Product Description

Hannah Shah is an Imam's daughter. She lived the life of a devout family of Muslims in England but, behind the front door she was a caged butterfly. For many years, her father abused her in the cellar of their home. At 16 she discovered a plan to send her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage, and she ran away. Hunted by her angry father and brothers, who were intent on making her an honour killing, she had to keep moving house to escape them, and complete her education. Worst of all, from her family's point of view, she converted to Christianity and eventually found freedom - to live (and marry) as she wished, and to be free of the shame of her childhood. Offering a remarkable look at the lifestyle and beliefs of her family, and the rigid ideas of 'shame' and 'honour' they used to oppress her, "The Imam's Daughter" also shines a light on contemporary Western culture. Most of all, though, this is the inspiring story of Hannah Shah herself. How, through her courage and tenacity, she broke free from her background and embraced a new life in the world beyond its confines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11232 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review
Brilliant and compelling...raises issues which are worthy of serious consideration and discussion --The Baroness Cox of Queensbury

About the Author
Hannah Shah is a 32-year-old British woman of Pakistani Muslim parentage. After she left her family home, and finished her schooling, she took a degree in Theology and Religious Studies. She is increasingly in demand to give talks and support others facing similar situations. She married for love in 2008. Visit her website www.hannahshah.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It was midafternoon, and I was in my bedroom doing some studying. Suddenly I heard a wild commotion outside. I ran to the window. As I gazed down into the street I couldn't believe my eyes.

There before the house was a mob of around forty Pakistani men. They were armed with hammers, sticks and knives. Dad was at the front, his face a mask of hatred and fury.

"Filthy traitor!" Dad thundered. "Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! You betrayer of your family! Betrayer of your faith! We're going to rip your throat out! We'll burn you alive!"

I was utterly terrified. If Dad broke down the door and got his hands on me, I knew what was coming.

I would be beaten to death by the mob.

Customer Reviews

Powerful personal story, with political and societal implications
This thoughtfully written memoir is a horrifying walk through one young woman's experiences of growing up in an abusive and love-less family within a particularly closed Pakistani Muslim community in the north of England. Amidst the horror there are familiar references to life in the 80s (well known soap operas, musical fads, penguin biscuits and shell-suits), which keep the narrative - strange and unbelievable as it is in places - grounded and real.

Hannah's real gift though is the authenticity with which she uses her experience to help the reader understand just how great are the disconnections between different communities in our 'green and pleasant land', and how the most well-meaning interventions from the state can - through ignorance and political correctness - achieve the exact opposite of what was intended. It's a powerful challenge to the 21st Century relativist philosophy prevalent in the West: there are consequences of the beliefs and cultures by which people choose to live, and the more we understand these, the better able we will be respond appropriately, to live in community, and to support those who are vulnerable.

Hannah is a courageous young woman, who - without denigrating Islam overall (she is clear that she knows that all women's experience of Islam is not the same as hers, and notes that the abuse in her family was not necessarily related to their faith per se) - offers and eloquent wake-up call to the rest of us.

A terrifying and deeply touching account! A modern classic!
This book will in a few years be a classic of english literature!
The terror of violence and abuse, the utter failure of an entire beliefsystem and the corrupted culture it creates!
The fight to retain humanity in spite of oppression and extreme humiliation!
Its all here!
Read it, cry and WAKE UP!!!

The True story of an Apostate
This book should be required reading for all involved in inter-faith dialogue with Muslims. It tells the story of a young woman born into a Pakistani Muslim family somewhere in the North of England--she has changed her name, the names of others and the name of her home town in order to protect herself and those who helped her. Her father was both the local Imam, and an abusive husband and father. Some the author's earliest memories is of the beatings her father meted out on her mother. When she, at the age of five, intervened to protect her mother, "Hannah" herself became the object of his violence. That violence soon became sexual in nature. "Hannah" endured some ten years of beatings and rapes at the hands of her father before she left home, helped by a teacher at the local six-form college. Her conversion to Christianity resulted in threats, and indeed attempts, of further violence from her family and former community, because of "the shame" her apostasy from Islam occasioned. After resettling in the South of England she eventually gained a measure of peace and happiness through her new found faith and a happy marriage. I could not put the book down. It is a compelling narrative--horrifying and yet truly hopeful. It exposes the corrosive force the sub-continent's culture of shame and honour has on its form of Islam and the resulting hypocrisy of those who should be committed to the principal "No compulsion is there in religion" (Qur'an 2:256 [Arberry's translation]). The book also brings to light the disturbing reality of religious persecution in modern-day Britain. I cannot recommend the book highly enough; it is an immensely important and timely book.