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Religiosity as a Boundary-Maker or Breaker in Arab-Anglophone Texts: Leila Aboulela, Laila Lalami, and Mohja Kahf

Religiosity as a Boundary-Maker or Breaker in Arab-Anglophone Texts: Leila Aboulela, Laila Lalami, and Mohja Kahf
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Author(s): Hassan Ait Nasseur (Ibn Tofail University, Morocco)
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 20
Source title: Identity and the Dynamics of Border Crossing
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Saad Boulahnane (Hassan I University, Morocco)
DOI: 10.4018/979-8-3373-2592-7.ch004

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Abstract

This chapter examines the representation of Arab Muslim immigrants' religiosity in Arab-Anglophone literature. Religion functions as a haven for Arab Muslim immigrants after immigration in the face of Western cultural pressure. Previous research has revealed the importance of religiosity to Muslim immigrants' resilience to this pressure. These immigrants' religiosity, from a literary perspective, is, therefore, under-researched. Practicing religiosity in a secular, modern, and Christian atmosphere is challenging. Building on Aboulela's Minaret and The Translator, Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, and Lalami's The Other Americans, and using textual, content, and discourse analysis methods, this chapter explores how religiosity presents a challenge to both these immigrants and Western culture. First and second-generation immigrants are different regarding their religiosity vis-à-vis their response to Western cultural hegemony. Accordingly, religiosity can be an identity-maker or breaker depending on the reaction of these immigrants to this hegemony.

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