Apna Khuda Ek Aurat Noor Zaheer -HARPERCOLLINS

Safia Mehdi’s family hopes that she will bring back her deviant husband, Abbas Jafri, to ‘God’s true faith’. Ironically, Abbas, who dreams of a liberated India where women enjoy equal rights as men, helps Safia break free from the stereotype of a Muslim woman. Abbas is issued a fatwa for confronting the imam and criticizing the shariat for the sorry state of Muslim women in the country. When he is killed by fanatics, Safia is left all alone to fend for her daughter and herself. Armed with sheer belief in the power of being a woman, Safia embarks on a journey to find out if women can become the God that they were always meant to be.

Noor Zaheer has written the Delhi Hindi Academy Award-winning Mere Hisse Ki Roshnai, Surkh Karwan Ke Hamsafar, a travelogue and Bad Urraiyye, a novel.