Papers by Dr. Zakir Hussain
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2023
Ars Aeterna, 2022
This article examines Tariq Ali’s novels The Stone Woman (2000) and A Sultan in Palermo (2005) to... more This article examines Tariq Ali’s novels The Stone Woman (2000) and A Sultan in Palermo (2005) to critique the question of identity discourse by drawing inspiration from various cultures rooted in a distinctively Islamic landscape and culture. Muslim identity, like any other, is separately constructed and determined by language, religion, sect, and various other roles. It examines the creation of Muslim identity and strives to comprehend the segregation they have demonstrated in the postcolonial context. This identity discourse emerged in colonial discursive practices that positioned Muslims as “Other” under colonial rule. This paper draws upon theoretical concepts of postcolonial theory to challenge the stereotypical representation of Islam often circulated in Eurocentric discourses. We do this by focusing on Tariq Ali’s ways of constructing Muslim identities through fictional representations. Through this discussion, we critique stereotypical tropes evident in Eurocentric discours...
Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, 2023
This article takes a feminist viewpoint to highlight the lives and religious identities of Muslim... more This article takes a feminist viewpoint to highlight the lives and religious identities of Muslim women who are victims of pervasive negative perceptions of imperialist discourses and restrictive cultural practices of native males. We intend to investigate the practicability of empowerment conferred by feminism in redefining their subjectivity as represented in Tariq Ali's Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (1991) and The Book of Saladin (1998). Drawing on the concepts of postcolonial theorists such as; Edward Said, Chandra Mohanty, Fatima Mernissi and Riffat Hassan, we interpret the female characters as reflective of the women's struggles to renegotiate their identity. The novels under scrutiny address the difficulties of depicting Muslim women in a cultural setting dominated by images of religious fanaticism, violence, and female subordination. Ali articulates a particular ideology regarding the construction of Muslim women's socio-religious identity(ies) that serve the interests of Muslim clergy and patriarchy. We suggest that these representations are a powerful resource Muslim Women can draw upon in constructing their identities. Finally, it is argued that a disruption of the stereotypes of Muslim women signals the potential for the compatibility of Muslim women's distinct identities.
Ars Aeterna, 2022
This article examines Tariq Ali’s novels The Stone Woman (2000) and A Sultan in Palermo (2005) to... more This article examines Tariq Ali’s novels The Stone Woman (2000) and A Sultan in Palermo (2005) to critique the question of identity discourse by drawing inspiration from various cultures rooted in a distinctively Islamic landscape and culture. Muslim identity, like any other, is separately constructed and determined by language, religion, sect, and various other roles. It examines the creation of Muslim identity and strives to comprehend the segregation they have demonstrated in the postcolonial context. This identity discourse emerged in colonial discursive practices that positioned Muslims as “Other” under colonial rule. This paper draws upon theoretical concepts of postcolonial theory to challenge the stereotypical representation of Islam often circulated in Eurocentric discourses. We do this by focusing on Tariq Ali’s ways of constructing Muslim identities through fictional representations. Through this discussion, we critique stereotypical tropes evident in Eurocentric discourses, which too often conflate professions of Muslim identity with religious fundamentalism.
Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 2022
This article examines the reconstruction of Eurocentric representations of religious minorities o... more This article examines the reconstruction of Eurocentric representations of religious minorities of post-Reconquista Spain and Jerusalem through Tariq Ali’s novels, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (1992) and The Book of Saladin (1998). These novels suggest that the reconfiguration of history and the analysis of the traumatic experiences of characters such as Zuhayr and Saladin challenge the essentialist notion of Eurocentrism. The paper explores the narrative approaches and procedures employed in the novels to articulate the sufferings caused by the sidelining and elimination of Muslim and Jewish minorities. The study relies on concepts formulated and explicated by postcolonial critics like Fanon, Said, and Spivak in their critical works as its theoretical premise. We argue that the postcolonial outlook has the potential to challenge Eurocentric historical accounts, as it revives the forgotten memories of the “Other” and intertwines these memories to form new compatibility across ethnocultural and religious polarization. This study demonstrates that revealing the brutality implicit in the reasonable practices of nation-building conditions causes a crisis in Eurocentric historiography.
International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities, 2019
Folklore, the living tradition of mankind has of late been put aside as outdated in the
mainstrea... more Folklore, the living tradition of mankind has of late been put aside as outdated in the
mainstream literature that inculcated us to read literature whose prejudiced and elitist canon set apart both realities or objectives and the vernacular folklore of many. In fact, there are many strands to the lores of the folk camouflaged in the written literature, using a multiplicity of backgrounds at a variety of levels on different occasions without usually alluded to the source. It would rather be an injustice to write off folklore only as oral and a part of substream literature. The present paper throws light on the interconnectedness and dependency of the canonical literature on folklore and shall present arguments for the rootedness of folklore in Literature. Moreover, an attempt is being made to explore the significance of folklore as a foundational framework for major literary works in the mainstream literature
Conference Presentations by Dr. Zakir Hussain
64th All India English Teachers' Conference, 2020
Tariq Ali's The Islam Quintet presents an often bewildering mix of a different historical period,... more Tariq Ali's The Islam Quintet presents an often bewildering mix of a different historical period, Images, stories, from the past blend together with contemporary moments and even future practises. In Ali's novels, the temporal mixture must be read not merely as a
HISTORICAL FICTIONS RESEARCH NETWORK CONFERENCE, 2022
This article examines how Tariq Ali's novel The Stone Woman (2000) attempts to deconstruct identi... more This article examines how Tariq Ali's novel The Stone Woman (2000) attempts to deconstruct identity by blurring the self/other distinctions and sets the groundwork for hybridity wherein otherness emerges as a signifying process open to interpretation. The concept of identity becomes a debatable concern in Ali's representation of the destabilization of cultural and political barriers among peoples under the Ottoman Empire. The critical parameters of the study emerge from an investigation of the postcolonial context, suggesting in its process a displacement of the fixity of Manichean thought. Drawing upon Homi Bhabha's theorization on 'third space' and 'hybridity' and Edward Said's 'other', the article demonstrates how the novel configures identities as woven through the rich cultural textualities that people live in and provides alternative spaces to deconstruct Eurocentric identity discourses. This article argues that the novel proposes a paradigm of idealized Muslim identity that deviates from reductive Eurocentric representations of Muslims as other and exposes such reductive perspectives as traditional to Orientalists' discourses.
Book Reviews by Dr. Zakir Hussain
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2023
Journal of Intercultural Studies , 2023
English Academy Review, 2022
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Papers by Dr. Zakir Hussain
mainstream literature that inculcated us to read literature whose prejudiced and elitist canon set apart both realities or objectives and the vernacular folklore of many. In fact, there are many strands to the lores of the folk camouflaged in the written literature, using a multiplicity of backgrounds at a variety of levels on different occasions without usually alluded to the source. It would rather be an injustice to write off folklore only as oral and a part of substream literature. The present paper throws light on the interconnectedness and dependency of the canonical literature on folklore and shall present arguments for the rootedness of folklore in Literature. Moreover, an attempt is being made to explore the significance of folklore as a foundational framework for major literary works in the mainstream literature
Conference Presentations by Dr. Zakir Hussain
Book Reviews by Dr. Zakir Hussain