The Representation of Islam in Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

Abstract

The present study explores the image of Islam as portrayed in Alice Walker’s Everyday Use. The study seeks to examine the nature of the interplay between Islam and the local community of the story in terms of the way fundamental Islam is received and accommodated within the context of conflicting worldviews. Walker’s Everyday Use unfolds, seamlessly, a portrait that captures the way Fundamental Islam is introduced and received, the Muslim community and its ethos, and the Muslim Individuals as torn between their commitment to Islamic tradition and the spell of trendy Black social movements to which they belong. Walker’s Everyday Use also sheds light on some threads of connection between Islam and Black Americans at the time. For all the clumsiness in his manner, ‘Hakim a barber’, the Black Muslim, remains committed to core Islamic values like offering traditional Islamic greetings of peace, abstaining from eating pork, and adopting the Islamic attitude of showing courtesy to women. Furthermore, the Muslim community in Walker’s Everyday Use is conjectured through the Christian narrator’s eyes as the epitome of African-American values of pride and empowerment.