British Muslim Bildungsromane

Abstract

At the time of writing, members of parliament have recently felt justified in asking British Muslims to ‘explain and demonstrate how faith in Islam can be part of British identity’ in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings (January 2015), in terms that imply their inherent opposition.¹ I argue, therefore, that it is more important than ever to consider the nuanced accounts of Muslim faith and identity provided in fiction and to evaluate critically the relationship between Britishness and Islam enacted therein. This relationship is foregrounded through the identity crises experienced by the protagonists of these Bildungsromane. The chapter title deliberately evokes the plural form of ‘Bildungsroman’ to indicate that the genre — as with the spectrum of ‘belief attitudes’² displayed by authors and protagonists — cannot be considered as monolithic. The chapter examines Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (1995), Leila Aboulela’s The Translator (1999) and Minaret (2005) and Robin Yassin-Kassab’s The Road from Damascus (2008).