Representations of bearded muslim men and hijab-wearing muslim women in post-9/11 fiction : a study of Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Amy Waldman's The Submission /
Both Muslim men and women are often depicted and perceived in a negative light in literature, the media and other spheres of representation, especially in the post-9/11 era. This smacks of a perceivable return to Orientalism, as similar ideas are recycled and reused to caricature Muslims. Bearded Mu...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Kuala Lumpur :
Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge, International Islamic University Malaysia,
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://studentrepo.iium.edu.my/handle/123456789/6809 |
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| Summary: | Both Muslim men and women are often depicted and perceived in a negative light in literature, the media and other spheres of representation, especially in the post-9/11 era. This smacks of a perceivable return to Orientalism, as similar ideas are recycled and reused to caricature Muslims. Bearded Muslim males in the diaspora (who refuse to assimilate in the culture of the host country) are branded as different, violent and dangerous while Muslim females in headscarves are marked as backward and submissive. This study aims at discovering the multiple significances behind the protagonists' choice of assuming the beard as well as understanding the Muslim women's choice of wearing the headscarf in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Amy Waldman's The Submission. Using Edward Said's criticism of (neo-)Orientalism as the theoretical framework and based on the representation of the beard and the headscarf in these two novels, this research seeks to elaborate on the image of the beard and the headscarf in post-9/11 novels, and how they shape the religious and personal identity of their wearers. Furthermore, this research also looks into the different aspects of the beard and the hijab and how they can trigger suspicion in an Islamophobic society. The study also investigates the role of the media in characterising bearded Muslims and analyses how Muslim women are perceived by the general public as depicted in the selected novels and the extent to which mainstream feminism exhibits a kind of indifference to them on account of their headscarf. |
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| Physical Description: | ix, 121 leaves : illustrations ; 30cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-121). |