Revisiting Labeling Theory: An Islamic Feminist Approach to Aboulela’s “The Translator”

Abstract

The core of the research lies in the analysis of the Western usage of the labeling theory, its impact on Arab/Muslim countries and how Islamic feminism came to overcome those imposed labels on Arab/Muslim women. Since the question of woman’s role in Islam has come to be seen as one of its most controversial issues and the source of much criticism towards it, the present research investigates the efforts and reasons that led a large group of elite Arab women to secession from the global feminist institution and attempt to overcome western labeling through their own feminist school based on the Islamic religion.The research deals with The Translator as an implicational example of Islamic feminist theories and its most important ideas. The analysis of Sammar’s character, her life, and her relation with other characters helped in discussing and combining all these perverse issues of labeling, Islamic feminism and western control, through providing relative examples from the novel to support the discussion. Also, supporting the analysis of the text is three of the most important theories in the field of literature and research: power relations, deconstruction and the other theory.