From France’s ban on the hijab and abayas in schools to Boris Johnson describing niqabis as “letterboxes”, Muslim women are no strangers to having their lives and freedoms reduced to topics to debate. They’re almost always seen as ‘the other’ or the problem that needs to be fixed in order to blend into Western society, and visibly Muslim women in particular face numerous challenges: blatant Islamophobia, racialised misogyny, the policing of their bodies and what they wear, and a great deal of pressure to be perfect Muslim role models.

Nadeine Asbali is no stranger to this. Growing up as a young mixed-race girl with a Libyan father and an English mother, she found herself playing a balancing act, never entirely fitting into either identity. That is until a trip to Libya as a teenager inspired her to wear the hijab and forever changed her life. Asbali soon realised that her pre-hijab life had vanished and that Britain saw her now not as an ordinary teenager but as a threat incompatible with the British identity. 

Veiled Threat is part memoir, part political essay, detailing the hardships of growing up as a hijabi and how these struggles are interlinked to Britain’s systematic disempowering of its Muslim citizens. Over the course of the book, Asbali discusses topics such as the online Muslim alt-right (or “akh-right”, as she puts it), white feminism and its saviour complex, the representation of Muslim women on screen and why Muslim women deserve control over their voices. 

We caught up with Asbali over Zoom to discuss her inspirations, thoughts on the current state of Muslim representation in film and TV, and her hopes for the future. 

In your early days as a writer, was this always the book you wanted to publish?

Nadeine Asbali: It was always kind of in my brain. I think as someone who likes writing and reading, did English at uni and then became an English teacher, it’s always been a goal of mine to write a book. I always used to say that before I could write anything in the realm of fiction, I needed to write this book and get all these feelings out onto a page. It was a very cathartic journey for me and helped me process a lot of the trauma I went through over the past decade and a half. 

Did you have any key inspirations that helped with the writing process?

Nadeine Asbali: Mostly memoirs, such as Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, which is quite emotive. I was also inspired by political essays such as It's Not About the Burqa by Mariam Khan and I Refuse to Condemn by Asim Qureshi. But I think the book is most informed by my personal experiences, and I wanted to connect the different subjects to personal memories of mine, which is where the style came from. I start each chapter with an anecdote and then move into a political unpacking of that to weave between what I’ve been through and the wider systematic impact Islamophobia has had on visible Muslim women. 

You mention that Veiled Threat is not about what all Muslim women think. Instead, it tackles what it means to be visibly foreign in Britain. When you started writing the book, were you worried that it would be taken as a ‘one-fits-all’ approach to talking about Muslim women? 

Nadeine Asbali: It’s funny because when my agent and I first tried to send the idea out to publishers, we thought the book would somewhat represent all kinds of Muslim women. However, the more I wrote, the more it became clear that my initial idea wouldn’t work. In the introduction, I state that Veiled Threat wasn’t written to tick off your book club’s diversity quota. My goal was to give at least one visibly Muslim woman a voice when we’re so often spoken over.  Still, I know that, unfortunately, for the average white liberal reader, that won’t be enough. 

“Issues such as the ‘akh-right’ and Andrew Tate are shooed away as a ‘Muslim problem’ when it’s so much more complicated than that”

Representation, both real and fictional, can have an impact on how Muslim women are perceived. You deep dive into how film and TV in particular have played a role in stereotypes and tropes we have to deal with daily. There’s recently been a push for more diverse voices in TV and film, but do you see representation improving, or do we have a way to go?

Nadeine Asbali: I’m going to sound like such a harsh critic, but even ones that have been received quite positively by the community, like Channel 4’s We Are Lady Parts, still miss the mark for me. I appreciate a Muslim woman wrote it, but it’s telling what versions of us get greenlit and shown on screen. I find it hard to think of a visibly Muslim character who’s happy with being Muslim, and her main worry isn’t about whether or not she should take the hijab off or if she should keep seeing her white boyfriend. On the other hand, literature seems much more expansive with the type of stories you come across. The Family Tree by Sairish Hussain is a book that I found really interesting, and it’s miles ahead of where we are with TV and film representation. 

Do you plan to go into fiction writing yourself?

