Just Another Jihadi Jane by Tabish Khair

Just Another Jihadi Jane

Tabish Khair

Two intelligent girls, barely adult age and deeply disillusioned with life in the UK, travel to Syria and enter into a new Jihadi life. This highly topical read pulls no punches. The story flies off the pages with beginning, middle and end and no 'fancy' prose in between. It's certainly a brave topic for the author to explore and shows a way of life many of us may struggle to adhere to. A very interesting and thought provoking story.

Extract
I hesitated, unsure, but was tempted by the promises and the vision of joining a righteous fight, of doing my duty as a Muslim, of having a purpose in my life. You might wonder how I could be tempted at all. Sometimes I wonder too, today. But the idea had its attractions to a woman like me. I had grown up in a family where the men complained relentlessly about the compromises that living in England entailed for their faith. Daesh had already swept through much of Iraq, and was beginning to get bad publicity in the West, but that is all I considered it: bad publicity. Ameena and I discussed it for hours. We had Internet friends who agreed with us. Hejjiye was by no means the only person from 'over there' who sent us news that contradicted some of what we read or heard in England. We were far from convinced, then, that the Western media were being objective or factual.
Parallels
  • How to Fight Islamist Terror From The Missionary Position by Tabish Khair
  • The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and The Evolution of an Insurgency by Charles R. Lister