These Impossible Things

These Impossible Things (2022) is the debut novel by Egyptian Irish author Salma El-Wardany. She is a popular commentator on issues of feminism, identity, and gender, presents the Breakfast Show on BBC London, and has been featured twice as a TEDx speaker. El-Wardany has contributed essays to the 2019 essay collection It’s Not About the Burqa, which features various writers on questions of modern Muslim womanhood, and the 2023 collection of essays “No Offence, But…”: How to Have Difficult Conversations for Meaningful Change.

These Impossible Things focuses on three young British Muslim women who have been close friends from childhood. After a heated argument, they grow distant from one another and struggle to reconcile love, faith, and individuality in the absence of their supportive friendship.  

This guide references the 2022 Hachette electronic edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss religious intolerance, racism, rape, domestic violence and abuse, sexism and misogyny, and political violence, including killings.

Plot Summary

The novel opens on friends Jenna, Malak, and Bilquis (“Kees”) enjoying an idyllic afternoon with Malak’s boyfriend, Jacob, and Kees’s boyfriend, Harry. The three young women are British Muslims, while Jacob and Harry are white; Malak and Kees are keeping their relationships a secret from their families, who expect that they will marry Muslim men. That evening, Jacob breaks up with Malak—he is frustrated because she doesn’t think their relationship has a future.

Kees takes the train to her parents’ house to spend an evening with her family. She enjoys her time with them, reveling in the warmth and the old routines. Her younger sister, Saba, reveals that she plans to marry soon and says their parents have set her up with a matchmaker. She hopes Kees won’t mind if she marries before Kees does. After this conversation, Kees struggles to keep Harry a secret from her family.

Months after her breakup, Malak still struggles with heartbreak. At Saba’s engagement party, she and Kees get into an argument about marrying for love—which Kees supports—or marrying for community approval, which is what Malak wants. The argument grows heated, and the two storm away from one another. Jenna, caught in the middle of their fight, fears taking sides; she ends up spending more time with Lewis, who is an old lover turned friend.

Malak decides to move to Egypt—her parents’ homeland—to take her mind off her breakup and get in touch with her roots. She enjoys her early months in Cairo: She works at an international school, spends time with extended family, and goes out to dinners and bars with her roommates. She misses Jenna and Kees but pushes these thoughts aside. When she goes to prayers at a mosque, she meets Ali, a British Muslim man, and is immediately attracted to him.

Back in England, Kees struggles with anxiety and guilt over lying to her family about Harry, especially as Saba’s wedding approaches. She attends a dinner with Harry’s parents, who offer to purchase them an apartment. This offer makes Kees uncomfortable, as she does not wish to officially move in with Harry before they are married. One day, Jacob suddenly asks her to meet him; he confides that Harry plans to propose and advises her to say yes since she clearly loves him. Jacob is still miserable after his breakup with Malak, and Kees realizes she loves Harry too much to hurt him in this way. When Harry proposes, she happily agrees to marry him, though she still worries about her family’s reaction.

In Cairo, Malak initially thinks Ali is the perfect man for her. However, he gradually becomes controlling, insisting that she wear modest clothes and not drink alcohol. Malak willingly agrees to these conditions, not wanting to lose him. However, one day, he becomes very angry when Malak messages Jacob on his birthday, and soon after, he becomes physically and verbally abusive. He always apologizes and is tender toward Malak after his episodes, and she learns to avoid triggering him by dressing and behaving as he wishes.

Meanwhile, Jenna struggles with loneliness after losing touch with Malak and Kees. Lewis, too, begins a serious relationship with another woman, leaving Jenna even lonelier. She seeks various sexual encounters with people she meets online. She chooses not to have penetrative sex, which she feels is important to save for her marriage. One night, a man named Mark rapes her, penetrating her against her will. After this assault, Jenna cannot shake the idea that she is culpable for what happened and decides to stop pursuing sexual liaisons of any kind. Instead, she begins dating a Muslim man named Mo—he is sexually conservative, and Jenna is not attracted to him, but she feels he is the type of stable partner she needs. Jenna brings Mo home to meet her parents, and they approve of him. Without fanfare, Jenna becomes engaged to Mo.

At Saba’s wedding, Kees reveals to her family that she is engaged to Harry, who is white, Catholic, and has no intention of converting to Islam. Her family insists she break off the engagement. When she refuses, they tell her she is no longer welcome in their home. Afterward, Kees is brusque and distant with Harry as she processes this. She reveals that her family has cut off ties with her, which shocks Harry and his family.

Kees plans a nikah, or an Islamic marriage, in advance of her legal wedding to Harry so that she can move in with him in their new flat without feeling guilt. Harry’s mother, Vivian, tries to plan the event perfectly, though her lack of familiarity with Muslim cultural traditions leaves the details inaccurate. Kees’s father appears at the nikah, despite his wife’s prohibition; he gives her a gold bangle as a wedding gift but refuses to stay for the ceremony.

When the 25 January Revolution begins in Egypt, Ali is heavily involved with the protests. One day, Malak sees a man dying in front of her and stops to help; when she gets home, Ali shouts at her for being late, suspicious and jealous that she is lying about her whereabouts. After the revolution ends, Malak learns that she is three months pregnant. She emails Kees, requesting her help.

Kees hurries to Egypt, even though she and Malak have not spoken in a year and a half. Malak describes the abuse she has suffered and asks Kees to help her get back to England before the coming Saturday, which is the last day she can legally get an abortion. Kees helps Malak pack her things and schedules flights back to England. In England, Harry and Lewis meet them at the airport. Lewis discloses the circumstances around Jenna’s rape. He asks the friends to stop Jenna from marrying Mo, saying that Jenna decided to marry him from a place of trauma and fear.

Kees and Malak hurry to Jenna’s house, where they help her tell her mother, Evie, the truth about her assault. Evie promises to handle the details of calling off the wedding. At Jenna’s house, Kees encounters her mother for the first time since she told her about Harry. Kees criticizes her mother for being cruel and hypocritical, and when Harry gently chides Kees for being rude to her mother, Kees’s mother sees Harry for the first time and appreciates his graciousness. At the abortion clinic, Jacob arrives to stay with Malak and takes her to Kees’s apartment after the procedure. Jacob is kind and supportive, though he reveals that he now has a new girlfriend whom he loves. Malak feels regret over breaking up with him. At the end of the novel, the three friends comfort one another and share the events from the time they spent apart.