ISLAMABAD: “We are hoping to spread awareness of the importance of education, to inspire and motivate girls to go to school regardless of hurdles, to emphasize the strength of Pakistani women who choose education and to acknowledge the resilience of Pakistanis. Profits from book sales will go to charities benefiting girls’ education in Pakistan,” Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy told Arab News.
On World Book Day Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s SOC Outreach, a community engagement platform started by the award-winning director, announced they were releasing a novella written by Sanam Maher titled “Knowledge is Bulletproof,” and that the book would be bulletproof as well.
The 150-page story of Ramzan and Riaz, the other two schoolgirls who were shot alongside Malala Yousafzai and who today are tireless activists for education is bound in bulletproof materials, the first book of its kind.
Maher joined the project because of its unique premise and the story it promised to tell. This is the journalist’s first foray into book publishing, alongside her own first finished book.
“I got involved in the project when the artists behind it approached me with the idea. They had a very clear vision of what they hoped the campaign would achieve, and when they told me they wanted to work on something about the two girls who were also injured in the attack on Malala in 2012, I was immediately intrigued,” said Maher.
“I hadn’t seen much about the girls in the media -– even though, as I later discovered, they had been covered quite a bit in the British press -– and I relished the opportunity to tell their story. We have read and heard so much about Malala, and rightly so, but covering Shazia and Kainat’s story gave us the chance to look at Malala’s story from a slightly different perspective: these two girls were witnesses to an event that really brought home the brutality of the Pakistani Taliban to so many people, both within the country and abroad. I wondered what it would be like to be just slightly removed from the center of a story with such far-reaching interest and implications, just inches away from the girl we cannot stop looking at and wanting to know more about: Malala.”
The opportunity gave Maher the chance to meet the two attack survivors and understand the story known worldwide from their perspectives.
“I traveled to Mingora to meet Shazia and Kainat, and their families, with the photographer Insiya Syed. Shazia and Kainat were very keen to have their story told. We met them at a time that was stressful for them –- their visas to travel to the UK for further education had been rejected and they were waiting for word on their appeals -– but they were very generous with their time. Don’t worry, their story ultimately has a happy ending, and it was so moving to be there at a moment when their lives were going to change. I’m so excited for them to read the book and to hear their thoughts on it.”
In collaboration with BBDO (advertising agency) they plan to print a number of the books and have the proceeds of the sales go toward rebuilding schools in Northern Pakistan where areas were particularly affected by the presence of the Taliban.
“The initial thought was to tell the inspiring story of Shazia and Kainat, and how they braved it through the violence and continued to fight for girls’ education. The design of the book cover being bulletproof was a natural and relevant extension of the message ‘Knowledge is Bulletproof’,” said Chinoy.
“The goal was to be impactful not only with the story that had to be told, but also with the design of the book itself. It made perfect sense to use material that is symbolic of the brave resistance that the girls so admirably demonstrated. To show that knowledge is indeed bulletproof, it was thus ideal to design an actual bulletproof cover for the book,” said Maher.
This book will be the first of its kind, a novel encased in bulletproof materials to enable those reading it or encountering it to understand the message of the pages clearly.
“I thought it was a wonderfully impactful way to get people to sit up and take notice,” continues Maher. “Once you meet the girls, and so many other girls and women in Swat and other parts of the country who are all striving to complete their education despite the odds stacked against them, the message that the book’s design carries becomes even more important. The book’s design and the idea at its heart — it cannot and must not be enough for Pakistani women to rely on luck or chance or privilege in order to receive an education that will carry them forward — came together beautifully. It was a pleasure to be involved in a project where every element of the final product was so thoughtful and considered the nuances of Shazia and Kainat’s story.”
And though SOC Outreach, Chinoy and Maher hope the campaign and the book bring them results to continue their good work, there is also hope for Maher that these projects are needed less and less.
“I do hope that people will be interested in the campaign and there will be many, many more projects dealing with the subject of access to education, particularly for women in Pakistan. I also hope that there will be a time when the need for such projects will be obsolete.”
‘Knowledge is Bulletproof’: A bulletproof book for education
‘Knowledge is Bulletproof’: A bulletproof book for education
- Sanam Maher and Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s SOC Outreach teamed up to produce a one-of-a kind novella, “Knowledge is Bulletproof,” which tells the story of activists Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz, who were shot alongside Malala Yousafzai but survived
- The book is bound in bulletproof materials, a significant move by the producers
Hafsa Lodi’s debut novel ‘Turbulence’ centers on a woman’s spiritual journey
JEDDAH: For Dubai-based journalist and author Hafsa Lodi, whose nonfiction book “Modesty: A Fashion Paradox” examined the politics of dress, the recent publication of her debut novel, “Turbulence,” “feels like a blessing.”
“I didn’t even know if it was even going to be published,” she told Arab News recently. The manuscript was completed four years ago, but its original publisher went out of business and the work was in limbo.
An independent press in the UAE, The Dreamwork Collective, stepped in and published it within months.
The novel follows Dunya, a British Muslim woman living in the Gulf, who goes into labor on a flight after making a shocking discovery.
It is a tender interrogation of what it means to be a Muslim woman in modern times, encapsulating belief, doubt and autonomy, and the fragile negotiations between faith, feminism and family.
The book’s striking cover invites the reader into the story’s emotional landscape before the first page is turned.
Mariam Ajami, the Beirut-based visual artist who designed it, was inspired by “the image of gazing at a reflection in an airplane window, and Rumi’s idea of polishing the soul.”
Two pairs of eyes meet the viewer: one in color, one in black and white.
“My approach was to create a whimsical, surreal landscape that reflects the contrast between the protagonist’s past and present selves,” Ajami said.
Lodi added: “One depicts the earlier, optimistic version of Dunya and the other, the later disillusioned version.”
Speaking about the story, she said: “I wanted Dunya and the reader with her to explore grey areas of faith, culture and society, see all the contradictions, and find her way.”
The seed of the novel was planted in her mind from a news article.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lodi read about a woman who went into labor on a flight from the UAE. Shortly after, Lodi discovered she was pregnant and planned to travel to Canada to give birth and secure her child’s passport.
“That story stayed with me,” she recalled, adding that feelings of fear and anxiety sparked her imagination. She gave Dunya a marriage, and then had the union fracture.
“I thought, what would cause some dramatic trigger? What would rock a pregnant wife’s world?” Lodi said. “I had the conflict, I had the plot, so I just had to work backwards.”
The Gulf city where Dunya lives is deliberately unnamed, but reflects a reality many expatriates in the region understand: transience, displacement, class, and privilege.
“If I were to call it Dubai or Riyadh or Bahrain or Kuwait, I felt like this city could be any of those cities,” she explained.
“I wanted to highlight the expat nature of Dunya’s identity and belonging in the Gulf, rather than name some tourist hotspot the world already talks about so much.”
The ambiguity also pushes back against Western assumptions about conservative restrictions and the invisibility of Muslim women’s complex private lives.
She said the literary landscape for Muslim women’s stories, while growing, has long suffered from a particular binary.
Female Muslim characters tend to come in two configurations: the pious, uncomplicated exemplar or the rebellious woman fleeing her faith toward a Western-coded freedom.
Lodi was not interested in either. “I wanted someone in the middle. Someone like me, someone like my friends,” she said. “Women who are Muslim, who are deeply rooted in our faith, but who still have questions.”
Crucially, she wanted faith to be Dunya’s core, not a backdrop or tension to be resolved.
In the opening sequence of “Turbulence,” Dunya hovers between life and death, signaling from the outset that this is a novel where the soul matters, where faith is key to the story’s architecture.
“A lot of contemporary Muslim women’s fiction has faith as just a part of the character,” she said. “I wanted faith to be central to her questioning. I know that might alienate some non-Muslim readers, but authenticity was my mission with this book.”
Writing fiction also gave her the freedom that nonfiction scholarship could not. It was a way to make weighty theological and feminist ideas breathable and accessible.
“Exploring heavy themes — Muslim feminism, gender in Islam — through fiction gave me a chance to make them more relatable to modern Muslim women,” she added.
“I felt so liberated on the page. Fiction really gave me that flexibility and freedom.”
This is most alive in the novel’s scenes involving females, where Dunya joins a group of girls studying Islam through a feminist lens.
The scenes draw directly from Lodi's own experience in UK-based Dr. Sofia Rehman’s virtual Islam and Gender read-alongs. “The texts Dr. Sofia introduced us to, and the way she discusses them, has been mind-expanding,” Lodi said.
“I feel very lucky and privileged to be part of this group, but I feel like there are so many women around me who would never think of joining it. And if they were to sit in one session, they would just be so enlightened.”
There is still a particular taboo around female Islamic scholarship and a reflexive skepticism that can dissolve, she believes, the moment women actually encounter it.
“Islam was a feminist message when it was first revealed. For people who are questioning aspects of faith, or faith and feminism, (female scholarship) has been really validating.”
Where “Turbulence” distinguishes itself most sharply within the landscape of women’s fiction (Muslim or otherwise) is its ending. Dunya gets something more hard-won and, arguably, more radical than a fairytale ending.
It is an unconventional happy conclusion that refuses to conflate marriage with success or failure, with the ultimate triumph being a Muslim woman’s choice to do what honors her God-given dignity.
Tamreez Inam, a Dubai-based writer and curator who moderated a panel about the novel at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in January, told Arab News about how she viewed the work’s intent.
“Dunya’s journey, all the little compromises she makes along the way in order to be a good wife and mother, are frustrating but also relatable. It’s a wake-up call to be true to ourselves.”
“Maybe having it all isn’t the road to happiness,” Lodi explained. “In the end, she salvages herself, her self-respect and her self-worth.”
Lodi’s counsel for women, both through Dunya and in conversation, is nuanced: the stakes lie in choosing wisely.
“I’ve been blessed with a very supportive husband who is nothing like Rahim (Dunya’s husband),” Lodi said. “I have faith there are men like that out there … It comes down to the partner you find and being on the same page.”
Female friendship, in Lodi’s telling, is a form of protection and spiritual sustenance. “The lack of (female friendship) is also why she dealt with all of this alone in the end.”
In a literary landscape still learning how to hold Muslim women in their full complexity, “Turbulence” is about the price of shrinking yourself, and finding the long way home.
