English literary Studies: 
Including Islamic Perspectives

in Pedagogy and Practice
Md. Mahmudul Hasan

Abstract

Proponents of the integration of Islam into English literary studies
seek, by way of presenting Islamic worldviews in relation to the
life-worlds that English texts presumably promote, to inform (Mus-
lim) students and practitioners of the subject about possible unto-
ward influences in order to help them withstand cultural captivity
and lifestyle effects. This is part of the wider concept of integrating
Islam into human knowledge, which functions across a broad range
of subject areas and generally refers to a method of looking at ac-
ademic disciplines from Islamic perspectives and enlightening the
reader about relevant Islamic teachings. Based on this theoretical
premise, in this article I focus on the need for and three important
ways of teaching English literature: inculcating Islamic/moral val-
ues, identifying predominant themes and ideas inherent in literary
texts and looking at them from Islamic perspectives, and reforming
the curriculum.

Keywords: English literature; Islamic pedagogy; Islam and Eng-
lish; Islamic education; English literature curriculum 

Introduction
A sense of irreconcilability and mutual exclusivity is perhaps a common ex-
perience of Muslim students and academicians engaged with the discipline

Md. Mahmudul Hasan (mmhasan@iium.edu.my) is assistant professor, Department of English
Language and Literature, International Islamic University Malaysia. He holds a Ph.D. in feminist
comparative literature (University of Portsmouth, 2007) and focuses on postcolonial feminist
literature, twentieth-century and contemporary British literature, South Asian literature in Eng-
lish, and Islamic literature. 



of English literature. There is a widespread assumption that English studies is
a colonial subject, and thus it is often associated with hostility toward Islam
and Muslims.1 A serious intellectual engagement and a robust exchange of
scholarly ideas between a scholar of English literature and a scholar of Islamic
sciences generally sounds improbable, mainly because of the perceived re-
moteness of their respective fields. In other words, a conversation between an
English literature professor and an imam may not continue for long, as they
are presumed to belong to different worldviews. It is also likely that both par-
ties may make kidding, incisive remarks about each other when they are
among their colleagues and away from their supposed academic and intellec-
tual “other.” 

One can perhaps easily find English literature professors who may have
a tendency to caricature people linked with masjids and madrasas. Such a pre-
disposition and orientation of the subject’s practitioners resonate with writer
and broadcaster Mark Tully’s observation: “But perhaps the most damaging
of all the effects of English is to promote the snobbery of the English-speaking
elite.”2 Especially in Muslim societies, many members of the English-educated
privileged class generally associate graduates of Islamic seminaries with back-
wardness, archaism, and primitivism. This is, in fact, not because the madrasa-
affiliated ulama are essentially illiterate or uneducated, but mainly because
the Muslims’ perceived backwardness is measured in terms of their failure
“to avail themselves of western education.”3 As a result, even if a madrasa
student spends a comparable amount of time to acquire a formal education in
Islamic sciences, his counterpart with an English education may look down
upon him and even regard him as “uneducated” and “anachronistic.” Con-
versely, many people in the discipline of Islamic sciences tend to overgener-
alize and conceive wrong notions about western/English-educated graduates
and elites by branding them as “anti-Islamic” or “secular” and by declaring
the teaching and learning of English literature ḥarām (forbidden).

The above cases may represent two extreme ends of the spectrum. How-
ever, it may be correct to say that especially in Muslim countries, Islam and
English literature are commonly viewed as “opposing entities” and therefore
incompatible. Accordingly, their practitioners have a negative view of each
other. Many teachers and students of madrasa seminaries associate their English
studies counterparts with “westernization” and “colonial modernity.” Similarly,
many of the latter, in a quintessentially (neo-)Orientalist manner, regard the
former as “backward” and “old-fashioned.” One can argue, however, that the
division is not only between these two groups, but also between “those for
whom English is the medium of instruction in prestigious … schools, and those
who largely study English as a subject in ordinary government schools.”4

2 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



In almost all of the former British colonies, including the Muslim ones,
there is a growing number of English-medium schools, colleges, and univer-
sities catering, in most cases, to students from privileged economic back-
grounds. In some cases these students are so exclusively engrossed in learning
English and western ideas that their lack of adequate knowledge of the local
language and cultural practices, along with the inculcation of western values
and tastes, is considered a mark of “class” and elitism. Those who cannot or
do not receive an English education from such institutions are usually denied
the prestige enjoyed by the English-educated elite class. To be more precise,
the proliferation of English education during and after the colonial period has
divided the colonized into different categories, perhaps due to an imprecise
perception of the subject. The most notable manifestation of such multiple di-
visions within Muslim society caused by the introduction of English studies
is the divergence between Islam and English education, that is, between the
ulama and the English-educated elite, as well as between the graduates of or-
dinary schools and those of English-medium private institutes. 

The above discussion raises two important questions: What is the basis
of this perception of incongruity between Islamic values and English studies?
Is it based on prejudice and ignorance alone, or on a sense of cultural domi-
nation predicated upon the imperial control associated with English literature?
To find correct answers to such questions, we may need to go back to the gen-
esis of English’s introduction as a subject of study in the colonized countries.
We may also need to assess the predominant attitudes and prevailing tenden-
cies of the overwhelming majority of English literature students and scholars,
along with the values they apparently hold. The lifestyle of many English lit-
erature Muslim graduates and the worldview they represent as part of a by-
product of exposure to the subject may corroborate the original colonial intent
of introducing English literature, that is, the cultural colonization of the colo-
nized or “as a strategy of containment.” As Viswanathan puts it:  

Indeed, the fact that English literary study had its beginnings as a strategy
of containment raises a host of questions about the interrelations of culture,
state, and civil society and the modes of assertion of authority within that
network of relations.5

The Imperialist Motive behind Introducing
English literature 
Scholars like Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937),
Michel Foucault (1926-84), and Edward Said (1935-2003) believe that the
(western) knowledge system is not neutral and is used as a tool to establish

