Amira Karroum

Welcome to Muslimah Week on YDM! This week, the site will focus on female followers of the religion of peace and their unique contributions to the world.

“Islam is my identity. The burqa is my shield. Jannah is my destination.”

Ausfailian Muslimah Amira Karroum was not the type one would expect to become a jihadist. Karroum, who didn’t wear any sort of bizarre Islamic ninja costume at the time, attended Christian schools during her upbringing despite being a Muslim. Her family was not particularly devout. Everything changed when she met Yusuf Ali, a local Muslim man and member of a street dawah (Islamic evangelism) group. After spending a bit of time with Ali, Karroum’s sentiments grew more and more bizarre.

In a space once occupied by pithy insights and emoticons now rested calls for violence against police and condemnations of Australia’s secular democratic system. Such posts on Karroum’s Facebook wall became more common as time passed. “F**k the police! Smash all cop cars,” she wrote, shortly before condemning young Muslimahs who contributed to secular democracy by voting. “Today I witnessed hijabi girls promoting democracy with their tee shirts and their stupid voting papers. Kuffars! May Allah guide these strangers.” It is worth noting that Ausfailia has compulsory voting, so Karroum was in violation of the law unless she rendered herself a hypocrite. The divide between Muslim and kafir (infidel) can be clearly seen here; a devout Muslim like Karroum is unwilling to integrate into or participate in secular society.

Shortly thereafter, Karroum’s husband moved to war-torn Aleppo, Syria, likely to be involved in jihad. She followed fairly soon thereafter, telling her friends and family that she was going to Copenhagen. Now self-identifying as a “slave to Allah,” she and her husband managed to survive a short while before their apartment was riddled with bullets, killing both.

After the couple’s deaths, many Muslims referred to them as “martyrs.” They used their passing as a chance to criticize the Ausfailian government and promote Islamic dawah instead of condemning the radical actions of the pair. Again we can see how Muslims’ values wildly differ from ours – when will we come to terms with the fact that Islam will never be able to integrate into western society?