9/11 Counter Narratives: Challenging Islamophobia and Defying the Notion of Singular American Tragedy

Abstract

My dissertation intends to shed light on one of the most relevant issues of today’s world crisis that is Islamophobia: an exaggerated fear and inexplicable distrust toward Islam and Muslims woven into western society. This social aversion of Islam is perpetuated in the Western world especially in America by White supremacy and negative stereotypes and religious profiling of the Muslims that result in marginalization and exclusion of the latter from society, politics and civic life. Though Islamophobia existed in the western premise prior to the September 11 episode, it gained much notoriety in the repercussion of the carnage that is proliferated by popular 9/11 discourse which essentially demonized the race of Muslims. Muslims started to be misconstrued and alleged to be terrorists and fanatics in opposition to the White Americans who are acclaimed to be the sole victims of the catastrophe whereas Muslims are no less sufferers in their personal, social and political domains. During this suppressive period of Islamophobic rhetoric, a group of writers raised their voices by the dint of 9/11 counter narratives to re-present Muslims, deconstruct stereotypes and to clarify the misconstructions of Islam and its doctrines. 9/11 counter narratives such as Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and The Submission by Amy Waldman are extensively discussed in my dissertation to illustrate how the writers counteracted the accession of Muslims as terrorists by incorporating the Orientalist Theory elaborated by Edward Said. Along with counter- response to challenge Islamophobia, all of the above authors strove to defy the notion that 9/11 is a singular American tragedy and attempted to illuminate the fact that 9/11 equally offended the ordinary Muslims residing in America for the damages and consequences encountered by the innocent Muslims in general. Furthermore, my research investigates the process of resistance adopted by the victimized Muslims at the face of mounting sentiments of institutionalized Islamophobia and its associated hate crimes.