Hasan: English Literary Studies 3



hegemonic control over other nations and races. Nietzsche’s concept of “the
will to power,” Gramsci’s notion of “hegemony,” Foucault’s framework of
power/knowledge relations and notion of “episteme,” and Said’s critique of
Orientalism all point to “western knowledge’s complicity with western
power.”6 Scholars of postcolonial studies consider the introduction of English
studies in the colonies in the same light and have articulated the close linkage
and precise correlation between knowledge (for that matter, English studies)
and the continuing effects of imperialism and colonial power. In other words,
in their eyes this subject is thought to have been introduced mainly to colonize
the subjugated nations culturally in order to sustain and perpetuate colonial
dominance. As Sanjay Seth puts it: “Along with guns and goods, this knowl-
edge traveled to the colonies, and it was in part through this knowledge that
the non-western world came to be conquered, represented and ruled.”7

Gramsci, in his Prison Notebooks, states that “intellectual and moral lead-
ership” materialized through ‘hegemonic activity’ is the preferred method of
‘supremacy of a social group’8 because “cultural domination operates by con-
sent, indeed often preceding conquest by force.”9 Cultural domination is by
nature subtle and does not involve the use of the crude military force, and thus
it has the latent ability to keep the underdog oblivious of material exploitation.
Gauri Viswanathan observes:

In effect, the strategy of locating authority in [English literary] texts all but
effaced the sordid history of colonialist expropriation, material exploitation,
and class and race oppression behind European world dominance. Making
the Englishman known to the natives through the products of his mental
labour served a valuable purpose in that it removed from him the plane of
ongoing colonialist activity – of commercial operations, military expansion,
administration of territories – and de-actualized and diffused his material
presence in the process.10

It is in this spirit that, before establishing full-scale colonial domination,
the British colonizers introduced English literature in India. At a time when
the British administrators were gripped by “fears of native insubordination,”
they “discovered an ally in English literature to support them in maintaining
control of the natives under the guise of a liberal education.”11 John McLeod
provides a more precise picture of this undertaking and believes that “the
teaching of English literature in the colonies must be understood as part of
the many ways in which Western colonial powers such as Britain asserted
their cultural and moral superiority while at the same time devaluing indige-
nous cultural products.”12 What is more, the cultural-intellectual effect of in-
troducing English literature did not end with the cessation of formal colonial

4 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



rule. Even after “decolonization,” the “former” colonized still regard English
literature highly and have regular encounters with its texts. 

This is exactly what the practiced colonial administrator and prominent
Anglicist Charles Edward Trevelyan (1807-86) anticipated upon establishing
the subject at tertiary level in India. He maintains that the colonized students
“daily converse with the best and wisest Englishmen through the medium of
their works, and form ideas, perhaps higher idea of [England] than if their in-
tercourse with it were of a more personal kind.”13 Hence, Viswanathan regards
“the English literary text” as “a surrogate Englishman in his highest and most
perfect state.”14 Students in the postcolonial world study the works of English
writers with unswerving dedication and commitment; many go on to embrace,
adopt, and internalize the lifestyle pattern they come across in English literary
texts. As a result, they undergo a cultural metamorphosis and run the risk of
becoming deracinated from their native religious and cultural traditions. 

Given this complex relationship between western knowledge and colo-
nialism in the postcolonial world, English literature’s position must be deter-
mined and placed in a realistic context for specific learners. Its practitioners
may need to understand it against the backdrop of a substantial body of litera-
ture that regards its spread as part of western imperialism and cultural domi-
nation, as well as the colonizer’s imposition of a set of values. This is exactly
what the simultaneous and subversive (postcolonial) processes of “abrogation”
and “appropriation” of colonial texts and practices intend to do in the quest for
an identity that is clearly and unapologetically de-centered by negotiating the
gap between “worlds.” This postcolonial strategy finds a kind of approximation
in the concept of the integration of Islam into the (human) knowledge under-
taking in general and into English studies in particular.15

Robert Eaglestone provides a succinct account of the introduction of Eng-
lish at the tertiary level into British India, which confirms the argument dis-
cussed above. He posits that until 1813, the colonial administration funded
Christian missionary activities through the East India Company, thinking that
Christian Indians would be “more supportive of the Company’s colonial ex-
ploitation”16 and accept colonial rule without much complaint. But the colo-
nizers foresaw an ideological, moral problem here: Colonialism, by its very
nature, exploits and expropriates, whereas Christianity is supposedly based
on a stated moral foundation of love and mercy. Given these mutually opposite
tendencies, the colonizers were not ready to confront “searching questions
about anything, in case their regime itself came into question.”17

This dilemma later led to the curtailment of sponsoring missionary activ-
ities. Meanwhile, the colonial administration was looking for an alternative
that would produce “good Company servants”18 and soften the colonized minds

Hasan: English Literary Studies 5



to colonial rule, one that would not necessarily involve any moral evaluation
of its imperialist policies. Eventually they shifted their focus from proselytiza-
tion to the education movement, which has perennially been used to buttress
imperialist ideologies. They emphasized teaching English literature to “civilize”
the native population and universalize British artistic, literary work, thereby
promoting western culture. As Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin
state: “[S]earching for a method of communicating the values of Western civ-
ilization to Indians … the administration discovered the power of English Lit-
erature as a vehicle for imperial authority.”19 This is how British colonial power
and English studies became complicitous, more intimately connected and in-
vested within each other as power-knowledge, which is perhaps the reason why
scholars like Edward Said regard imperialism as “an educational movement.”20
While its earlier phase was the Orientalist conceptualization of non-western
religions and cultures, its relatively later version is the introduction of English
studies along with such subjects as history, anthropology, and philosophy. 

The long-lasting, ongoing debate among British educationalists and offi-
cialdom in India about the colony’s future education system continued during
the 1830s. The dispute was actually over “whether the British India government
should prioritize ‘Oriental’ knowledges, or whether it should direct its attentions
solely to promoting western knowledge, initially through the medium of Eng-
lish.”21 British scholars were “by now sharply divided into two opposing camps,
Anglicists and Orientalists.”22 The latter argued that the British administration
should introduce English education but also continue providing Indian students
with knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, which had been the case for
a few decades before the English Education Act was passed in 1835, for at the
beginning “English did not supersede Oriental studies but was taught alongside
it.”23 However, the former wanted the colonial administration to spend gov-
ernment money exclusively on English education. 

