Political Islam in Laila Lalami’s “The Fanatic” and Hanif Kureishi’s “My Son the Fanatic”

Abstract

This article aims at comparing Laila Lalami’s short story “The Fanatic” and Hanif Kureishi’s “My Son the Fanatic”. Between the lines, it will discuss how Laila Lalami’s short story “The Fanatic” shows how the rise of political Islam in Morocco is partly responsible for conflicts between parents and their children. While the parents embrace what they perceive as a liberal Western culture, the children choose to support Islamic movements for political purposes. Hanif Kureishi, a Pakistani-British author, uses the theme of the generational gap, like Lalami, to critique the contentious environment that political Islam has created. Specifically, in his work “My Son the Fanatic,” he intentionally opens a debate on multiculturalism, cultural identity, and alienation to demonstrate how Western media’s misrepresentation of Islam easily creates a cultural struggle between parents and their children. Therefore, this article will compare the two short stories and eventually discuss how political Islam after the Iranian revolution in 1979 significantly had an impact on Muslim youths, whether at home or in diaspora.