Fundamentally Flawed: what fiction misses about ISIS and radicalisation
- Sophy Robinson
- Oct 31
- 8 min read
By Sophy Robinson
Sophy draws on her West London book club’s reading of Fundamentally – a prize-shortlisted novel about a young academic’s attempts to deradicalise an ISIS bride – to explore the real-world issues the book only skims. Moving beyond fiction, she investigates the continuing threat of ISIS, the radicalisation of young people online, and the complex moral and political questions surrounding women like Shamima Begum.
Sophy is a former trustee of Humanists UK.
The most recent title chosen by my West London book club is a much-praised contemporary novel called Fundamentally. It’s the debut work of Dr Nussaibah Younis, a London-based peacebuilding expert and internationally recognised authority on contemporary Iraq. Shortlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, the book tells the story of a heartbroken academic in her twenties who takes a job in Iraq running a UK programme for the deradicalisation of ISIS women.
Sadly, it proved to be a great disappointment. While I struggled with many aspects of the writing style and the plot – narrated at times like a slapstick comedy laced with sexual innuendo, with the protagonist often portrayed as a cartoonish, Bridget Jones-like figure – the novel did prompt me to think again about so-called ‘ISIS brides’, including the high-profile case of Shamima Begum.
The book centres on Dr Nadia Amin’s attempts to rescue Sara – an ISIS bride whose character is clearly modelled on Shamima Begum. The first half is set in a UN base in Baghdad before shifting to a detention camp, where efforts to deradicalise the women fall on stony ground. After failing to have Sara repatriated through official channels, Nadia smuggles her and her baby across the border into Turkey. She then persuades Sara’s parents to fly from the UK to talk some sense into her and, miraculously, an NGO job is secured. We have our happy ending.
Although I found the story unsatisfying, it did spark my curiosity about the real-world issues it touches on. I’ve therefore done some research for this article into the radicalisation of young British women such as Shamima Begum – the model for the fictional Sara – and into the wider phenomenon of ISIS radicalisation.
According to the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), as of 2025 the Islamic State (also known as ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) no longer controls significant territory in the Middle East. However, through a hybrid organisational model that balances regional autonomy with centralised oversight, it remains lethal, resilient and adaptive – and therefore a continuing threat. Founded in 2004, it declared its caliphate in 2014, signalling that it saw itself not just as a militant group, but as the legitimate Islamic government for all Muslims. At its height, it pursued a global jihadist agenda, claiming up to 80,000 militants, including more than 42,000 foreign fighters from over 120 countries.
While estimates suggest that only 1,500 to 3,000 fighters remain active in Syria and Iraq today, ISIS’s global presence has expanded significantly, by shifting to a more decentralised operational model. Somalia now hosts a fast-growing affiliate, IS-S, which is steadily becoming a logistical and financial hub for ISIS worldwide. There are also fighters in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mozambique, as well as an affiliate in South-East Asia – IS-Khorasan (ISK) – with an estimated force of between 4,000 and 6,000. This latter group has emerged as one of the most aggressive and active jihadist organisations globally, operating both within and beyond its region.
ISIS’s current digital operations allow it to exploit social media platforms and encrypted messaging tools to disseminate propaganda and recruit supporters – particularly younger people, who are both highly active online and vulnerable to radicalisation. Recent examples include a 14-year-old girl detained for planning an axe and knife attack in Austria; another 14-year-old arrested in early 2025 for plotting to target a train station in Vienna; and a foiled 2024 plot against Taylor Swift concerts, also in Vienna, involving teenagers aged 17 to 19.
In the UK, the recent Manchester mosque attack involved 35-year-old Jihad al-Shamie, and investigators are still piecing together how he became radicalised. Last year in Southport, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana carried out the shocking stabbing of eleven young girls. He was later found to have accessed an al-Qaeda training manual on his laptop.
The young age of many of these individuals – highly active online yet unknown to counter-terrorism authorities – highlights the alarmingly short timeframe in which radicalisation and mobilisation to violence can occur. ISIS militants and their supporters use encrypted messaging platforms, often sharing online tutorials that teach followers how to evade surveillance and maintain operational security.
ISIS’s digital strategy also includes the use of financial technologies, such as cryptocurrencies and anonymous online platforms, to raise and transfer funds for propaganda, logistics and affiliate operations. These methods can evade traditional financial oversight and further enable the group’s global activities.
The phenomenon of ‘ISIS brides’ involved the recruitment of Western women and girls who travelled to Syria and Iraq to join or marry ISIS fighters. Some went voluntarily (for example, the British schoolgirls known as the Bethnal Green trio), while others were taken as minors – either by their families or through some form of coercion.
From 2012 onwards, women joined ISIS for a variety of reasons, combining personal vulnerability with deliberate recruitment efforts. As already noted, ISIS used sophisticated online tactics – including social media and publications such as its magazine Dabiq – to target and groom women. Recruiters painted an idealised picture of life in the self-proclaimed caliphate, promising a new sense of religious purpose and belonging, and the chance to marry a ‘heroic’ freedom fighter engaged in divine acts of jihad.
