diff --git a/git.go b/git.go
index a3c40e3..53b1a12 100644
--- a/git.go
+++ b/git.go
@@ -124,6 +124,15 @@
 
 	C.git_libgit2_init()
 
+	// Due to the multithreaded nature of Go and its interaction with
+	// calling C functions, we cannot work with a library that was not built
+	// with multi-threading support. The most likely outcome is a segfault
+	// or panic at an incomprehensible time, so let's make it easy by
+	// panicking right here.
+	if Features()&FeatureThreads == 0 {
+		panic("libgit2 was not built with threading support")
+	}
+
 	// This is not something we should be doing, as we may be
 	// stomping all over someone else's setup. The user should do
 	// this themselves or use some binding/wrapper which does it