Nadeine Asbali: Personally, I’d love to [write novels]! I have a fiction book that I’ve left on the back burner for a bit that I plan to pick up again. My dream is to write novels about Muslim women who are comfortable with their identity. 

My favourite part of the book was the nuance you used when dealing with issues often presented as black-and-white. In particular, you analyse how Muslim women encounter misogyny from both non-Muslim men and Muslim men. Was it difficult to strike that balance of acknowledging what goes on within the community without accidentally confirming stereotypes? 

Nadeine Asbali: When you acknowledge the misogyny Muslim women go through both in public and in the community, it can sometimes feel like you’re airing your dirty laundry. It’s almost like you’re admitting to the world ‘yes, we need you to intervene’, but I tried to start a dialogue that’s often ignored by not only leaders in our community but also teachers and those in charge of safeguarding young people. Issues such as the ‘akh-right’ and Andrew Tate are shooed away as a ‘Muslim problem’ when it’s so much more complicated than that. It should be more pressing that these young boys online are taking influencers from the akh-right as idols and important figures in their developing relationship with Islam. It can honestly feel like a betrayal to hear rhetoric like theirs become so popular because it goes against what I was taught growing up and breaks the illusion of how Muslim men and women are meant to treat one another. Some of the stuff you hear them saying feels miles away from what even the more conservative members of my family believe, which makes it even more concerning.

Historically, there’s precedent for Muslim women being vocal advocates for social change and protesting in anti-colonial movements across the Global South. With the recent events in Gaza, we’ve unfortunately been policing Muslim women’s attendance at protests. Is it merely recency bias, forgetting how much our ancestors have fought for us, or something more sinister?

Nadeine Asbali: Unfortunately, that’s what happens when you depoliticise Islam and Muslim history. There’s a deliberate move to ignore all the different struggles for liberation in the Muslim world, like the fight for independence in Algeria in the 1950s and 60s, for example. There are even people who think that protesting is not compatible with Islam whatsoever, and it speaks to how there’s a prevailing narrative of what type of masculinity is supported. Social conditions in this country, through a lack of opportunities, education, and financial support, have disenfranchised an entire generation that now lacks not only political literacy but religious literacy. Instead of researching the faith themselves, they seek information from podcasts, influencers, and other people online. 

Over the last few months, we’ve also seen how Islamophobia has been weaponised by our government, such as when an MP accused Zarah Sultana of being a Hamas supporter for supporting a ceasefire. As you detail in the book, living in the UK post 9/11 and 7/7 as a Muslim could be a harrowing experience. Do you have any faith that this time round, the narrative will change?

Nadeine Asbali: I hope so, but honestly, all I’ve seen so far is the opposite. When I am on Twitter, and I’ve said something as basic as ‘genocide is bad’, I’ve been met with such resistance. It goes to show that you can’t be a Muslim and have an opinion without proving your humanity. You’re spending so much time trying to prove that you’re not a terrorist to them, and it feels pointless because that’s what the default perception of me is to some people. At work, it’s really dystopian trying to teach while Gaza is being decimated. I have Muslim students who clearly want to discuss what’s going on, but we’re not allowed to talk about it, which must be so disorienting for them. Seeing the general British population and government so unmoved by what’s happened versus the care that was had with the Ukraine crisis feels like a confirmation that Islamophobia is still so deeply rooted in this country. 

After reading the book, I felt affirmed as someone who used to wear the hijab. To be seen as ‘other’ in your home country is isolating and quite hard to put into words. I'm curious to know what your thoughts were after you finished writing. 

Nadeine Asbali: It was the same for me. I felt validated. Friends and family have known for years how difficult it was for me growing up, and still, somewhere deep down, I thought I was being dramatic for being upset by what seems to be a sadly ‘normal’ occurrence for Muslim women. Writing this book made me realise that it was a big deal and that I wasn’t lying to myself. It taught me the importance of not just talking about using our voices as Muslim women but actively doing it. 

Having a book like this as a teenager would’ve been life-changing for me because being a teen is already so lonely, and it would’ve made me realise that I wasn’t the only one going through it, which is something I want other young readers to take from my work.

Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain is available now.