Invisible Martyrs: Inside the Secret World of Female Islamic Radicals

Qazi, a former analyst at the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center and a Muslim, investigates what leads women to become radical Islamists in this volume, part analysis and part searching memoir. A significant and growing threat—suicide attacks by women represent approximately 36% of the total in Iraq in recent years, she notes—extremist women fascinate and repel Qazi, who struggles to reconcile their perspectives and motivations with the inclusive and life-affirming religion of her upbringing. Utilizing interviews with female jihadists (both those from active war zones and Westerners who have joined terrorist organizations) and their families, as well as their public statements and writings, she highlights “the way in which stories were enfolded within other stories,” obliquely pointing to the “terrible, fatal truths in a time of war.” She develops a framework she calls “the three Cs”—culture, context, and capability—to predict when women might be susceptible to the allure of violence, and draws on her own experience as a Muslim mother to suggest steps parents can take to inoculate their children against extremism online, such as “discuss[ing] real, taboo topics like sex, drugs, and ISIS.” She sometimes elides the vast gulf between the two groups she examines; her behavioral theory, which claims it can encompass an illiterate child bride in rural Afghanistan and an angsty teenager browsing Facebook in suburban Colorado, seems too broad to work as a predictive tool. Despite the occasional platitudes, this is a heartfelt plea for the tolerant majority to take back their religion from the violent fringe. (Sept.)