In the midst of this intra-British intellectual battle, London sent the histo-
rian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59) to serve on the
Supreme Council of India. He remained in this position from 1834 to 1838.
It is believed that he was aware of this debate before assuming the position of
the Law Member of the Governor-General’s Council in December 1834. Gov-
ernor-General William Bentinck then appointed him president of the General
Committee of Public Instruction, which had been debating and deliberating
colonial education policy in India. As president, he did not participate in the
ongoing education debate directly; however, when Bentinck sought his view
on the subject “he recorded on 2 February 1835 a long rhetorical minute stat-
ing strongly the case for the introduction of English education in India and
holding out a threat to resign if his recommendations were not accepted.”24

6 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



Macaulay’s capable persuasion and recommendation in “Minute on Edu-
cation in India (1835),” when coupled with this threat to resign, strengthened
the resolve of Bentinck, who already “believed that it was English education
alone that could cure the Indian society of its various evils.”25 Accordingly, he
“had not only been keeping in his cupboard a skeleton of the order which he
was to issue on the subject of English education on 7 March 1835 but also had
been steadily pursuing a policy of gradual introduction of English education
in India since 1829.”26 Thus both men gave their stamp of approval to the An-
glicists’ view, and the latter passed the following resolution on March 7, 1835: 

His Lordship-in-Council directs that all the funds which these reforms will
leave at the disposal of the Committee be henceforth employed in imparting
to the Native population knowledge of English literature and science through
the medium of the English language.27

Since then “India’s colonial rulers became the agency for promoting ‘west-
ern education,’ that is, education which sought to disseminate modern, western
knowledge through modern institutions and pedagogic processes.”28 Impor-
tantly, the “plea on behalf of English literature had a major influence on the
passing of the English Education Act in 1835, which officially required the na-
tives of India to submit to its study.”29 Although English literature had been
imparted to the Indians in various capacities even before 1835, with this verdict
it received all-out administrative and institutional support and patronization.
As a result, it became more widely taught, especially in institutions of higher
learning. More importantly, this edict established English literature as a subject
of study for the first time in history. Ironically, it happened in India and not in
England, where it became a university subject only after World War I. 

Trevelyan comments on the English Education Act 1835 thus: “The de-
cision which was come to is worthy of everlasting record. Although homely
in its words, it will be mighty in its effects long after we are mouldering in
the dust.”30 Indeed, his words were extremely prescient. While English liter-
ature as an academic discipline and university subject had its beginning in
India, it has now spread all over the world. In fact, the department of English
has emerged as an integral part of universities internationally. 

The colonizers treated India as a test case for introducing English literature.
Its success there prompted them to follow the same process in other colonies,
such as in British Malaya during the 1940s. The Allahabad-based Anglo-Indian
newspaper The Pioneer (established in 1865) remarked on this experiment with
western, English education in India thus: “[T]he experiment [of western edu-
cation] going on in India is one which […] has had no parallel in the world’s
history.”31 Like Trevelyan’s, this comment was predictive, and today we see

Hasan: English Literary Studies 7



the widest possible impact of that colonial decision, for the English language
and its literature have now reached the furthest corners of the planet. The sub-
ject has, perhaps, become more popular in the non-English-speaking former
colonies of Britain than in England itself, as Ania Loomba observes that at
Delhi University alone each of its “140,000 odd students must study English
literature for at least one year during their undergraduation. There are over 700
lecturers in the subject.”32 A similar survey in other Commonwealth countries
may manifest a comparable pattern of this subject’s preponderance. 

As mentioned earlier, India was the first country into which English liter-
ature as a subject of study was introduced. In England it was previously con-
sidered suitable only for “second- or third-rate minds” and “only as a pastime
for lesser minds.”33 After a long-standing debate between the proponents and
opponents of introducing English literature into British universities, it entered
the curriculum of Cambridge University in 1917 and finally became “really
established as a subject” in England after World War I.34 As it was introduced
in India to civilize the indigenous people, in England it was meant to “re-civilise
the native savages,” that is, the country’s working-class people.35

Macaulay sketched out the British Indian education policy’s primary ob-
jectives and outlined the perceived rationale for introducing English education
into India in his “Minute”: 

We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters be-
tween us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in
blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.
To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country,
to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western
nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying
knowledge to the great mass of the population.36

As discussed before, this colonial holdover of English education is in-
tended to produce individuals, more specifically westernized local elites, who
would promote western thought and values and thus propagate an elitist, alien
culture. Due to this policy’s far-reaching consequences, the colonial mentality
continues to operate long after the end of formal colonial rule and finds ex-
pression in the attitudes and behavioral practices of the educated elites in the
former colonies where English studies is considered a status marker and is
prioritized over other humanities subjects. As a result, this subject produces
brown sahibs, many of whom have “the wealth with which to buy education
in the mother country.”37 Those members of the westernized elite who have
been taken through English education are the privileged group in former
British colonies, as the “route to power, prestige, and riches, even today, lies

8 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



through English.”38 In most cases, they have access to those higher positions
of power previously occupied by the Europeans and to the privileges attached
thereto. Thus, they function as regional colonial surrogates.

Macaulay and Bentinck wanted to produce only “interpreters” or “an army
of clerks who could fill the lower ranks of the British administration in India.
… But in fact they turned out to be the oppressors, not the interpreters, proud
of their status as brown sahibs, although never accepted as such by the white
sahibs.”39 This reminds us of the native fireman in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness (1902), who works for the ship and tries desperately to look like a
European. But Charles Marlow, the narrator, still regards him as a “savage” al-
though “an improved specimen.” Marlow describes him thus: “He was there
below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog
in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs.”40

Like this native fireman, these brown sahibs or comprador intellectuals
are never accepted as equals by their colonial masters. But like the former colo-
nial oppressors, they use their skills to “manipulate the masses” in the indige-
nous community.41 In this respect, Tully quotes Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948):
“It is we the English-knowing Indians that have enslaved India. The curse of
the nation will not rest upon the English but upon us.”42 In other words, even
in the world of “decolonization” the colonized are subject to proxy oppression,
as they fall victim to ongoing epistemic and cultural hegemony mainly through
the comprador elites – those who are exposed to western learning in general
and English studies in particular, who are the carriers of the western culture
and modernity that have been instilled in them by the process of education. 

