Naguib Mahfouz: A Western and Eastern Cage of Female Entrapment ...

Reza Safa adds fuel to the criticism of Islamic tradition in Inside Islam. He argues that Muslims have “been told lies against the Bible, Christians and Christianity” because “[they have] been indoctrinated by the laws and regulations of a false religion” (107). The attempt to evangelize Muslims makes it clear that the West occasionally diminishes the culture and traditions of the Islamic religion by showing a lack of understanding, insensitivity to Islam, unwillingness to accept Muslim enculturation into Islam, and the belief that Islam is a false religion. Therefore, the conservative Christian’s attempt to evangelize Muslims often unwittingly puts the Muslim in the category of the object and the Other. To be fair, this same situation occurs in reverse: Middle Easterners often view American culture as corrupt and promiscuous, and Muslims from the Middle East speak of American society as self-centered, rather than family-centered. They sometimes assume that all Americans fall into a narrow category that condones illicit sex as depicted in pornographic videos and on some television shows. In this case, the Muslim posits the American as the Other and teaches his offspring to be wary of Americans. Muslims who have lived in a society where Islam is both religion and state often have a difficult time distinguishing American from Christian and can be as eager to convert the West to Islam as the West is to convert them to Christianity.

Westerners not only consider Middle Eastern literature foreign, they perceive it through the lens of stereotype: the literature is often viewed as depicting uncivilized societies filled with harems and peopled with genies or warmongers. This image, needless to say, does not fairly assess Middle Eastern culture, nor does it enable readers to appreciate the great wealth of talent which has originated in countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Palestine (undeclared state), and Syria. Many authors of prose and poetry such as Alifa Riffat, Huda Barakat, Khalil Gibran, Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani, Mikhail Naimy, Amin Malouf, and Hanna Mina have written about their lives and cultures in these countries and have stimulated a new interest in their works.