islamic fiction in english literature

Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2016

The Islamic literature does not take its proper place among the world arts as one of the significant areas of research. Islamism does not spring up as a tool of literary criticism worthy of studying and writing about. Many studies need to be done on the Islamic literature to highlight this sort of literature and culture. Critics may not give sufficient concern for the Islamic literature and they have not been encouraged to go deeply into the literary works of the writers who classify themselves Islamic writers. This article attempts to set a place for the Islamic literature and traces the first attempts and origins of this sort of literature. It introduces a number of Islamic critics who are interested in this area of the Islamic literature. The main argument is how the Islamic critics define and present what they claim to be Islamic literature and Islamic theory in their writings in general and literary writings in particular. The results indicated that the Islamic critics attempt to put the foundations of this new literature but their efforts do not show sufficient concern with the Islamic literature and the literary works of the Islamic literature do not get sufficient study and research.

There is a tendency to regard (English) literature as beyond the pale of religion and conventional morality. Advocates of the postulates of the art for art’s sake school are perhaps predisposed to dismiss academic endeavours of relating Islam to literary discussion. This is despite the fact that there are millions of Muslim students of English literature who are exposed to Western/(neo-) European values and cultural assumptions through the subject. The conventional, impressionable teaching and learning of English literary texts, de-contextualising them and failing to distinguish between the good and the evil they carry contribute to the proliferation of alien views and ways of life in non-Western, Muslim-majority societies. This book represents a humble attempt to go a few steps beyond the conventional mode of English literary criticism. It looks at the subject with a sense of discrimination and is intended to enhance learners’ religio-cultural understanding and competence. It aims to help students conceptualise the world as presented in English texts through the prism of Islamic teachings. The arguments in this book show the concrete relevance of Islam to issues discussed in the selected works of major authors of twentieth-century English literature, such as: Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924), Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936), Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941), T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965), W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973) and Doris Lessing (1919 – 2013). It is a useful reference material for those who teach and study twentieth-century English literature.

2014

This article is aimed at studying the cultural and social representation of Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular by the writers of the West and then a contrastive study is presented here of the works of the non-native English writers. The image of Muslims throughout the history of English literature is distorted and there have been many unrealistic myths created about the Muslim culture by the Western literary orientalists. The writers of the west had relied mostly on their imagination hence they depicted the Muslims with a prejudice, creating images of falsehood. The non-native writers in contrast gave first hand, realistic feel of the Muslim culture and depicted social evils and mal practices that led to the distortion of the images of the Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular.

IIUC Studies

Literature is a pellucid mirror that reflects the reality of life, society and the universe. It emanates from ideas, emotions, and beliefs of individual or collective personality irrespective of national, linguistic, cultural, religious and stylistic differences. Islamic literature deals with the features of all aspects of Islam. It is not confined in person, group or nation as well as place or time, but represents a clear appeal for the whole humanity forever. The paper aims at studying the definition of Islamic literature and then sheds light on identifying the nature and scope of this literature.IIUC Studies Vol.13 December 2016: 43-52

The Islamic literature does not take its proper place among the world arts as one of the significant areas of research. Islamism does not spring up as a tool of literary criticism worthy of studying and writing about. Many studies need to be done on the Islamic literature to highlight this sort of literature and culture. Critics may not give sufficient concern for the Islamic literature and they have not been encouraged to go deeply into the literary works of the writers who classify themselves Islamic writers. This article attempts to set a place for the Islamic literature and traces the first attempts and origins of this sort of literature. It introduces a number of Islamic critics who are interested in this area of the Islamic literature. The main argument is how the Islamic critics define and present what they claim to be Islamic literature and Islamic theory in their writings in general and literary writings in particular. The results indicated that the Islamic critics attempt to put the foundations of this new literature but their efforts do not show sufficient concern with the Islamic literature and the literary works of the Islamic literature do not get sufficient study and research.

Literature is akin to religions as all the holy books of the world religions belong to literature. But very paradoxically a number of religions do not support the practice and culture of literature, especially the fictional literature. In spite of regarding the Holy Quran as the greatest monument of literature, Islam is also traditionally discouraging and sometimes even considering sinful the practice and culture of fictional literature. This essay aims to show how far the question of practising the so-called untruth or falsity in fictional literature holds ground to validate this disapproving view of Islam.

Guest Editor's Introduction

hgsoconference.curtin.edu.au

2016

When it comes to Turkey's experience, the reasons for using West and modernity together are the secularisation policies of Republican Turkey and its reform goals, which take the West as their example in every sense. Besides these political reflections, literary and artistic changes were also part of the political aims and reforms. In this regard, all literature having an Islamic core was abandoned as " Ottoman " and therefore irrelevant. This inevitably led to works of " modern literature " being interpreted as against the former one. Thus, considering the fact that both modern forms (e.g., novels) and traditional Islamic literary forms shape literature with an Islamic core today, a certain issue has arisen: Where should the new forms be located in the conceptual discussion? Consequently, how does one " name " those works created in traditional or modern forms and having Islam as their subject? To determine the place of literary works having an Islamic subject in literary history, this article highlights that Islam is in a relationship with the new forms and that this relationship is both healthy and deserves to be examined. It also seeks to draw the attention of Islamic literature researchers to the continuing Islamic literary tradition that after the 20th century, a new naming is proposed for the cited period. In this way, the field referred to by the Islamic literary tradition as being developed with new content and forms is clarified, and the existence of a literary tradition that is more inclusive than the others developed in previous naming trials is highlighted.