An Analysis of Muslim Sacred Spaces in English Literature: Exploring the selected Novels of Muslim Women English Writers

This paper aims at exploring the idea of Muslim sacred in modern-day English literature through the selected four novels written by the Muslim women writers residing in the west. These novels include Camilla’s “Sweetness in the Belly” (2005), Leila’s “The Translator” (1999), and “Minaret” (2005) and Mohja’s “The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf” (2006). Edward Said in his Orientalism (1978) had ardently argued about the Islam and its false representation and the portrayal of Muslim women as uncivilized in the Western discourse. Besides, the western discourse of the last two decades have also portrayed Muslim veiled women as marginalized, symbols of threat, fear and escapees of Islam particularly in the post 9/11 era. However, contemporary Muslim writers living in the west have composed different novels which highlight a completely different perspective of Muslim women. The female characters in the novel highlight strong engrossment with Islam due to which metaphoric sacred spaces are created by these characters which have never been known in English literature. The findings of this paper reflect the demonstration of certain novelistic techniques used by the individual narratives for validating the idea of Muslim sacred. The paper concludes that the strong connection of Muslim women with their religion create sacred space for them to have fortification as well as refuge instead to escape from.