Cover of The Good Muslim. Image via Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOne of the reasons I can\u2019t say I enjoyed this piece of writing is its tiresome motif of a \u201cmodern\u201d woman in a \u201cbackward\u201d society. The protagonist, Maya, is a doctor and a fiercely independent woman who left home after her war veteran brother Sohail became so distant and deeply religious that she knew their relationship would never return to its happier, easy state again. Maya\u2019s strong intellect and will continuously puts her at odds with her environment: she writes for an underground radical publication, she is banished from a village for defending a pregnant woman, and she alone pleads with her brother to not send his son to the local madrassa. Her bright and bold character is admirable in theory, but for someone who has never lived outside of Bangladesh, she persistently gives one the impression of being a foreigner in her own country. In a tumultuous, confused world, she appears to be the only one who has any common sense or consistency to her principles, a contrast I found suspiciously simplistic.<\/p>\n
Anam makes yet another severe and therefore overly simple and na\u00efve contrast in her book. She uses Islam to delineate stark \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d scenarios in Maya\u2019s household. Prior to the war, Maya, her brother, and their college friends lived in a carefree, open world where they attended debates, music recitals, and poetry readings without giving a thought to religion and its place in their lives (and it is Maya\u2019s insistence upon holding on to this distant past that later alienates her from her family and community). After the war however, Sohail returns home so haunted by the atrocities he both witnessed and committed that he completely disavows his older self, finding refuge in the rules and absolutes of religion. As Sohail burns his books, which he sees as the useless relics of his educated past, there is a haunting echo: \u201cThere can only be One.\u201d Apparently, tawhid\u2014belief in the Oneness of God, that everyone and everything is connected to Him\u2014leaves no room for a literary inner existence. This sort of rigid either\/or mindset that Anam paints in Maya\u2019s household is both inaccurate and off-putting in its simplicity.<\/p>\n
By describing Maya\u2019s home life before the war as ideal and afterwards as bleak, Anam carelessly suggests that the human condition would be so much better \u201conly if it weren\u2019t for religion.\u201d I acknowledge that there are men like Sohail who turn to religion to make sense of war and poverty, and, in seeking this refugee, they become zealous and extreme. I even accept that religion can become a source of harm for one who has experienced a dark side of human existence like war. What does sit well with me however, is Anam\u2019s implication that Sohail becomes a neglectful father, distant brother, and absent son because religion\u2014rather than war\u2014left him psychologically damaged.<\/p>\n
The ostracized but heroic Maya serves as a likable enough guide to take the reader though this foreign, exotic land, but the increasingly predictable stereotypes used by Anam\u2013the overbearing religious patriarch, the child who falls victim to a sexual predator in a religious institution, and a religion that demands its adherents disavow all worldly pursuits\u2014feel trite. This book will not resonate with someone who might know something of war or its aftermath. It is intended to speak to Western readers who can relate enough to Maya\u2019s carefree pre-war life but remain far enough removed from her post-war reality that they can easily identify with her alienation and shake their heads disapprovingly at the atrocities taking place \u201cover there.\u201d It is disconcerting to think that a book which paints such a simplistic, skewed portrait of Islam and Muslims has garnered so many awards.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This piece was written by Sarah Farrukh, and originally posted at altmuslimah. Written by Tahmima Anam, The Good Muslim is the story of an educated, \u201cmodern\u201d woman who loses her brother to Islamic fundamentalism. And perhaps this storyline is why the book has garnered so many rave reviews and literary awards\u2014because Western critics and audiences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1744,1743],"class_list":["post-10813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-booksmagazines","tag-tahmima-anam","tag-the-good-muslim"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>