What Is a Name? Identity and Diaspora in Leila Aboulela’s The Kindness of Enemies

Abstract

What does it mean to be a Muslim carrying an Arabic name, such as Osama or Hussein along with existing as a part of a Western society today? This is one of the core questions that are explored by the Egyptian-Sudanese-Scottish novelist Leila Aboulela in her 2015 novel The Kindness of Enemies. In light of the cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s definition of identity as a “‘moveable feast’: formed and transformed continuously in relation to the ways we are represented or addressed in the cultural systems which surround us” (Hall, 1996, p. 598), this paper investigates how the discovery of one’s identity is indeed an intricate procedure, one that is unavoidably complicated. When an individual straddles the boundaries of two cultures, the mission becomes even more complex and problematic. Furthermore, this paper throws light on the significance of names for those of Muslim heritage trying to assimilate into the British social system after 7/7/2005 London bombings. As the novel highlights the effect of the “war on terror” on Arab British Muslims, the paper discusses why Aboulela’s main protagonists have been anguished by taking off their first identify markers. Why Natasha legally changes her name? Why Osama prefers being named Oz or Ossie? Additionally, the paper aims at examining how the characters’ identities are formed and reformed to produce themselves anew within their host cultures.