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- Title
RESISTING UNTOUCHABILITY: HIJAB CRISIS AND ARAB-AMERICAN MUSLIM WOMEN IN MOHJA KAHF'S HIJAB POEMS.
- Authors
Yahya Kalil, Eman Mohammed; Khan, Farhana
- Abstract
In such a Trumpian/American imperialist era which unfolds an openly Islamophobic and racist policies against Islam, hijab has transcended its traditional debates relating to Islamic obligations, modesty, male gaze and gender equality to resist the "war on Islam" and the targeting processes of i dehumanizing, defaming and singling it as " the must be stopped" religion . Hijab has become a political and/or ideological battleground singling the clashes between the civilized West/America and the barbaric Orient. Hijab is a headscarf or covering that Muslim women wear to cover their hair and upper chest, and ii sometimes it also refers to covering face like ' Nigab/ Burqa', which are clothes used to cover the face except or with the eyes. The present article considers the complexities of being 'Hijabi/Veiled' woman in America. It argues that Arab-Muslim hijabi women are in a continuous conflict with the public mind struggling for observing their religious freedom while seeking acceptance and regularity. Muslim hijabi women are suffering from the act of 'Othering' by mainstream America who considers them 'irregular'. The act, which renders them 'untouchable' who embodies a 'cultural threat' to the American liberation and civilization when considering untouchability as a social practice. Moreover, the article illustrates through a number of hijab-centered poems of Mohja Kahf in "Emails from Scheherazade" the resisting power of hijab that blows off all the misrepresentations and oriental assumptions of Arab/Muslim women, which have adhered veil with Islamic militancy, extremism, jihadism, and oppression of women, to present counter images of self-asserted Islamic women identity.
- Subjects
HIJAB (Islamic clothing); ARAB Americans; KAHF, Mohja; MUSLIM women; POETRY (Literary form)
- Publication
Literary Endeavour, 2018, Vol 9, Issue 4, p308
- ISSN
0976-299X
- Publication type
Article