A Personal Matter: The Memoirs of Sarfraz Manzoor, Yasmin Hai and Zaiba Malik as a response to 7/7

The 2005 terrorist attack in London shook British multiculturalism to its foundations and meant a turning point in the relationship between British Muslims and the state. The actions of the four British-born bombers turned British Muslims, and British Pakistanis in particular, into suspects who needed to show their allegiance to British values. The memoirs by Sarfraz Manzoor, Yasmin Hai and Zaiba Malik emerge as attempts to reverse this twisted rhetoric and claim that Britishness and Islam are not incompatible. This article argues that the hostile media environment in the aftermath of 7/7 interpellated these three authors, journalists by profession, to publicly share their lives in order to become representatives of moderate British Muslims. Even though their memoirs devote few pages to discussing 7/7, their emotional response to this event acts as a catalyst for the writing process itself.