Muslim Arab Women: The Sense of In-betweenness in Leila Aboulela’s Novel Minaret

Abstract

This dissertation explores how Arab women experience a sense of in-betweenness in their postcolonial societies and in western Diasporas. It aims to analyze the struggle of Arab women in realizing a stable sense of identity in the novel Minaret, written by the Sudanese female writer Leila Aboulela. It also analyze the multiple identities of immigrant Muslim women in multicultural context and how they negotiate and prioritize Islamic identity. This research deeply highlights how the veil becomes a source of empowerment, stability, security, peace, and belonging for women in western environment where Arabness, Islam, patriarchy, and feminism are blended together. It adopts an analytical approach relying more on postcolonial theory and Islamic feminism. Accordingly, this research is divided into three chapters. The first one provides a theoretical framework of postcolonialism, Arab Anglophone literature and Islamic feminism. It also provides definitions of the main concepts such as Hybridity, multiculturalism and Islamophobia they are the basis in the analysis of Leila Aboulela’s selected work Minaret. Furthermore, the second chapter analyses Najwa’s sense of in-betweenness in both her homeland Sudan and London. Moreover, it sheds light on how the protagonist Najwa succeeds in creating a new religious sense of identity, in Diaspora, after a long time of confusion and struggle. Finally, the third chapter provides an analysis on how the veil can be a source of both prejudice and empowerment for Arab women in Multicultural patriarchal societies. It also shows how the choice of veiling can be an end of the female protagonist’s painful journey towards her newly composed religious self. This dissertation then provides a deep understanding of Arab women experience in Diaspora in order to achieve a modern yet religious identity.