Narratives of Power and Subjection: Representations of the Veil in Selected Works by Muslim Women Novelists

Abstract

This dissertation analyses seven novels written in three different languages with the aim of discovering the relation between veiling on one hand and power and subjuagation on the other. Beside surveying Islamic feminist stances on the practice of veiling and presenting the different stereotypes about it, chapter one mainly focuses on offering a new reading of the veil as a site/sight of power. This is achieved through a two-fold procedure. The first is reading the connotations of power linked to the concept of veil in the Qur'an and the sunnah, while the second is a re-reading of ocular western theories. Reading Islamic resources results in stating that veiling is a practice linked to divine power and that women are, therefore, powerful because they are incarnating the image of their creator. Analyzing western texts reach the conclusion that women's covering up makes them powerful in five different dimensions. In brief, veiling is a marker of subjectivity, agency and authenticity, an inducer of subjective well-being, a global economic power, a tool against hegemonic and colonial power as well as a sign of female bodily control.