Arab Islamic Voices, Agencies, and Abilities

Disability Portrayals in Muslim World Literature and Culture

Saloua Ali Ben Zahra

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9798216279334
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Literary
• Index: Literature

This book explores portrayals and predicaments of the disabled in Arab/Muslim post colonial North African and Middle Eastern societies in genres ranging from classical Arabic scripture to secular popular culture including Francophone Moroccan and Algerian fiction, Egyptian Middle Eastern film, as well as Tunisian song and television. In line with theorists Aijaz Ahmad and Ato Quayson's objection to reading Third World literature as "national allegory," The author argues that rather than being metaphors or allegories, disabled characters represent persons with disabilities in their culture and act as a mirror upon their changing societies. Contemporary Maghrebians and Muslims with disabilities find themselves at an intersection of conflicting and competing cultures, their native Islamic culture and Westernizing lifestyles. In the rush to import everything Western, despite humanitarian Islamic teachings regarding the disabled, are often abandoned. In situations of fundamentalist menace, the disabled, who tend to be the most vulnerable and abused fraction of Arab/Muslim society, suffer the worst, especially women.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Arab Islamic Voices, Agencies, and Abilities
• Arab Islamic Voices, Agencies, and Abilities
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Al Qur’an’s Teachings with Respect to the Disabled
• Chapter 2
• The Tunisian Deaf Mute through the Lens of American Orientalism
• Chapter 3
• Tunisian
• Treatment of Disability
• Chapter 4
• The Disabled Native
• Chapter 5
• The Case of Female Characters with Disabilities
• Chapter 6
• Disability and Shame in Salman Rushdie’s Novel
• Chapter 7
• The Egyptian Visually Challenged Sheikh Husni’s Treatment of Blindness in the Egyptian Film
• Chapter 8
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author