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Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret

Leila Aboulela’s novel, Minaret (2005), provides authentic and rich content to explore the Muslim Arab woman’s struggle over creating a modern yet religiously traditional identity. The conceptual framework of Victor Turner’s liminality and Homi Bhabha’s hybridity and the third space are applied in o...

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Main Authors: Al-Karawi, Susan Taha, Bahar, Ida Baizura
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2014
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/34635/1/Negotiating%20the%20veil%20and%20identity%20in%20Leila%20Aboulela%27s%20Minaret.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/34635/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/5491
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spelling my.upm.eprints.346352016-09-23T01:56:53Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/34635/ Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret Al-Karawi, Susan Taha Bahar, Ida Baizura Leila Aboulela’s novel, Minaret (2005), provides authentic and rich content to explore the Muslim Arab woman’s struggle over creating a modern yet religiously traditional identity. The conceptual framework of Victor Turner’s liminality and Homi Bhabha’s hybridity and the third space are applied in order to frame the analysis of this struggle and to show that the veil is a metaphor for the Arab woman’s positive and negative experiences. In Minaret, the protagonist, Najwa, experiences a sense of in-betweenness or liminality through crises, transitions, and resolutions of secular and religious lives. The different hybrid identities and efforts Najwa makes to come to terms with her developing Muslim identity is discussed, particularly through her and the women around her who choose to wear the veil and modest, rather than revealing, clothing. Together, these form our analysis of the Muslim Arab woman’s struggle to be Muslim through wearing the veil while living in Britain. The veil in this novel is furthermore symbolic of traditional Islamic culture and represents the struggle to be religiously faithful despite being surrounded by non-Muslims or non-practising Muslims. This then provides the means of understanding individual mobility, empowerment, and agency through which liminality is successfully negotiated in order to achieve a hybrid identity of Eastern and Western cultures. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2014-09 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/34635/1/Negotiating%20the%20veil%20and%20identity%20in%20Leila%20Aboulela%27s%20Minaret.pdf Al-Karawi, Susan Taha and Bahar, Ida Baizura (2014) Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies, 14 (3). pp. 255-268. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/5491
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
description Leila Aboulela’s novel, Minaret (2005), provides authentic and rich content to explore the Muslim Arab woman’s struggle over creating a modern yet religiously traditional identity. The conceptual framework of Victor Turner’s liminality and Homi Bhabha’s hybridity and the third space are applied in order to frame the analysis of this struggle and to show that the veil is a metaphor for the Arab woman’s positive and negative experiences. In Minaret, the protagonist, Najwa, experiences a sense of in-betweenness or liminality through crises, transitions, and resolutions of secular and religious lives. The different hybrid identities and efforts Najwa makes to come to terms with her developing Muslim identity is discussed, particularly through her and the women around her who choose to wear the veil and modest, rather than revealing, clothing. Together, these form our analysis of the Muslim Arab woman’s struggle to be Muslim through wearing the veil while living in Britain. The veil in this novel is furthermore symbolic of traditional Islamic culture and represents the struggle to be religiously faithful despite being surrounded by non-Muslims or non-practising Muslims. This then provides the means of understanding individual mobility, empowerment, and agency through which liminality is successfully negotiated in order to achieve a hybrid identity of Eastern and Western cultures.
format Article
author Al-Karawi, Susan Taha
Bahar, Ida Baizura
spellingShingle Al-Karawi, Susan Taha
Bahar, Ida Baizura
Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret
author_facet Al-Karawi, Susan Taha
Bahar, Ida Baizura
author_sort Al-Karawi, Susan Taha
title Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret
title_short Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret
title_full Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret
title_fullStr Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret
title_full_unstemmed Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela's Minaret
title_sort negotiating the veil and identity in leila aboulela's minaret
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2014
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/34635/1/Negotiating%20the%20veil%20and%20identity%20in%20Leila%20Aboulela%27s%20Minaret.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/34635/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/5491
_version_ 1643831213178224640
score 13.211869

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