Islamophobia: The Formation of Image

Abstract

This dissertation conducts a literary analysis to address the contemporary issue of Islamophobia in the Western world. While less interest will be taken as to whether the given profiles are true psychologically or whether some writers can present them well sociologically, sociological and political investigations will have to come into play. Referencing Edward Said’s Orientalist perspective and the aftermaths of the Rushdie Affair as a context for this analysis, I intend to investigate how these landmarks have influenced scholarship on the modern day social phenomenon of Islamophobia and, whether attempting to understand Islamophobia from a narrative point of view is productive. In pursuance of this aim, I have chosen three English novels with different geographical settings and periods in order to elaborate the evolution, development and the present concerns about Islamophobia in Western social and political circles. The three novels examined – The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, and Submission by Michel Houellebecq – will provide strong examples of how literature deals with this issue. Kureishi’s work presents its South Asian protagonist Shahid as he endures a socially isolated life in Britain; becomes part of an Islamist group but he oscillates in his identity as a secular-liberal and a radical Islamist. The novel demonstrates how Muslim fundamentalism evolved in the period soon after the Rushdie Affair. Hamid’s work addresses the issue of Islamophobia in a relatively direct manner when its character Changez is victimized for his Muslim identity in the US. In addition to the unique structural change in its narrative, Hamid’s novel introduced an intellectual debate in academic arena after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I ask whether this has affected the ways in which these migrant literatures were written. Houellebecq’s work, set in the future, still further reflects upon Islamophobia in a much different way. Relying on prevailing concerns about Islamophobia in French society, Houllebecq’s work demonstrates an inversion in approaching this issue in which depicting France as governed by a Muslim political party, he mourns over the decadent values of the European culture. The key argument of my analysis is that racial attitudes, preexisting in Western societies, are affected by the geopolitical circumstances of the present day, which present a new layer of hatred and otherness wrapped in religious terms. This creates an admixture of a politico-religious form of racism commonly known as Islamophobia, which is contrary to the racial attitudes in the past that were governed by aspects such as skin color and cultural difference.