The Youth of God tells the story of Nuur, a sensitive and religious seventeen-year-old Somali-Canadian boy who becomes radicalized by the teachings of Imam Yusuf at the local mosque in a neighbourhood in Toronto called Dixon that has become synonymous with crime, unemployment, and the broken dreams of many Somali immigrants. Trying to rescue Nuur from Islamic radicalism is his Somali biology teacher, Mr Ilmi. Through the story of this one boy, the novel dramatizes the struggle for the soul of Islam.