Islam, Nationality, and Identity. Theme Analysis

Home Fire is a contemporary retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone, focusing on two British Muslim families in contemporary England. The first family is the Pashas: 28-year-old Isma and her 19-year-old twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz. The second family central to the story is the Lones: Karamat Lone, his Irish-American wife, Terry, and their 24-year-old son, Eammon. While both families have roots in Pakistan and both consider themselves to be fully British, the fact that the Pashas adhere to more conservative Muslim practices makes them feel like outsiders, while the Lones are more assimilated into non-Muslim British society. Shamsie thus highlights the conflict between what it means to be Muslim and what it means to be British, using the differences and similarities between the two families to examine how conservative Muslims are disproportionately subjected to racism and Islamophobia (particularly following the rise of the Islamic State). Shamsie suggests that despite Muslim people’s efforts to simultaneously honor their religious and cultural traditions and be accepted by the Western society they call home, discrimination often forces them to choose one aspect of their identity over the other.

Shamsie uses the Pashas to illustrate how practicing Muslims are often targeted in Britain; they are made to feel as though they are not British because of their faith. When Isma boards a plane to the U.S., she makes sure not to bring anything on the plane that could draw attention to her: “no Quran, no family pictures, no books on her area of academic interest.” But because of Isma’s hijab, she is still interrogated for two hours and she misses her flight. One of the questions the security officer explicitly asks is, “Do you consider yourself British?” This incident and the officer’s questions imply that something about Isma’s faith makes her untrustworthy and less British than a non-Muslim person, even though Isma is a British citizen. This idea becomes far more concrete and personal when Isma and Aneeka’s brother, Parvaiz, is killed after joining and then attempting to escape ISIS. His body is brought to Pakistan rather than England, because Karamat Lone, who is the British Home Secretary, enacts policies revoking the citizenship of dual nationals who “left Britain to join our enemies.” Despite the fact that England is the only place that Parvaiz ever called home, he isn’t granted forgiveness on the basis of trying to escape ISIS. Rather, Lone’s policy demonstrates that Britain is staunchly opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, to the point that even those who attempt to desert ISIS can never be considered British again. Notably, Parvaiz never committed any violence while he was a part of ISIS, yet his loss of citizenship is a harsher punishment than non-Muslim violent criminals are likely to receive in Britain. This law has far-reaching consequences beyond punishing those who are affiliated with ISIS: Aneeka, a practicing Muslim, also has her British citizenship revoked when she tries to retrieve her brother’s body from Pakistan and bring it back to London, emphasizing the injustice and cruelty of the law that Lone had created. When she arrives in Pakistan, her British passport is confiscated by the security services and she is unable to apply for a new one. Lone thinks to himself when hearing of this development, “Let her continue to be British; but let her be British outside Britain.” Even Lone recognizes that this statement is absurd: to be of a nation but not to be allowed within that nation leaves Aneeka without a homeland. Thus, even though she has committed no crimes, Aneeka’s Muslim faith and affiliation with Pakistan are deemed fundamentally incompatible with her nationality as a British person.

The Lones (particularly Karamat and Eamonn), on the other hand, represent the opposite side of the spectrum. While Karamat is of Pakistani descent, he renounces his faith and his Muslim identity in order to be accepted by the broader British population, indicating that he, too, feels he cannot be both British and Muslim at the same time. Early on, Isma reads an article that describes Karamat as “a man ‘from a Muslim background,’ which is what they always said about him, as though Muslim-ness was something he had boldly stridden away from.” This sets up Karamat as a man who has foregone his faith in order to be accepted by the British people. Eamonn also notes how his father was demonized for his faith in the past and was thus forced to separate himself from it. During Karamat’s first term as a Member of Parliament, a picture of him entering a mosque surfaced and it was published with the headline, “Lone Wolf’s Pack Revealed.” Karamat pointed out that the picture was several years old and that he had only been in the mosque for a funeral and “would otherwise never enter a gender-segregated space.” Karamat was essentially forced to renounce these religious customs, demonstrating the need for Muslim people to separate themselves from their faith in order to gain wide political support. Karamat acknowledges this idea and doubles down on his actions in a speech to his own former school, where the student body is predominantly Muslim. Though he acknowledges that the students are British, he argues, “Don't set yourself apart in the way you dress, the way you think, the outdated codes of behavior you cling to, the ideologies to which you attach your loyalties. Because if you do, you will be treated differently.” Essentially, Lone argues that the things that make the students Muslim are the things that separate them from British people as a whole—and so they should choose being British over being Muslim.

Ultimately, the story ends with the implied deaths of Aneeka and Eamonn in a terrorist attack as they try to return Parvaiz’s body to Britain. Their tragic story is meant as a lesson for society: to be Muslim and to be British are simply aspects of a person’s identity, rather than the diametrically opposed forces that many people think they are. And had these two aspects not been considered mutually exclusive by society at large—if Aneeka, Eamonn, and Parvaiz had simply been allowed to embrace their British identities and their Muslim identities—then perhaps all three of these young people might still be alive.