The local elites – trained in and overwhelmed by western cultural biases,
saturated with money and influence – to a great extent internalize and embody
stereotypical colonial attitudes in their own dealings with indigenous people.
Their thoughts and practices are largely mediated by and imbued with what
they learn from (English) colonial education, which continues to prevail in their
lands. In this respect, English literary texts represent a body of knowledge that
is perceived to be superior to other knowledge systems and is considered to be
value-free and culturally neutral. But postcolonial critics refuse to accept such
a claim, as the preceding discussion has established the value of English liter-
ature as an imperial tool. Thus it would be naïve to regard English literary texts
as simply self-referential aesthetic phenomena, for they are “value-laden and
inextricably linked to some cultural and religious ideas”43 that are mostly alien
to their recipients. However, these texts are dutifully taught and studied at uni-
versities in former colonies and thus challenge and change the worldviews of
many indigenous learners who, upon exposure to the subject, tend to imitate
the western way of life. 

Hasan: English Literary Studies 9



The Culture of Mimicry
The most blatant manifestation of the endemic effects of colonial education in
general and of English literature in particular is the culture of mimicry. This
widely regnant attitude among most of the subjects’ learners and practitioners
is reflected in their conscious or subconscious belief that it is part of their aca-
demic practice to adopt “the colonizer’s cultural habits, assumptions, institu-
tions and values.”44 Thus they exhibit a tendency to imitate the English in as
many ways as possible. In Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Frantz Fanon de-
scribes this compulsive mimicry of European (and neo-European) ways of life
by demonstrating that “the vast majority of the colonized intellectuals desper-
ately try to imitate the colonizers’ cultural code and thus to enjoy a privileged
status among the colonized.”45 What is more, Fanon suggests that those among
the colonized who mimic colonial culture, despite experiencing all of the ac-
companying colonial subjugation and exploitation, are “idiots in this world.”46
As the colonizers introduced western disciplines to dominate the colonized
without the use of military force, a section of the colonized ape colonial masters
to establish domination over, and enjoy a superior power position in relation
to, the vast majority of their compatriots who do not have enough resources to
gain access to colonial western education and culture. 

Perhaps, the common perception that English literature is associated with
the western way of life causes them to behave in a particular, alien manner.
Practitioners of English studies embrace many extrinsic features during their
initiation into the subject. As cultural metamorphosis and a resultant western-
ized outlook are among the usual outcomes of inculcating English studies in
Muslim students, the importance of including Islamic perspectives in the ped-
agogy and practice of English literary studies as a defense mechanism cannot
be overemphasized. This intellectual antidote seeks to inform Muslim learners
of English studies about the probable alien, anti-Islamic influences emanating
from their exposure to the subject, and to present the Islamic, alternative world-
view in reference to some of the ideas promoted by its literary texts. 

Islamic Perspectives on English literature:
Pedagogy and Practice
It follows from the preceding discussion that the introduction of English lit-
erature as a subject of study was part of a much wider project of colonial
modernity and cultural imperialism. Consequently, its students and practition-
ers manifest a wide variety of influences and behaviors in their lifestyle pat-
terns, attitudes, and routine activities, all of which confirm the need to look at
this subject from an Islamic perspective. However, such an intellectual ap-

10 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



proach may cause unease and elicit a reaction of surprise and shocked hilarity
among many. 

Mohd Kamal Hassan recognizes this and regards the launch of such an
enterprise as “the most challenging intellectual and academic enterprise ever
undertaken” in Islamic discourses.47 This observation is concerned not only
with English literature but also with other humanities and social sciences sub-
jects, like sociology and anthropology, that are generally deemed to be of colo-
nial origin as well as carrying “un-Islamic” values. A scholarly undertaking
to scrutinize such subjects may apparently suggest that it intends to hammer
together two diametrically opposed and oppositely inclined worldviews and
two sets of values. This is particularly the case with English literature, which
is generally perceived as an academic subject that is, by its very nature, hostile
to Islam. However, this is far from what this intellectual approach actually
means and proposes to accomplish, as will be detailed in the following dis-
cussion. In view of that, I mention three important areas that need to be ad-
dressed while including Islamic perspectives in the pedagogy and practice of
English literature in order to protect learners from the potential, untoward cul-
tural influences emanating from the subject. 

Inculcating Islamic Values 
Inculcating Islamic values or imbuing students with widely held and universally
accepted moral/Islamic values and with a sense of commitment to do good to
others is actually important for the pedagogical practice of all disciplines. The
best way to instill them is for the lecturers to embrace the concept of murabbī
in teaching and pedagogical practices and act accordingly, especially in the
classroom setting. Islamic education defines murabbī as an educator “who
combines a life of learning with a life of virtue, and hence a perfect and an
ideal person to learn from.”48 Embracing this concept is crucial in the current
pedagogical practice, as not many teachers and lecturers are worth viewing as
role models. As Harvard scholar Harry Lewis observes: “Professors are hired
as scholars and teachers, not as mentors of values and ideals to the young and
confused.”49 What is more worrying is that very few “of today’s professors
enter academia as a mission, a noble calling.”50 Unfortunately, both the twenty-
first century academia and academics seem to have tiptoed “away from moral
education,”51 which has had far-reaching negative consequences. 

Universities are no longer viewed as sites of moral high ground, and their
graduates have no greater claim on moral or ethical values. Lewis’ stark warn-
ing is pertinent here: “[S]ociety is going to hell in a hand basket, and the great
universities are going to get there first.”52 In other words, even though deca-

Hasan: English Literary Studies 11



dence and moral degradation have gripped the entire fabric of the social system,
universities are the worst affected by this tsunami of decay. When moral crisis
and degeneration are widespread in the social order, universities are supposed
to play a crucial role in restoring fundamental moral values. However, consid-
ering Lewis’ observation, such an expectation today will meet only disappoint-
ment. This caveat perhaps triggered him “to expose the other side of Harvard”53
through his monumental work Excellence without a Soul: How a Great Uni-
versity Forgot Education (2006), an account of how America’s great universi-
ties have abandoned the core value of education and learning.

