim masculinity in a world that only wants to paint them as barbaric.

I loved how Asbali is able to clearly demonstrate the double standards upheld by white British people. The mental gymnastics people go through to continue to serve their own agenda. White women wax their legs and wear heels? That’s an autonomous decision, and absolutely not rooted in patriarchal beauty standards. A Muslim woman choosing to wear a hijab? Oppressed. Forced. Incapable of making her own decisions. But wait - a 15 year old Muslim girl is groomed and runs off to join a terrorist organisation? Oh no, that child actually is capable of making her own decisions, not our problem.  Muslim women are subjugated and in need of the west to save them - until they are not.

I’ve rambled enough, basically loved this book, wish more people would pick it up!