The subtitle promises a dry analysis, but Mohammed (b. 1974) delivers instead an intensely personal autobiography that mainly revolves around two themes: her demonic Islamist mother and the process of liberating herself from this mother by repudiating both the maternal and the Islamist bonds. As Mohammed, a Canadian of Egyptian heritage, explains about the latter: "First, I was a nonpractising Muslim, then I didn't believe in any organized religion, then I was spiritual but not religious, then I was agnostic, and then finally I identified as atheist."
The author barely mentions her two formidable family connections: she is the great-grandniece of Mohamed Naguib, the first-ever president (1953-54) in Egypt's history until he was shoved aside by Gamal Abdel Nasser; and she was married to and had a child by Essam Marzouk, a violent jihadi now thought to be either dead or rotting in an Egyptian jail. Fittingly, that marriage was pushed on her by a mother who herself lusted for the future son-in-law.
The shocking portrait of an Islamist mother leaves little to the imagination. Says that unnamed mother when the two argue over Mohammed's choice of clothing: "I pissed you out. You hear me? You are my urine. You are nothing but my bodily waste! I excreted you! You are just a turd that I should have flushed! You have no right to question me. You are nothing." As this quotation suggests, the passage from Islamist childhood to an "unveiled" adulthood can be a harrowing one and those who navigate it successfully become strong and resolute standard-bearers of their new way of life.
Beyond the affecting story of Mohammed's liberation stands a case study of one woman's slow and agonizing realization that, while living in the modernity of contemporary Canada, she inhabited a bubble of medieval prejudices and horrors. The reader will agonize at the slowness of this process, which appears to have taken about 25 years from start to conclusion, but the very length of Mohammed's evolution both enhances its credibility and offers important insights into this painful undertaking shared by so many others.
Mar. 21, 2022 addendum: This is the logo of Mohammed's organization, Free Hearts Free Minds:
