American Literature and the Representation of Feminism and Women’s Rights in Islam. Case Study: Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012)

Abstract

Islam and Feminism views towards women’s rights differ on several grounds. Consequently, this variance and compared to feminism, Islamic view towards women has been misrepresented as an inevitable consequence of a serious misunderstanding of the Islamic law in the first place. This study aimed to compare women’s rights in both: Islam and feminism alike. This research, then, aimed to spotlight and analyzes the misrepresentations that may lead the misunderstanding of Muslim women’s issues. To better achieve these aims, this study adopted a historical approach to display women's situation and rights in feminism, then in Islam. An analytical approach was also adopted to point out the controversial issues about the Islamic viewpoint to women highlighted in the American play of Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced (2012) and present its corrections in light of Quran and Sunnah in order to root out any ambiguity concerning women’s matter. Therefore, this dissertation highlighted, on the one hand, that women enjoyed different rights in each of feminism and Islam. On the other hand, that misunderstanding the Islamic laws within their total context had led to their misrepresentation of Islam as a whole religion as it is the case in the American play Disgraced, which allows distorting women’s real position within Islamic studies, with a high emphasis on the domestic violence issue