Many recruits were teenagers and young adults navigating identity crises or feeling marginalised, conflicted and alienated in their home countries. Some were made to feel guilty about their privileged lives in the West. Racist and anti-Islamic sentiments in Western societies contributed to some women feeling unwelcome – and to seeking a place where they felt they belonged.
Once they arrived, their roles extended beyond simply being wives – breeding and raising the next generation of fighters became a central duty. ISIS encouraged men to train their children as ‘lion cubs’ (ashbal), exposing some to indoctrination from the age of six and to military training by age nine. Meanwhile, some brides were given administrative or enforcement roles and even joined the al-Khansaa Brigade – an all-female police force that upheld ISIS’s strict morality code.
Other foreign women became active online recruiters, using their language skills and personal stories to encourage others to join the caliphate. As ISIS’s military position weakened up to 2019, some women were even issued a fatwa – a religious ruling – allowing them to take up arms and receive sniper training.
After the fall of the caliphate in 2019, many former ISIS women and their children were captured and have been held indefinitely in north-eastern Syria in detention camps such as al-Hol and al-Roj, which are controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. The fate of thousands has become a contentious international issue, as living conditions in the camps are described as both inhuman and unlawful. Concerns include disease, exposure, malnutrition and continued indoctrination. The problem is that while some women have renounced ISIS ideology, others remain devoted to it and continue to enforce its rules within the camps. As a result, some of their children remain exposed to ongoing radicalisation – perhaps creating another generation of fighters.
Many Western governments have been hesitant to repatriate their citizens due to security concerns, public opinion and the difficulty of gathering evidence for prosecution – and their efforts have been inconsistent. Countries such as Australia, France, Germany, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have repatriated some women and children, often on a case-by-case basis. But reintegration can be a challenge for both the women and their children.
For individuals such as the UK’s Shamima Begum, governments have revoked citizenship on national security grounds. Legal challenges have explored complex questions of statelessness and trafficking, but most have been unsuccessful. Part of the problem lies in public perception – whether these women were active participants in ISIS atrocities, domestic slaves or simply naïve pawns in a powerful propaganda war.
After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the ongoing transition during 2025 has created a security vacuum that ISIS could exploit. Dismantling SDF–run detention centres and the al-Hol and al-Roj camps has become a priority. But finding an effective way to repatriate, rehabilitate and prosecute the men, women and children in these camps remains extremely challenging. The risk of prison breaks and the reintegration of freed detainees into ISIS ranks also poses a continuing threat to global stability.
Having explored the grim realities that Fundamentally only gestures towards, I was struck by how far the novel falls short of the truth. The complexities of radicalisation, deradicalisation and repatriation are far deeper and more troubling than its fictional treatment suggests. I had hoped that Fundamentally’s account might offer some genuine insight, but sadly it did not. Despite mostly positive published reviews, I found the characters implausible, and the attempt to explain the phenomenon of radicalisation through their experiences and dialogue fell flat – for me and for my book group alike. Ultimately, this book was a missed opportunity to tackle a fascinating subject.
Biographical note about Shamima Begum
Shamima Begum was 15 years old in 2015 when she was recruited online and left Bethnal Green, London, with two school friends to join ISIS in Raqqa, Syria. According to her sister, her favourite TV programme was Keeping Up with the Kardashians. After one of her East London school friends defected from the group, Shamima was interviewed by the authorities, who feared she might have been influenced – but the police failed to alert her parents directly. By that time, her teenage ambitions included joining ISIS, and using her sister’s passport she travelled to Syria. Once there, she married an ISIS fighter and went on to have three children, all of whom died in infancy.
Four years later, with ISIS in decline, a journalist discovered Begum in a refugee camp in Syria. Her televised interview – in which she expressed a wish to return to Britain, partly for the sake of her unborn child – did not go well. Dressed in a black chador, she recalled, almost casually, the sight of an ISIS victim’s decapitated head in a bin, saying, ‘It didn’t faze me at all.’ She appeared confident rather than repentant. Even her sister, Renu Begum, remarked that this cold-hearted appearance ‘set fire to our nation’s emotions’.
In 2019 she sought to return to the UK, but the government revoked her citizenship on national security grounds. Her legal appeals failed, and in 2024 the UK Supreme Court ruled that she could not return to pursue her case. She remains in the al–Roj camp in north-eastern Syria.
Women who aided or attempted to aid ISIS
Women from many countries joined or supported ISIS, demonstrating that the phenomenon extended far beyond the Middle East. Among them were Mariam Dabboussy and Zehra Duman from Australia; Hayat Boumeddiene and Émilie König from France; Linda Wenzel from Germany; Lisa Smith from Ireland; Suhayra Aden from New Zealand; and several from the United Kingdom, including Amira Abase, Shamima and Sharmeena Begum, Sally Jones, Aqsa Mahmood, Tareena Shakil and Kadiza Sultana. The United States also recorded a few cases, among them Hoda Muthana and Daniela Greene – an FBI translator who notoriously married an ISIS fighter she had been assigned to investigate.
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