Today’s world has witnessed the rise of a rebellious, unhealthy youth cul-
ture largely based upon the homogenization of western tastes and lifestyles,
passion for fashion and luxury products without any restraints, violent enter-
tainment frenzy and hysteria, and irresponsible use of social networking
media. In such a cultural context, it may not be appropriate for educators to
remain complacent by doing no more than performing their conventional du-
ties, namely, just providing learners with some facts and figures, transmitting
the texts’ contents in the classroom, but ignoring their moral health. Lecturers
should be professionally and morally obligated to serve as role models both
in word and deed. The classroom setting is the best place in which teachers
can positively influence students as well as provide them with the necessary
guidance, counseling, and other useful real-life instructions and life direction.
If they fail to mold the character of the self and others (students), they may
not be able to equip their society’s future leaders with the necessary useful
knowledge and moral-ethical rectitude that will enable them to play a positive
role in guiding others. 

As is evident in various verses of the Qur’an (e.g., 2:31-32, 4:58, 55:1-4,
and 96:1-5), God associates Himself with the calling of teaching as well as
proclaims that the act and art of teaching are associated with Him. What is
more, Prophet Muhammad regards God as his teacher: “My Lord educated
me [taught me good conduct] and so made my education most excellent.”54
God taught all prophets and, through revelation and the real-existential, con-
tinues to teach all human beings: “[A]nd remember the favor of God upon
you, and that which He has revealed to you of the Book and the Wisdom, ed-
ucating you thereby” (Q. 2:231). So God is a teacher in a much greater sense
of the term, as it is He Who is the source of knowledge and creates the capacity
in human beings to learn. 

The next one in this hierarchy is Prophet Muhammad, who clearly and
most famously stated: “I have certainly been sent as a teacher.”55 A number of
Qur’anic verses describe his action plan as a teacher. The Qur’an mentions
Prophet Ibrahim’s and his son Prophet Ismail’s supplication: “Our Lord! Raise

12 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



up among them a Messenger from among themselves who shall recite to them
Your communications and teach them the Book and the wisdom, and purify
them; surely You are the Mighty, the Wise” (Q. 2:129). God granted their
prayer and thus addresses humanity: “Even as We have sent among you a
Messenger from among yourselves who recites to you Our communications
and purifies you and teaches you the Book and the wisdom and teaches you
that which you did not know” (Q. 2:151). 

Along with conveying God’s message and teaching his contemporaries
the Book and wisdom, one important aspect of Prophet Muhammad’s action
plan as a teacher is a comprehensive agenda and systematic strategy for puri-
fying the student’s inherent human character. This noble act is also associated
with God, for “God purifies whom He pleases” (Q. 4:49). Thus moral purifi-
cation is a basic element of Islamic pedagogy. Or, it can be said to be an im-
portant sunnah of God and His Prophet. If Muslim educators neglect this
important and imperative duty as regards their students, they may be at fault
for failing to comply with the Islamic pedagogical tradition. As a result, they
may produce graduates who may excel in their professional domains but lack
any moral and ethical commitment. 

As widely expected, in terms of moral conduct and other matters of
lifestyle those people who possess knowledge are supposed to excel those
who do not. Hence, all lecturers need to do some introspection and determine
if they are fulfilling their responsibility to produce students who excel in both
knowledge and good manners. If they focus too much on transmitting facts
and figures culled from the texts and do not look after their students’ moral
health, then they will swerve from the Islamic pedagogical practice. 

Therefore, while looking at disciplines from Islamic perspectives is im-
portant, lecturers cannot ignore another crucial aspect of the so-called Is-
lamization of Knowledge undertaking: the teacher-student dynamic, which is
mainly concerned with the teacher’s role in an educational setting. Mohd.
Kamal Hassan regards this as the “‘Islamicisation of the Self” that can be de-
livered through jihād al-nafs (striving against the base desires) and taṭhīr al-
qalb (purification of the heart).”56 If lecturers do not undertake this program
in the classroom setting and beyond, they may end up producing graduates
who may know some outward facts of this life but will be heedless about the
life hereafter and its associated obligations. As the Qur’an states: 

[This is] God’s promise. Never does God fail to fulfil His promise – but
most people know [it] not: they know but the outer surface of this world’s
life, whereas of the ultimate things [the inner reality of this world’s life and
the ultimate reality of the hereafter] they are utterly unaware. (Q. 30:6-7) 

Hasan: English Literary Studies 13



This passage encompasses the Islamic concept of education, which in-
cludes both the knowledge of life in this world and the inner consciousness
that propels its recipient toward leading a life of decency, integrity, and right-
eousness. If lecturers confine their professional duty to only teaching the
course contents, they cannot provide students with a holistic Islamic education
and may not be able to equip them with a good grounding in moral and Islamic
values. In the Islamization of Knowledge movement, emphasis is generally
placed upon Islamizing the disciplines’ content. However, equal importance
should be given to the teacher-student dynamic and teachers should be actively
involved in purifying their students’ hearts and molding their character. 

For Muslim educators, purifying the student’s character includes creating
God-consciousness and awareness of the connection between mundane deeds
and the rewards/retributions in the ākhirah (life hereafter) among the learners.
People who may have accumulated skilled knowledge and systematic infor-
mation about worldly matters and phenomenon but who do not relate their
knowledge and understanding to God and have no concerns about the ākhirah
cannot be considered truly educated, as the Qur’anic verses mentioned above
state. On the contrary, the Qur’an regards proper knowledge very highly and
celebrates the true scholars: “He (God) grants wisdom to whom He pleases,
and whoever is granted wisdom, he indeed is given a great good and none but
people of understanding mind (Q. 2:269)” and “God will exalt those of you
who believe, and those who are given knowledge, in high degrees; and God
is aware of what you do” (Q. 55:11).

Given the widespread moral perversion especially among the educated
in today’s world, teachers need to embrace the Qur’anic concept of education,
which includes the continuous cognitive as well as moral development of the
self. Educators may need to adopt the Islamic paradigm of teaching in their
attempt to purify their students’ character. Since English literature is widely
associated with secular values, the urgency of this pedagogic commitment to
purifying the student’s character cannot be overstated in the English depart-
ments of universities, especially those located in Muslim-majority countries.

looking at English literary Texts from Islamic Perspectives 
After inculcating moral/Islamic values, the next important task of English lit-
erature educators is to identify and separate anti-Islamic ideas in texts and
create an awareness among their students of the ethical challenges involved.
It is untenable to take English literary texts as purely aesthetic creations, for
they also promote particular worldviews and are sometimes used as “propa-
ganda machine[s].”57 As Ali Ashraf states: 

14 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



Take the case of D. H. Lawrence for example. His presentation of human
characters and certain human situations has natural validity but the way in
which he has presented them, the method with which he rouses the emotions
and demands the assent of the reader to a scheme of life in which sex plays
the most dominant and most effective role, makes it difficult for the reader
with religious feelings to accept this interpretation of life as something valid
and true. What he has done is nothing but the universalization of something
extremely personal.58

There are authors and texts in English literature who present ideas that are
completely alien to Islam or incompatible with conventional moral principles.
In such cases, it may be unbecoming of English literature lecturers of Muslim
orientation to leave their students in the lurch to be misguided or confused by
the maze of philosophies encountered. Some texts may promote anti-religion
or amoral ideas, glorify illicit sexual behavior and relationships, or endorse
pornographic tendencies. For example, this literary tradition contains a great
deal of carpe diem poems that urge the reader to seize the moment and indulge
in fleeting sexual pleasures without any concern for moral or religious values.
They amiably and lightheartedly reproach the tendency of unmarried women
to protect their virginity and chastity, and generally impel young beautiful
women to “ignore conventional moral scruples, urge them to the bouts of erotic
temptations and desires, and finally invite them to reciprocate man’s carnal de-
mands and interests, and to respond to his lust-filled sexual advances.”59

Some notable carpe diem poems are John Donne’s “The Flea” (1633) and
“The Sun Rising” (1633), Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much
of Time” (1648), and Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” (1681). These
poems constitute invitations to women to respond to men’s (extra-marital)
sexual advances, which Muslim educators and students may not support. If
lecturers do not provide students with the Islamic perspective while interpret-
ing such works, they may end up reproducing and promoting the ideas inher-
ent in them and thus sanction a hedonistic and permissive lifestyle of partying,
drinking, gambling, and a variety of sexual behaviors. 

Conversely, a great number of English literary texts promote ideas that
are fully compatible with Islamic teachings. In such cases, it is important that
English literature lecturers substantiate those ideas with evidence from the
Qur’an and Sunnah so that such ideas are deeply rooted in the students’ con-
sciousness. For example, many Victorian-era literary pieces promote social
justice and condemn the oppression of women, children, and the underdog.
Such ideas are fully compatible with Islamic teachings. 

Other examples may include Alfred Tennyson’s “Flower in the Crannied
Wall” (1869) and Roald Dahl’s “Television” (1964). The former shows that

Hasan: English Literary Studies 15



contemplating nature can lead human beings to the recognition of God’s exis-
tence, which corroborates with the Qur’an, whereas the latter emphasizes re-
sponsible parenting, the proper use of time, and the culture of reading, all of
which are highly encouraged in Islam. Even though these poets are not Muslim,
the ideas they promote are fully consistent with Islamic teachings. So while
approaching English literary pieces, lecturers and students cannot adopt an at-
titude of uncritical reception or outright rejection. Islam embraces many ideas
English literary pieces promote, while it rejects many others. Accordingly, Mus-
lim lecturers who teach English literature are professionally and religiously
obligated to interpret them in line with this theoretical premise. 

A particular author or a text may convey divergent ideas, some of which
may or may not be compatible with Islamic values. So, while handling such
authors and texts a lecturer should do his/her best to discuss their pros and
cons. Disregarding such a duty goes against the very notion of a teacher as
murabbī. As Ali Ashraf states: 

If the teacher, on the other hand, takes a permissive attitude and considers a
writer whose code of life is completely at variance with the Islamic code,
and leaves students in vacua, and allows them to respond to that writing or
be influenced by it as they like, he will not be doing justice either to literature
or to his students. Literature can be extremely seductive and may even be
misleading, corrosive and destructive.60

However, undertaking the venture of reading English texts from Islamic
perspectives with complacent or uncritical eyes and inadequate knowledge
may be counterproductive. Educators and researchers’ lack of sufficient Is-
lamic knowledge may render them apologetic when handling Islamic issues.
For example, a thesis titled “Finding the Middle Path: Assimilation, Identity
and Islam in Hanif Kureishi’s ‘The Black Album,’” seems to have located the
“Islamic middle path” in Kureishi’s representation of Islam and Muslims.
Such an endorsement may baffle even Kureishi himself who, in his own
words, created characters who interrogate Islam and counter “Islamo-fascists
who believe themselves to be in possession of the Truth.”61

According to Kureishi, “along with mythology, religions are among
man's most important and finest creations – with God perhaps being his great-
est idea of all,” and in The Black Album the protagonist Shahid “learns how
corrupt and stultifying these concepts can become.”62 Kureishi portrays char-
acters who interrogate “Islam, liberalism, consumer capitalism”63 in the same
breath and seeks to establish some sort of equivalence between them.  The
protagonist Shahid says to another character Hat: “I’m sick of being bossed
around, whether by Riaz or Chad or God himself…. What men and women

16 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



do, the things they make, must be more interesting than anything than God
is supposed to do?”64 What Shahid does in the novel is the complete rejection
of faith in God and in Islam, and it is not simply his doubt in the religion.
What is more, such a state of mind cannot be regarded as a manifestation of
his “honest courage” and “open mindedness”65 from an Islamic perspective.
Islam highly encourages such commendable human attributes as courage and
open-mindedness, but Shahid’s open-mindedness transgresses the boundary
between faith and unbelief. On the whole, the thrust and tone of the novel
suggests that it “openly questions religion.”66 So viewing Kureishi’s novel
“as an ‘Islamic’ work”67 will create in readers’ mind confusion and obfusca-
tion and may betray an apologetic tone, ideological bias, or self-defensive
posture.

The researcher, albeit in the spirit of “Islamization,” was supposed to give
the Islamic viewpoints in relation to Kureishi’s atheistic ideas; instead, she
accepts them as compatible with Islam, which is a disservice to both Islam
and to the argument the novelist is making. One has the intellectual liberty to
support or promote atheistic ideas; however, mishandling such issues, endors-
ing agnostic philosophies, and branding them as “Islamic” are beyond the pale
of accepted academic norms and values. Here Taha Jabir al-Alwani’s obser-
vation is extremely pertinent: “To summarize, then, the Islamization of
Knowledge undertaking may be pursued only by those endowed with a vast
knowledge of the Qur’an and a firm grounding in the social sciences and hu-
manities.”68 As regards English literary texts, a reasonably sound knowledge
of Islam and of this literary tradition is essential for including Islamic per-
spectives in them. 

Reforming the Curriculum 
Curriculum is a crucial aspect of English literary studies. Since the subject
has a colonial genesis, an uncritical reception of the conventional course syl-
labi may end up sustaining a neo-colonial, imperialist cultural agenda.

Said’s review of the English departments’ syllabi at Arab universities sug-
gests that they do not reflect the “relationship between English and the colonial
processes that brought the language and its literature” to the region.69 While
formulating an appropriate syllabus, two important things need to be consid-
ered: the subject’s colonial origin and the “huge influx of new ideas into the
discipline of English.”70 This is to say that the syllabi should include materials
that debunk colonialist, racist ideology and incorporate postcolonial texts, es-
pecially those written by Muslim authors, and the latest practices of literary
criticism. 

Hasan: English Literary Studies 17



In respect of including Muslim authors, which is also part of iḥyā’ al-
turāth al-Islāmī (reviving the Islamic heritage), the literature course contents
of many universities in Muslim societies may manifest the almost complete
absence of Muslim authors, while in some others their representation is very
minimum. Among the Muslim writers included, writers with secular and anti-
Islamic orientations seem to be given a disproportionately high attention. In
this respect, Shelina Janmohamed’s observation is pertinent. 

I wanted to contribute to the social discourse about gender and equality, but
Muslim women who wore the veil by choice, and by extension who em-
braced Islam as a positive force, were not allowed to have a say. Only Mus-
lim women who had openly rejected Islam were allowed to be part of the
discussion.71

Course outlines of contemporary British literature at many universities,
even in Muslim countries, may show that “Muslim” authors who reject Islam
receive more attention than those who embrace it “as a positive force.” The
scope of this paper does not allow me to show in detail the relevance of Mus-
lim writers to many English literature courses. However, I would like to shed
light on two of them and show how the inclusion of Muslim authors is very
possible and how Islamic writers are neglected. 

Twentieth-century British literature courses can appropriately cover writers
like Marmaduke Pickthall (1875-1936) and Martin Lings (1909-2005). The
former is a prolific novelist, essayist, short-story and travel writer, even though
his reputation as a writer has now been reduced to his translation of the Qur’an;
the latter is a poet, literary critic, and Shakespeare scholar. Both of these Muslim
writers are routinely neglected in literary history. As regards contemporary
English literature, dozens of British Muslim writers and the vibrancy of their
cultural life and literary production render their presence palpable and distin-
guish them among other ethnic writers in Britain. Their creative accomplish-
ments and literary achievements are quite impressive. A quick look at the
Muslim Writers Awards project, launched in 2006 (http://muslimwriters
awards.org.uk) may give some idea about the prolificacy of their literary output.
Some notable ones are Ziauddin Sardar (b. 1951), Qaisra Shahraz (b. 1958),
Leila Aboulela (b. 1964), Mohsin Hamid (b. 1971), Rabina Khan (b. 1972),
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed (b. 1974), Rekha Waheed (b. 1975), Na’ima B.
Robert (b. 1977), Rageh Omaar (b. 1967), Robin Yassin-Kassab (b. 1969),
Zahid Hussain (b. 1972), and all of whom somewhat use their literary career
and creative works to exemplify various aspects of Islamic teachings. 

Excluding such writers from contemporary English literature courses is
a deplorable and an inexplicable anomaly. By making the case for including

18 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



Muslim writers, I by no means suggest the exclusion or replacement of non-
Muslim writers. Rather, I argue for the proportional representation of writers
belonging to various religious and ideological backgrounds so that students
are exposed to various strands of thought and ideas. Marginalizing a section
of writers because of their racial or religious orientation is a form of cultural
profiling of the human spirit. 

Conclusion
There is a tendency to associate English studies with western value systems,
secularism, and anti-Islamic or sometimes Christian ideas. Hence, in order to
counteract western and undesirable influences, scholars of postcolonial studies
employ the twin strategy of “abrogation” and “appropriation” to create plat-
forms for self-assertion and resistance. The way English literature is taught
and received, especially at universities in the Muslim world, and the lifestyle
pattern that many of its graduates and practitioners maintain, clearly point to
a sense of irreconcilability between Islam and this particular subject. The
canon of English literature does not target Islam or Muslims exclusively for
caricaturing, nor is there anything in the religion that summarily dismisses the
entire bulk of this literary tradition.72 In fact, the putative rift between the two
entities is actually due to how they are perceived. 

English literature was introduced in British colonies to proliferate English
manners and a specific way of life and, more importantly, to colonize the in-
digenous people culturally. The subject survived the formal demise of colonial
rule, and its uncritical reception continued long after “decolonization.” Schol-
ars of postcolonial studies have attempted to strategize its teaching and learn-
ing by proposing the processes of “abrogation” and “appropriation” to
disabuse its learners of the untoward cultural influence of English studies.
However, regrettably, these twin strategies are still not fully applied in peda-
gogical practices. In such a context, an Islamic approach can be added as an
alternative strategy to interpret English literary pieces. 

It is in this spirit that English literature lecturers must embrace the concept
of murabbī and inculcate Islamic and other widely accepted moral values into
their students’ consciousness, along with teaching them the content of English
literary works. Given the fact that many English literature courses include texts
that transmit philosophies and worldviews that contradict Islamic/moral values
to one degree or another, the absence of Islamic perspectives while handling
them may run the risk of conveying unintended messages to students. 

Again, the absence of enough Muslim writers in relevant courses suggests
a replication of the dominant tendency in formulating its curriculum, as it points

Hasan: English Literary Studies 19



to a lack of searching minds. Muslim writers are largely marginalized in various
literary traditions. Including those who have a firm Islamic commitment may
serve as an antidote to the many un-Islamic ideas promoted by some English
texts as well as enrich the subject. In short, English literature educators may
need to embrace the Qur’anic concept of purifying the heart and instilling Is-
lamic values in students, critique and substantiate literary texts in the spirit of
the Islamic paradigm, and include relevant Muslim authors in different courses
in order to deal with English literature from Islamic perspectives. 

