Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review

Countering Islamophobia and Muslim Stereotypes in Ali Eteraz’s Native Believer

2025-10-01T00:12:27+05:00

This research paper attempts to delineate the strategies adopted by American Muslims to counter Islamophobia and Muslim Stereotypes in Ali Eteraz’s novel Native Believer (2016). Employing Sherene Razack’s theoretical perspectives from her book: Nothing has to Make Sense: Upholding White Supremacy through anti-Muslim Racism (2022), the paper focuses on post-9/11 Muslim lives in America and the worldwide. The paper charts M’s journey from being a secular Muslim toward a reckless tramp and then an American civilian completely assimilated into the American society. The colonial encounter between Western powers and Muslim-majority regions, spanning centuries of conquest, colonization and cultural imposition has left indelible marks on both the colonizer and the colonized. As the securitization of Islam, War on Terror, and proliferation of surveillance measures serve to perpetuate a cycle of suspicion and discrimination and affect Muslim communities living at diaporic spaces, the paper shows that generally a Muslim has to devise an assimilative approach to survive in such a society

Silencing Women: A Textual Analysis of Honor Killing in Awais Khan’s No Honour (2021)

2025-10-06T12:50:51+05:00

This paper aims to explores the phenomenon of Honor Killing and investigate the main reasons of honor killing. Also, the researcher aims to highlights the traumas faced by the protagonist due to honor killing and explain how the main character destabilizes the hierarchal structure of the patriarchy in Awais Khan’s No Honour (2021). Honor Killing remains one of the main social issues in Pakistan. In 2021, over 470 cases of honor killing were reported in Pakistan, but it is estimated that around 1000 women are killed in the name of honor every year in Pakistan. Awais Khan’s No Honour (2021) is the portrayal of a misogynistic society, a society where age-old rules are obeyed, and women are suppressed through different social practices. The papers employ Paul Churchill’s notion of understanding and ending of Honor killing to examine how the protagonist escapes from the prejudice and patriarchal society. This study uses textual analysis as a methodological framework to interpret dialogues, paragraphs, symbols to understand the phenomenon of honor killing. Conclusion: The study maintains that there are several social practices that leads to the honor killing. This study also shows the physical, psychological and sexual impacts of honor killing in the selected text of Honor killing. The study further concludes that honor killing is rooted especially in the honor of women in Pakistan. The researcher recommends that other novels or literary texts may also be explored to understand the notion of Honor Killing.

The Illusion of Consent: Hegemony and Resistance in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy

2025-10-06T15:14:41+05:00

This research paper examines Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy (1977) to expose postcolonial African elites being ideologically framed by Western worldviews, thereby perpetuating cultural and psychological domination even in the absence of physical colonization. The primary objective is to investigate the mental conditioning of African self-exiles who adopt and internalize Western ideologies with little resistance, reinforcing a passive form of consent. The secondary aim is to examine the process by which this internalization occurs, thereby revealing the subtle mechanisms of neocolonial control. It critiques the postcolonial notions of hegemony and consent through Sissie’s experiences in Europe and her reflections on neocolonial Africa. A qualitative research design is employed using textual analysis of Aidoo’s novel as the primary data source. The research is grounded in Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony and consent. Key findings reveal that the illusion of consent is maintained through ideological conditioning that frames Western values as universal and superior. They are presented under the guise of politeness or modernity, not through coercion.