The Cult of ‘Halal Fiction’ in Contemporary Anglo-Arab Novel

Dr. Majeed U. Jadwe

Professor of English Literature

Islam is an ever present shaping force of cultural identity, especially in the case of immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries. Nevertheless Islam as a cultural index is almost absent from the literary portrayal of Muslim diasporic experiences in Anglo-American novel. Probably, this is due to the fact that British and American novelists approach Islam from the outside which results in the lack of a genuine experiencing of Islam in their fictional portrayal. Anthor important factor lies in the radicalization of Islam in the Western media and the subsequent rise of what is so-called Islamophobia. The portrayal of Islam in the novels of immigrant Muslim writers does not also fare well. It floats equivocally with no fixed significance, and, at times, figures as an index of cultural alienation in the diasporic communities.

A more genuine representation of Islam in the context of immigrant Muslim experience is to be found in the fiction of Anglo-Arab women novelists in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Women novelists like Leila Aboulela and Fadia Faqir presented a new image of Islam in the diasporic communities in Europe that departs radically from the stereotypical images of Islam that predominate in the Anglo-Arab novel. Aboulela, Faqir, and other contemporary twenty first-century novelists seek to “articulate an alternate episteme derived from Islam but shaped specifically by immigrant perspectives” (Hassan, 2011:299). Epistemologically speaking, the existential vision of their novels is based on two strains: Islam and Immigrant experience. The Islamic faith correlates with the diasporic experience of Muslim immigrants to explore and interrogate the formation of cultural identity. Aboulela and Faqir in particular question and deconstruct the stereotypical representations of Islam by highlighting the practice of Islamic faith as a shaping force of cultural identity in immigrant communities.

This concentration on the details of Islamic practices and Sharia (Islamic law) moved critics to label these writers as ‘Halal writers.’ This was first suggested by the Iraqi critic Ferial Ghazoul in a review of Aboulela’s novel Minaret (2005) in Al-Ahram Weekly in 2011. Ghazoul used this term ironically to dub Aboulela’s fiction after the manner of Halal food. What Ghazoul, and later the UK-based Muslim News, was highlighting is that such novels, and their authors, follow strictly the rules and strictures of Islamic Sharia. No wonder that such novels are often described as clean literature in the sense that they are devoid of sex, alcohol, and other Haram things. ‘Halal novels’ then seek authenticity rather than correctness. Aboulela herself puts this more eloquently when she says that “I want to write fiction that follows Islamic logic. This is different than writing ‘Islamically correct’ literature—I do not do that” (Quoted in Hassa, 2008:310).

Although this results in the abundance of technical descriptions of Islamic practices, especially the rituals of worship, ‘Halal novels’ are far from being theological guidebooks. The technical religious descriptions are vividly concrete and invoke a sensuously ordered vision of life. Far from being rigid and dry, such technical descriptions are inherently dynamic. This is calculated to empower a real to life image of Islam and the practicing Muslim. Such an image is meant to counter the abstractedness and stereotypicality of the image of Islam that dominates both the Western and diasporic novels. This has two implications; first, Islam is ‘de-Othered’ and, second, is established as an authentic cultural paradigm. This is done through an ethics, rather than politics, of textual representation. Here, the honesty of representing Islam and Muslim in the diasporic communities is of paramount significance for this ethics of representation. Islam in this way is neither idealized, as in Muslim historical novels, nor demonized, as in the mainstream contemporary Western fiction. Islam in ‘Halal Novels’ is a positive force in the lives of diasporic characters. It actually figures as an alternative and more positive cultural identity in the face of alienation in the diasporic communities in Europe in particular.

‘Halal novels’ in this sense can be seen as a belated response to the failure of Western secularism. Since such novels are mainly set in immigrant societies their critical exploration of the Muslim immigrant’s identity crisis often prescribe religion as an alternative cultural paradigm in a postsecularist age. The failure of Muslim immigrants to find meaning in a Western society of stifling materialism and wild personal freedom is a recurrent subject in the ‘Halal novels.’ A typical instance of this is the character of Najwa, the Sudanese immigrant, in Aboulela’s novel Minaret (2005). Najwa’s life in Sudan is highly secular but once she migrates to Britain she loses all sense of meaning. Ironically, she does not find any sense of identity in Western secularism. Instead, she finds identity and peace in Islam in Britain. The novel details her joy in practicing her faith but in an unideologized manner. Najwa’ s fall from grace in Sudan after the execution of her father becomes a kind of Felix Culpa, a fortunate fall, because it leads to her rebirth in Islamic faith again. Minaret as such is “a groundbreaking halal example of identity assertion and of ‘biting back’.” (Chambers, 2019:135)

Given the popularity and critical acclaim of ‘Halal novels’ it is not unreasonable to forecast that such kind of novels with their honest representation of Islam may gain more critical ground in the future. It is recommended that such novels to be translated into Arabic since they are written exclusively in English in order to bring the literary circles in the Arab world with this innovative and authentic fiction. 

References:

Chambers, Claire (2019) Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels. Palgrave.

Hassan, Waïl (2008) ‘Leila Aboulela and the Ideology of Muslim Immigrant Fiction’. Novel 41.2/3: 298–306.

——— (2011) Immigrant Narratives: Orientalism and Cultural Translation in Arab American and Arab British Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.