A novel about a heartbroken academic who joins a UN agency, flies out to Iraq, and leads a programme deradicalising Islamic State (IS) brides sounds like a morose storyline – and yet Nussaibah Younis’ debut novel Fundamentally is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time.
The novel opens with our protagonist, Nadia, scrambling over mountains with British IS bride Sara, as she tries to smuggle her over the border into Turkey.
You just know this novel is going to take you on one hell of a ride.
Nadia is a British lecturer who has been granted leave to go to Iraq to lead UNDO, a United Nations agency aiming to de-radicalise IS brides and prove to their countries of origin that they’re not a threat, so they will repatriate them.
The UN believes Nadia is the ideal candidate since she wrote her PhD on the subject. It’s convenient timing for Nadia, who is still in the throes of heartbreak after her ex-girlfriend, Rosy, dumped her to get married to her boyfriend.
But soon, Nadia discovers that turning policy theory into practice is not an easy job, especially in the UN, and especially in Iraq, where she finds her new colleagues employing all sorts of unethical practices to get the new Iraqi government on board with their deradicalisation programme.
The past 20 years have seen a plethora of novels about Muslim terrorists and, more recently, IS, so as a reader and person of colour, I could not help but be cynical when I first read the blurb of the book.
But those doubts were instantly laid to rest.
Fundamentally is not only outrageously hilarious, but it is clever; the characters are complex and multi-dimensional, and they each have an interesting backstory as to how they got to where they are today, from the UN aid workers who don’t seem to be completely adept at their jobs, to the former IS brides.
Nussaibah is also perfectly placed to have written this story. The British-Iraqi-Pakistani academic’s background is not too dissimilar to her protagonist’s. Nussaibah is a former political scientist and policy adviser who worked in Iraq for 10 years and recently advised the Iraqi government on the rehabilitation and reintegration of local women perceived to be affiliated with IS.
After overcoming the initial hurdles of getting other UN agencies on board and the approval of the high-maintenance female Iraqi ‘Ministry of Humane Affairs’, Nadia finally travels with her team to the location where the camp housing IS brides is situated.
There, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with 19-year-old IS bride Sara from East London, who is distrustful of Nadia and the UN’s motives and has an attitude to go with it.
Nadia sees herself in Sara – in her teenage years, Nadia followed a more puritanical version of Islam and, at one point, found herself enamoured by Qaeda cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki. She realises that had her life turned out differently, she could be standing in Sara’s shoes.
When Nadia discovers Sara’s two-year-old daughter was forcibly taken off her, Sara automatically becomes her rescue mission. And Nadia risks everything to save her.
“I thought it’d be really interesting to write a novel that explored two people coming together, one who had been radicalised at 15 years old and one who hadn’t, but had still ended up going to Iraq in order to try and deradicalise IS brides,” Nussaibah tells The New Arab.
She adds, “I thought it was quite funny pitting those two people against each other. There was a lot of humour when I thought about how my 15-year-old self would react to me as I’ve grown up and how she would be quite funny, have a bit of an attitude, be very certain about her worldview, maybe be quite an ideological purist, and how someone who’s more like me as I am today is a bit more cynical and jaded and condescending to that 15-year-old.”
Fundamentally allows you to pay privy to the inside workings of the United Nations, even if some of the agencies in the novel are entirely made up.
There is gossip, partying, pranks, affairs, and bribery – and somehow, you come away from the book wondering if the United Nations has any decision-making power at all.
“The UN often finds itself in impossible situations and can often be very disempowered in those situations,” Nussaibah explains. “We rarely see institutions like the UN in popular culture, so we have this idea of them as rarefied institutions that are noble in their missions. We don’t understand that they are just made up of individuals who are flawed and like any workplace, are going through their own personal crises and have their own motivations for why they’ve taken that job. So, I wanted to just show the reality of the UN as a sort of normal, dysfunctional workplace.”
As you read the novel, you can’t help but draw parallels between Sara’s storyline and that of Shamima Begum, who in 2015 travelled from London to Syria as a 15-year-old to join IS and ultimately had her British citizenship revoked, destroying any hope of her being repatriated to the UK.
The former IS brides that Nadia and her team are trying to repatriate don’t seem violent or threatening at all, and you can’t help but sympathise with Sara and the other women in the camp.
“Shamima’s is the case that is the most alive in the popular consciousness, but there are so many different women who have ended up in those camps and for all different reasons ended up going there. I hope it just encourages people to see those women as human beings who have complicated backstories and very human motivations for having made those journeys,” says Nussaibah.
“I think it’s important to provide an opportunity for people to see them as fully-rounded people that they can relate to. Sara is not just a simple-minded, stupid girl who’s just a victim and doesn’t have any thoughts of her own and hasn’t contributed in any way to the situation she’s found herself in. It’s about trying to tell the truth of the situation,” she adds.
One of the most frustrating aspects of Nadia’s character is her belief that her lifestyle is the right one.
After her mother disowned her during her university years for not adhering to all aspects of the Islamic faith, Nadia turned to agnosticism. Her break-up with Rosy then fuelled some unhealthy lifestyle choices.
At one point in the novel, Sara confronts her, having had enough of Nadia trying to impose her own lifestyle on her.
There is a reckoning for them both – Nadia is just as guilty of trying to impose her lifestyle on Sara as Nadia’s mother was previously for trying to impose the faith on Nadia, and Sara realises that letting go of IS doesn’t mean she has to let go of her Islamic faith.
“I was trying to show that the pain of the loss of belonging and the loss of a relationship with your parents can lead to extreme acting out, but it can go in the way of becoming very irreligious and not necessarily in a healthy way, and I think Nadia realises that her lifestyle is not healthy. And for Sara, it’s gone in the way of becoming a fundamentalist,” says Nussaibah.
“But what I’m trying to show is neither of those lifestyle choices is based on a real, well-thought-out ideology; they’re coming from a place of pain, and that’s why I wanted the solution at the end of the book to really be about reconnecting both characters with their homes.
“That was born out of research about radicalism; the most effective thing you can do to prevent people from engaging in radical behaviour is to really reintegrate them back into their families and their communities.
“It’s not really about arguing about religion. It’s about giving people homes.”
Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press
Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA
