John Updike Quran And Islam Chapter Summary

This chapter explores the biased views of John Updike on how Muslims and their doctrines are shaped with regard to the women as instructed by Holy Quran. Oriental women are generally portrayed as suppressed and helpless creature that has to accept the position of slavery and servitude enforced by Islamic injunctions. Quran is considered as the root cause for giving moral and legal justification for every act of savageness unleashed upon women. Again, John Updike Western Strategic location gives him impetus to act as an authority to misuse and misconstrue the higher authority of Muslims. i.e. Quran. He speaks with a definitive voice that it becomes difficult to distinguish whether his arguments are vivid or mystified with prejudices. This misrepresentation

There is definitely a purpose behind depicting the justified cruelties unchain upon Oriental women by their counterparts. Firstly, it brings out the Quran and Islam as antithetical and unsympathetic of Western Modernity and democratic values (the main stimulus for protagonist Ahmad in novel to carry out a terrorist attack). As Updike says in one of his interviews: “Islam doesn’t have as many shades of gray as Christian or the Judaic faith does. It’s fairly absolutist, as you know, and you are either in or not” (qtd, in Deyab, 2009, p.6). Secondly, this painted attitude of Muslim men towards Oriental women establishes them as cruel, suppressive and inhuman in order to label West with more refined and cultured notions and giving them authority to conquer and civilize East. As Spivak says: “white men saving brown women from brown men” (Spivak, 1999, p.287). Thirdly, John Updike using his Western Strategic Location also tries to present a modern, democratic society, where Oriental women can enjoy their full freedom irrespective of binary