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:	Susan Taha Al-Karawi, Ida Baizura Bahar
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit UKM 2014
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/1/5491-18829-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-7777
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-77772016-12-14T06:45:09Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/ Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela’s Minaret Susan Taha Al-Karawi, Ida Baizura Bahar, 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 UKM 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/1/5491-18829-1-PB.pdf Susan Taha Al-Karawi, and Ida Baizura Bahar, (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/index
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
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	Susan Taha Al-Karawi, Ida Baizura Bahar,
spellingShingle	Susan Taha Al-Karawi, Ida Baizura Bahar, Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela’s Minaret
author_facet	Susan Taha Al-Karawi, Ida Baizura Bahar,
author_sort	Susan Taha Al-Karawi,
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 UKM
publishDate	2014
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7777/1/5491-18829-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:50:36Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:50:36Z
_version_	1777406193016242176

Negotiating the veil and identity in Leila Aboulela’s Minaret

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