Jan 24th

Not Easily Washed Away: Memoirs Of A Muslim’s Daughter is the true story of Laila Hassan. Born to a Muslim family in Pakistan, she suffers sexual, mental and physical abuse for fifteen years by her father, Abdulla Hassan. Laila decides to take advantage of her father’s incestuous addiction by having him acquire a visa for her to the United States, where she feels as if she can rid herself of a putrid past. The book is written from a psychological perspective in first person, as Laila shares her painful past with the reader, sparing no details of her ordeal as a child, teenager and young adult.

After she realizes her father’s diabolical plan is to keep her in Pakistan for himself, Laila decides to take fate into her own hands. Her new attitude helps her to turn the tables on her father, now living in America, and manipulate him into marrying an American woman to get Laila’s visa to the United States.
Arriving in America is not the end of her struggle. She arrives in Seattle, Washington, in 2004 to start a new life away from her father, but ends up being unable to stop the incestuous relationship with him and later on, with her stepmother. Things get even worse for Laila, as she is now twenty years old, depressed, and worried that her family’s fate back in Pakistan might be jeopardized if she leaves home. But in the Spring of 2007 Laila’s life changes when she meets an interesting, Christian, Jamaican man at school. The young man confronts Laila about the abuse, and when she realizes she has feelings for him, she tells him everything. The young man then tries to convince Laila that she can free herself of her abusive father and stepmother by running away with him

This is A New book on Amazon. This happens in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but is rarely ever discussed. Most people I’ve talked to say that Muslim men does not treat their daughter this way. What is your perception on the subject and the book?



This syndicated post originally appeared at on 24 January 2011