The Conflict of Love and Islam: The Main Ingredients in the Popular Islamic Novels of Malaysia

Abstract

This study arises from a recent development in Malaysia – the emergence of what is commonly known as the phenomenon of ‘popular Islamic novels’. The phenomenon is characterized by overwhelmingly positive public reception of novels overtly displaying Islamic external features in their titles, covers and blurbs. The development is particularly interesting because the novels that previously dominated the general literary market in Malaysia were teenage romance novels with erotic nuances. Thus there has been a marked shift in the popular literary tastes of the public. This shift invites a number of questions: are the stories in the popular Islamic novels of Malaysia actually Islamic, as suggested by their external features? If so, just how is Islam represented in these novels? And in relation to that question, what narrative strategies have the writers of these novels employed to garner such an extraordinary response from the public? To answer these questions, the present study analyses two popular Islamic novels, Salju Sakinah by Zaid Akhtar and Hidayah Cinta by Ilham Hamdani. The aim of the analysis is to identify the representations of Islam contained within these books, and subsequently to summarize the narrative strategies in both novels. The author finds that romantic conflicts are the overriding theme in the two novels, with Islam being employed as the moral scheme according to which these romantic conflicts are evaluated. It is also noted that romantic conflicts and Islam are the two main ingredients that are exploited as narrative strategies to appeal to the popular literary tastes of the Malaysian reading public.