What to read after Osama's Jihad?

It is an empowering novel; it is a conversation starter.

It addresses both Homophobia and Islamophobia, it sheds light on both matters through the eyes of the main character, Osama, living in two different worlds. It is a story of unconditional love; it is about the ties that bind a family together. The story offers an insight into the lives of average Muslim families, living in the West, with strong ties to the Middle East.

It’s not what you think. It’s not what you’re expecting. It’s not a defense, a diatribe, or an endorsement. 

Osama’s Jihad, instead, is an extraordinary novel that takes you from New York City to Cairo to Makkah and back again, as our protagonist, Osama, grows from childhood to manhood through a series of dizzying experiences. 

After the death of his beloved father, the adult Osama is adrift in guilt, recriminations, and self-doubt. Despite their strong and devoted relationship, an incident in the family years before had uprooted the adolescent Osama, his mother, and sister from New York to Cairo. Osama finds a passionate and all-encompassing love in neighbor Nora, but shocking revelations about her lead to anguish, scarring, and possibly permanent ruin. 

It is clear that Osama needs to acknowledge his past and accept his own culpability as well as find a road to his future. We identify with him as his vulnerability and self-loathing threaten to overtake his desire to live and to see his son grow to manhood. Indeed, Osama is living his jihad, the spiritual struggle within that every human must confront and triumph over.

Osama’s Jihad is a story with universal relevance, that is unique in its ability to cross between post terrorism irrationality and the unifying powers of love, understanding, and acceptance. It bridges cultures, nationalism, and religions in a way unlike anything you’ve read before. 

" It’s not very often that I come across a story that touches my heart so deeply that it resonates with my every emotion. To say that I fell in love with the story and its characters from the very beginning would not come close to accurately depicting the intensity of my admiration for it. It is my strong belief that Hani Selim has impressively found a way to create a story encompassing so many important topics affecting the world today. He has accomplished this in a selfless effort to magnify humanity. I am not an Arab, I am not a Muslim and I am not a Homosexual. I am a mother. As a mother, it pains me to think of all the hatred that some children have to face because of such classifications. To be a supporter of this book and its continued production, would be a step in the right direction on the path to a better world. I know that whoever reads this novel will walk away with an increased knowledge of what it feels like to be a person placed in such categories. They will be exposed to the struggles one must face in an effort to secure basic freedoms deserved by all human beings. This novel will pull at your heart strings and dig deep within your soul to distinguish a new sense of empathy. It really is a story that has ‘something for everyone’, but in the end it all comes down to love. I predict a definite “best-seller”