The Imam’s Daughter by Hannah Shah

That time, as always when Dad raped me, he coupled it with violence in order to dress it up as punishment, rather than what it was: the satisfaction of his sick sexual desires. I was locked in the cellar for four days.¹

— Hannah Shah

Imam wants me to marry a Muslim. Here's my letter to him.

In Hannah Shah’s autobiography, The Imam’s Daughter: My Desperate Flight to Freedom, she recounts her repeated beatings and rapes over an eleven year period by her father, a Muslim and an imam.

Now before any of you Islamic trolls and AIs get all riled up with your keyboards and algorithms, I am not insinuating that all Muslims and imams rape their daughters. However, Shah has a lot of general things to say about Islam that should be heard, especially in regard to being a woman.

It’s hard to imagine a more devastating betrayal than a father sexually molesting his daughter. Shah remembers those early years when she didn’t understand what was happening, why it was happening or why her father was doing this to her. He justified it as punishment, discipline that she needed because she was not a good Muslim girl—at least in his eyes. Why that included rape, who the hell knows? A small girl (or child) cannot process such barbarity in a meaningful way. She wanted the approval of her father and yet he was the one hurting her. It took many years before she was able to understand that none of it was her fault and before she was able to fully blame her father for the things he did to her.

The second betrayal, like the experience of countless other victims of sexual abuse, was there was no one she could talk to. Her father was a well-respected imam in their British Pakistani community. No one would believe her. Her mother ignored it, even though at times Shah was kept in a cellar many days at a time for beating and rape. Shah assumes her mother probably knew what was going on, but was as afraid of her husband as Shah was of her father. Her brothers were no help, except at times for distraction and some limited support. But no one in the family acknowledged what was happening and no one helped her in any significant way.

Eventually Shah was convinced to talk to a counselor, a fellow Muslim, who at first she was not willing to trust, but finally tells him of the beatings, but not the rape. When she comes home that day she finds the counselor with her father who has assured him he never did what she accused him of. Once the counselor leaves he beats her and threatens her. Had this information gotten out it would destroy his reputation along with the possibility of going to jail. Sexual molesters often punish and threaten their victims to keep them quiet.

“If you ever, ever breathe a word to anyone else, I’ll kill you!” hissed my father, his face swelling with rage. “I’ll kill you, and I’ll enjoy doing it. You stupid, stupid, stupid, cursed, worthless, evil girl!”²

Mr. Imam will I get 72 male virgins in heaven. Woman, you'll be lucky it you make it to heaven.

The story comes to a climax when Shah realizes her father and mother are secretly getting ready to ship her off to Pakistan into a forced marriage. She was only 16. She had a friend and teacher she could trust and with their help she escapes her family.

Even after leaving successfully Shah has bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts. This kind of abuse can have life-long consequences for the victim.

That damage didn’t simply go away when the abuse stopped. I continued to feel dirty and guilty. I had hidden it for so long, my shame was almost overpowering.³

The family tries hard to get her back. By refusing the marriage and running away, she disgraced not only her family but also the local Pakistani Muslim community. But worse than all that is when she converted to Christianity. For many years she moved around from place to place because in Islam apostates must be killed. At one point her father with a mob show up at her house shouting threats. She thought they were going to kill her, but while cowering in home the mob left. She’s not sure why.

Because of her new Christian faith she loses her entire family. Even her kind-hearted brother, her favorite family member, wrote this to her in a text:

Come back to Islam right now.
Unless you do, you are an apostate.
I will not be responsible for my actions.⁴

About this text, Shah writes:

I could hardly believe my gentle brother Raz, who had escorted me to school to receive my English prize all those years ago, had said such a thing. Dad had succeeded in remaking even Raz in his own image.⁵

Shah now speaks out about the plight of many Muslim women who are forced into marriages with men they don’t love and who are also abused in those marriages. Shah met and married a Christian man, so this story has a happy ending for her, but she’s quick to say that that is not the case for countless young, Muslim women.

At school our politically safe lessons had avoided the dark and misogynistic side of forced marriages. It was presented as a cultural and religious practice that, while seeming strange to most British people, should be treated with respect and understanding. The reality—that this was often a shocking and brutal abuse of women—was left unreported.⁶

Why? Because people are too afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic and Western societies have bought into “diversity” at the expense of common sense and decency. Islam is not equal with Christianity or Western culture and it never has been. It is inferior and Westerners should not shy away from saying so.

Near the end of her book Shah writes:

This I know: the problems that darkened the first sixteen years of my life will never go away on their own. Now, more than ever, we who cherish freedom of expression, freedom of political choice, and freedom of belief need to take a stand. We need to act.⁷

What does you Muslim husband get in heaven. Women, wine and boys. What do you get? I suppose I get to watch.

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Notes

Shah, Hannah. The Imam's Daughter: My Desperate Flight to Freedom, 2012, Kindle Edition, p. 164
Ibid. p. 158.
Ibid. p. 243.
Ibid. 258.
Ibid.
Ibid. p. 163.
Ibid. p. 268.