Depiction of Muslims’ Identity in The Blind Man’s Garden with Special Focus on Mikal

Abstract

September 11, 2001, is a dark day in the modern history of Muslims because they were projected as terrorists and extremists soon after the violent attacks in the United States on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the US military headquarters. These events catalyzed violence around the world by both nation-states and non-state actors.  These events have been widely interpreted as pivoting on issues related to religious identities.  Subsequently, several novels have been published that have given attention to these identities. A number of which have been produced by writers particularly associated with Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous nation. The present article provides a dramatistic analysis of the personae created in The Blind Man’s Garden to highlight the ways in which contemporary fiction depict specific kind of images about Muslim identity. It also studied how this novel constitutes assumptions about Muslim identity. Mostly, this novel portrays violent Muslim identity. After reading this novel one can feel the absence of representations of peaceful, devout, pragmatic Muslims within Pakistan.  It showed how, regardless of the ways in which the motivations of characters are portrayed, Islam is associated with violence through scenic means, even though the representations of violence portrayed in these religious scenes typically violate Islamic doctrine and the history of the true followers of Islam.