Abstract
Umm Zakiyyah is one of the most prominent African-American Muslim writers writing about Muslims and Islam in the post-9/11 period. Her novels touch on the interfaith struggles of Muslims and Christians in a post-modern world and on the moral, spiritual and intercultural struggles of Muslims as minorities in a country where Muslims have been systematically marginalised after twin-tower attacks in 2001 and the subsequent American invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). She also writes about racism, women’s issues, the practice of Muslim women wearing headscarfs, and polygamy. In this interview, Umm Zakiyyah talks about her favourite writers, about the function of the writer in general, about the critical reception of her novels and about the influence of Islam on her imagination. She also addresses the issues of Islamophobia in the West, the future of Islamic fiction and questions pertaining to If I Should Speak and other novels.
Highlights
Umm Zakiyyah was born in 1975 in Long Island, New York, in the family of an American converts to Islam, Clark and Delores Moore
Umm Zakiyyah’s first novel, If I Should Speak, came out in 2001. This marked a turning point in her life as the novel became an instant bestseller in the US and attracted readers from as far as Malaysia and Australia
Her other novels include Realities of Submission (2008), Heart We Lost (2011), A Friendship, Promise (2012) Muslim Girl (2014) and His Other Wife (2016), which has been adapted into a short film. She has published a self-help book for Muslim survivors of abuse: Reverencing the Wombs That Broke You (2017). Her books have been taught at several universities in the US, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and have been the focus of doctoral theses both at home and abroad
Summary
Umm Zakiyyah was born in 1975 in Long Island, New York, in the family of an American converts to Islam, Clark and Delores Moore. Umm Zakiyyah has since published several other novels, including A Voice (2004) and Footsteps (2007), which form the later two volumes of her If I Should Speak triology. Umm Zakiyyah is one of the most prominent African-American Muslim writers writing about Muslims and Islam in the post-9/11 period. Umm Zakiyyah talks about her favourite writers, about the function of the writer in general, about the critical reception of her novels and about the influence of Islam on her imagination.
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