Endnotes

1. Amin Malak, Muslim Narratives and the Discourse of English (New York: State
University of New York, 2005), 2.

2. Mark Tully, “English: An Advantage to India?” ELT Journal 51, no. 2 (1997):
157-64, 162.

3. Sanjay Seth, Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India (Dur-
ham: Duke University Press, 2007), 11. 

4. Tully, “English,” 159.
5. Gauri Viswanathan, “The Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India,”

in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and
Helen Tiffin (London: Routledge, 2006 [1987]), 376-380, 380.

6. Md. Mahmudul Hasan, “The Orientalization of Gender,” American Journal of
Islamic Social Sciences 22, no. 4 (fall 2005): 26-56, 26.

7. Seth, Subject Lessons, 1. 
8. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, trans. Quintin Hoare

and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 57.
9. Viswanathan, “The Beginnings,” 379.
10. Ibid., 380.
11. Ibid., 378. 
12. John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism (Manchester: Manchester University

Press, 2000), 140. 
13. Charles Edward Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India (London:

Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1838), 190.
14. Viswanathan, “The Beginnings,” 380.
15. For more details, see Md. Mahmudul Hasan, “The Islamization of English Lit-

erary Studies: A Postcolonial Approach,” American Journal of Islamic Social
Sciences 30, no. 2 (spring 2013): 21-41.

16. Robert Eaglestone, Doing English: A Guide for Literature Students (London:
Routledge, 2009), 11.

17. Ibid.
18. Ibid. 
19. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies: The

Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2007), 117.

20 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



20. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1994), 269.
21. Seth, Subject Lessons, 1.
22. Suresh Chandra Ghosh, “Bentinck, Macaulay, and the Introduction of English

Education in India,” History of Education: Journal of the History of Education
Society 24, no. 1 (1995): 17-24, 21.

23. Viswanathan, “The Beginnings,” 377.
24. Ghosh, “Bentinck, Macaulay,” 21. 
25. Ibid., 22.
26. Ibid.,17.
27. Ibid., 21.
28. Seth, Subject Lessons, 1.
29. Viswanathan, “The Beginnings,” 377. 
30. Charles Edward Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India (London:

Longman, 1838), 13.
31. Qtd. in Seth, Subject Lessons, 2-3.
32. Ania Loomba, Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama (Oxford University Press,

1992), 28. 
33. Eaglestone, Doing English, 10 and 12. 
34. Ibid., 9.
35. Ibid., 12. 
36. Qtd. in Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter, Archives of Empire, vol. 1: From East

India Company to the Suez Canal (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 237.
37. Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, Distorted Imagination: Lessons from

the Rushdie Affair (London: Grey Seal Books, 1990), 78.
38. Tully, “English,” 159.
39. Ibid. 
40. Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness,” in The Norton Anthology of English Lit-

erature: The Major Authors, 9th ed. (pp. 2407-2465), ed. Stephen Greenblatt
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), 2433.

41. Sardar and Davies, Distorted Imagination, 78.
42. Qtd. in Tully, “English,” 159.
43. Hasan, “The Islamization of English Literary Studies,” 25. 
44. Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies, 125.
45. Hasan, “The Islamization of English Literary Studies,” 28.
46. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto Press, 1987), 9. 
47. Mohd. Kamal Hassan, “The Integration of Human Sciences and Revealed

Knowledge in the KIRKHS,” in IIUM at 25: The Path Travelled and the Way
Forward, ed. Syed Arabi Idid (111-24) (Kuala Lumpur: IIUM Press, 2009), 112.

48. Yedullah Kazmi, “The Notion of Murabbi in Islam: An Islamic Critique of Trends
in Contemporary Education,” Islamic Studies 38, no. 2 (1999): 209-33, 209.

49. Harry Lewis, Excellence without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Edu-
cation (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 4.

50. Ibid., 5. 
51. Ibid., 96. 

Hasan: English Literary Studies 21



52. Ibid., 108.
53. Mohd. Kamal Hassan, “A Return to the Qur’anic Paradigm of Development and

Integrated Knowledge: The Ulu al-Albab Model,” Intellectual Discourse 18, no.
2 (2010): 183-210, 194. 

54. Hadith, qtd. in Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, “The Concept of Education
in Islam,” 15. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from http://www.mef-ca.org/files/
attas-text-final.pdf

55. Hadith, qtd. in Mishkat al-Maṣābīḥ, vol. 1, ed. Khairy Said (Cairo: Al Tawfikia,
2004), 69.

56. Mohd. Kamal Hassan, “Islamisation of Human Knowledge as the Most Impor-
tant Mission of IIUM” (unpublished article).

57. Syed Ali Ashraf, “Islamic Principles and Methods in the Teaching of Literature,”
British Journal of Religious Education 1, no. 2 (1978): 52-61, 57.

58. Ibid., 55. 
59. Md. Mahmudul Hasan, “Good Literature and Bad Literature: Debate on Islam

and Poetry,” International Journal of Islamic Thought 3, no.1 (2014): 43-54, 45.
60. Ali Ashraf, “Islamic Principles,” 57. 
61. Hanif Kureishi, “Turning The Black Album into a stage play,” The Guardian,

29 June 2009, retrieved on Nov 24, 2014 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/
books/2009/jun/29/hanif-kureishi-black-album.

62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Hanif Kureishi, The Black Album (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 226.
65. Tanja Jonid, Finding the Middle Path: Assimilation, Identity and Islam in Hanif

Kureishi’s ‘The Black Album’ ([master’s thesis] Kuala Lumpur: IIUM, 2002), 93.
66. Kenneth C. Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller (Austin: University

of Texas Press, 1998), 139.
67. Jonid, Finding the Middle Path, 105.
68. Taha Jabir al-Alwani, “The Islamization of Knowledge: Yesterday and Today,”

American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 12, no. 1 (winter 1995): 81-101,
89.

69. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1994), 368-69.
70. Eaglestone, Doing English, 2.
71. Shelina Janmohamed, Love in a Headscarf (Boston: Beacon, 2010), 185.
72. For more details, see Hasan, “The Islamization of English Literary Studies.”

22 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1