A young woman who decided to write a book about why she was disillusioned with Islam because she never thought her parents would be able to read it is now scared to leave home after getting death threats.

University student Lale Gul, 23, who lives in Amsterdam in the Netherlands came into conflict with her family when she stopped wearing a headscarf. She was previously given a strict Muslim upbringing including Koran courses that she attended until the age of 17.

When she rebelled against her strict upbringing, she decided to vent her frustration by writing a novel about an Amsterdam girl who escapes from these restrictions.

The young woman who is studying Dutch said she was not worried that it would cause any problems with the family and had not discussed it with them because they did not speak Dutch very well, and she did not think they would ever see it.

But that was before it hit the bestseller list and has been there for weeks. Almost as soon as it came out her family were bombarded with calls,

The main character can not wear jewellery and is not allowed to take selfies, she does not celebrate birthdays and is not allowed to go out on the town with friends. That meant no school trips or holidays without any male relatives around and no male friends.

She writes: “Do I have to live like a houseplant? Should I immediately enter a marriage where all sex has been rammed out even before it even starts, because my procreators have chosen a completely humorless, Koran-proof dick for me? Is that what I live for? Is God pleased with my tragedy?”

The book has been hailed as astonishingly honest including talk about sex with her Dutch boyfriend and her mother is nicknamed as the cockroach or Islamic dictator, references she admits she now regrets she had not wanted to cause her parents pain, but only express her anger at the circumstances they had bought her.

She is now being compared with Dutch – American activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali who is a critic of Islam and fights for the self-determination of Muslim women, urging an end to forced marriages and female genital mutilation.

Lale Gul lives in Amsterdam’s immigrant neighbourhood Bos en Lommer where she also grew up, and now it’s too dangerous for her to go out alone without her brother to protect her.

Her mother is a housewife and her dad worked as a postman and also a cleaner. She says that despite living in Amsterdam they surround themselves with Turkish television and in their minds never left their Turkish homeland.

The book entitled “I’m going to live” has been in the top 10 of the Dutch bestseller list for several weeks.

Among those that have targeted her for criticism are Arnoud van Doorn, leader of the Unity Party (Partij van de Eeenheid), who advocates Islamic rule in the Netherlands.

Former policeman van Doorn, who started politics as the “right-hand man” of the far-right Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders and later converted to full support of Islam, accused Lale Gul of ‘destroying the life of her family by allowing God to speak in her book’.

He said she had become a rallying point for anti-Islamic feeling in the country, and she later started getting threats and insults not just online but also on the street in the neighbourhood where she lives.

In one Tweet (https://bit.ly/3rIBPrL) she shares the anonymous person writes: “Retarded disgusting dirty filty whore.

“That’s you. Your mother should have swallowed you. You are what they call a fucking mistake.

“Your retarded book, you will be punished for that. But besides that you are a dirty disgusting whore.

“Disgusting and not human. I hope you get an illness, which makes you realize all that and now fuck off you retarded slut.”

Police in Amsterdam who are investigating the matter say that most of the threats come from anonymous accounts, and have advised the young woman not to leave the house alone.

Gul, whose relationship with her family has also suffered says that her only supporter in the family is her brother and her cousin, although they disagree with the content of the book.

She currently has to eat her meals separately from the rest of the family, and has to stay in the room that she shares with her 10-year-old sister whenever guests come round.

She claims that the central theme of the book is not religion, saying: “I have never talked about religion. I have dealt with a cultural issue. I told my publisher that I will no longer write about Islam.”

The decision came after a long talk with her parents said that they had forgiven her, but asked her not to do the same thing again and she agreed.

She told fans: “It’s easy to say things to me if you’re not a woman and don’t live in Bos en Lommer.”

Asked if he regretted the decision to step back from writing she told Dutch media Volkskrant: “It keeps gnawing at me. It is said that I have talent. I’ve been called numerous times in the past week. Whether I want to write columns for the monthly magazine Elle. Or want to join Op1 again to talk about Turkish President Erdogan. I start dreaming again of a career as a writer or opinion maker. But I shouldn’t do that. Otherwise, I will only rub the stain more. Then it will no longer work out.”

She said she now plans to finish university, and maybe find a Turkish husband and try to be happy.

She added that she would probably rather have a different ending to her story, but added: “life is not a fairy tale”.