Muslim Women’s Agency and South Asian Literature: A Postcolonial Feminist Analysis of Purdah and Polygamy: Life in an Indian Muslim Household by Iqbalunnisa Hussain

Abstract

The study Muslim Women’s Agency and South Asian Literature aims at exploring the aspects of Muslim women’s oppression and seclusion in the life of zenana with reference to the selected work Purdah and Polygamy: Life in an Indian Muslim Household (1944) by Iqbalunnisa Hussain. Hussain is celebrated as the pioneer of Muslim Anglophone literature in South Asia. She is considered as the first female writer to stand against the oppressive practices like polygamy and seclusion of Indian Muslim women. Women authors and their literature have played a vital role in reflecting the oppressive states of women at the hands of insensitive conventional and patriarchal cultural values of colonial India. The selected novel is examined through Spivak’s perspective of voiceless subaltern. The study concludes that the patriarchal hegemony and subjugation are the factors, preventing Muslim women’s agency.