Unbearable Muslim Masculinity in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire

Researchers’ concern has grown over an alarming trend among young Muslim men of immigrant backgrounds born in Western countries to adopt religiously extremist tendencies. They have overlooked the Western-born young Muslim men who are disillusioned by fundamentalist Western states and social behavior...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Men and masculinities Vol. 28; no. 4; pp. 415 - 433
Main Author: Safdar, Muhammad
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2025
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Belonging
Immigrants
Islam
Jihad
Masculinity
Men
Muslims
Politics
Religion
September 11 terrorist attacks-2001
Social behavior
Social factors
Social integration
Subjectivity
Muslim men
affects
Britain
nihilopolitics
masculinity
ISIS
ISSN:1097-184X, 1552-6828
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Researchers’ concern has grown over an alarming trend among young Muslim men of immigrant backgrounds born in Western countries to adopt religiously extremist tendencies. They have overlooked the Western-born young Muslim men who are disillusioned by fundamentalist Western states and social behavior and reactionary Islamist politics. It is this relatively overlooked young Western-born (especially British-born) Muslim masculine subject that I intend to explore in Shamsie’s Home Fire through Parvaiz’s character by drawing on Bradley’s concept of unbearable life with the aim to intervene in the discourse of post-9/11 Muslim jihadist masculinity and cultural integration. I examine how Parvaiz is derecognized and politically erased by the nihilopolitics of set norms of gender, religion, Islamism, and the state apparatuses of Britain; and, then how he resists and politicizes this space of non-subjectivity. I argue that this state of nullification becomes a new site of politics for him to assert his distinctive masculine self, belongingness, and voice.
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ISSN:1097-184X
1552-6828
DOI:10.1177/1097184X251327425