A long-listed finalist for the 2009 Walkley non-fiction book of the year
The Mother of Mohammed tells the extraordinary story of how a dope-smoking beach bunny from Mudgee, Robyn Hutchinson, became Rabiah, a member of the Jihadist elite. As Rabiah she lived for twenty years on the front lines of the global holy war, and known among her peers as the ‘mother of Mohammed’, and as the ‘Elizabeth Taylor of the Jihad’ in CIA circles.
She is now deemed a threat to Australia’s national security and banned from travelling abroad.
A one-time hippy backpacker, Hutchinson joined the Islamist uprising in Indonesia in the 1980s and became a follower and a friend of the radical cleric, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. In the 1990s she took her six children to north-west Pakistan to join the Mujaheddin struggle against the communists in neighbouring Afghanistan.
In 2000, she moved to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan where she married a senior Al Qaida figure and became a member of the jihadist elite. After 9/11, she and her children spent several months on the run in Afghanistan, as US cluster bombs fell around them, before escaping the border into Iran where they were detained under house arrest by the revolutionary guards.
Sally Neighbour, with her reputation for tough investigative journalism, persuaded Rabiah to tell her story after more than 200 hours interviewing her subject and a culmination of eighteen months of meticulous research and investigation. She travelled all around the world and conducted dozens of interviews with friends, family and colleagues in order to corrobate Rabiah’s story and provide crucial accounts of her behaviour and activities.
“I wanted to place her story and the episodes within it in an entirely accurate historical contexts”, explained Neighbour.
This book is an unprecedented first-hand account from a western participant of a series of critical episodes in recent history, such as the emergence of the Islamist movement in Indonesia or the US-led bombardment in Afghanistan.
Unique and confronting, combining a gripping narrative with meticulous journalistic research from inside the Jihad, The Mother of Mohammed helps us to understand the magnetism of the Islamist cause and Ms Hutchinson’s remarkable story.
The Mother of Mohammed by Sally Neighbour, published by Melbourne University Press, RRP $34.99
Review by Moriane Morellec, a student at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Walkley Foundation intern.
