Debunking the western feminist framework of the veiled woman in Shelina Zahra Janmohamed’s Love in a Headscarf (2010)

Abstract

For a very long time, a section of western society has viewed that the Muslim community as the ‘racial Other’. Mashuq Ally (2011) argues that this notion is the result of the Western lopsided perception towards the non-whites and even more so when it comes to the Muslim women. Being the second Other (Beauvoir, 1949), Muslim women have to counter inaccurate notions about their perceived gender oppression as well as the lack of agency (to hear their voices). According to the Western feminist framework, Muslim women in hijab (the veiled women) are deemed as the victim of oppression and backwardness. Using Islamic feminism and postcolonial feminism theories as propounded by Asma Barlas, Leila Ahmed, and Margot Badran, the findings reveal that the framework (ijtihad and tafsir of Holy Quran and Hadith), have aptly supported the justification of the main character’s act in donning of the hijab as a symbol of Muslim identity that represents emancipation and empowerment.