Abstract
This article aims to undertake a study of The Holy Woman by Qaisra Shahraz in terms of how it brings forth the woman question by effectively reflecting on the dangerous chemistry of tradition and religion—a chemistry meant to legitimize ritualization of violence. This naturally entails discussion on the way tradition is made to conspire with religion against women with an exclusive theoretical underpinning of postcolonial feminism. The author has kept the focus of study limited to the issues of female sexuality, celibacy, and hijab. Evidently, the discussion dilates upon how religion is superseded by tradition. This unavoidably causes circumstances culminating in realities that stamp the destitute and dismay of women hailing from the third world postcolonial order.
Highlights
Qaisra Shahraz enjoys a distinct position among contemporary Pakistani authors writing in English
Shahraz’s narrative reflects on the dangerous chemistry of religion and tribal tradition especially when it is manipulated against women
Shahraz’s cultural critique on the rural Sindh in Pakistan essentially brings the woman question and female space as it exists in an unbreakable relation with the looming postcoloniality
Summary
Qaisra Shahraz enjoys a distinct position among contemporary Pakistani authors writing in English. Unlike Bapsi Sidhwa (An American Brat, 1993) and Mohammed Hanif (A Case of Exploding Mangoes, 2008), Shahraz is not interested in the ravages of General Zia’s military regime and its tailored Islamization in the late 1980s Pakistan Her fiction stands apart from the ramifications of 9/11 unlike Mohsin’s Hamid’s critique (The Reluctant Fundamentalist, 2007) on the Muslim fundamentalist discourse which predominantly surfaced as an aftermath of the said tragedy. In the context of Pakistani fiction written in English, Shahraz, like many of her contemporaries, can be categorized as a diaspora writer who displays an increasing sense of postcoloniality featuring the lives of Pakistani masses in general This explains why her fiction essentially features the dynamics of struggle, identity, representation, and the problems of the indigenous culture as it functions through a post(-)colonial society which is still holding on to the remnants of a by-gone colonialism (Ahmed, 2009)
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