A novel contests Islamophobia only by affirming its Western reader’s own cultural values.

Evidence

In any case, what is important is that this universal morality needs no religious underpinning. Whereas Baba is a militant agnostic whose somewhat flexible personal morality is revealed to be a matter of convenience, Amir’s skepticism gives way to a rediscovery of faith as he waits for news after Sohrab’s suicide attempt. Yet it is made clear that the God Amir rediscovers is not of the severe Deobandi type. Rather, he finds God in the house of science, the hospital where he falls to his knees to pray for Sohrab’s recovery. By contrast, mosques are at the very least ambiguous spaces, often architecturally beautiful but also the habitat of blinkered mullahs and their absurd diktats. Most of all, religion should not be imposed on others. As David Jefferess puts it, “By conforming to the narrative expectations of the western reader, and affirming the dominant cultural values of that reader (i.e. religion as personal), the novel translates difference into sameness.” — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 253

Categorization

• DEFINE: Jefferess’s formulation gives the key mechanism by which fiction ‘translates difference into sameness’ rather than genuinely contesting prejudice — exactly the critical vocabulary the reader seeks.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s guiding question about Hamid and Naqvi: does The Reluctant Fundamentalist or Home Boy similarly domesticate its Muslim protagonist’s faith into Western-friendly personal religion?
• QUESTION: Is this ‘translate difference into sameness’ standard the right test for whether a novel contests vs. reinforces Islamophobia — and would Hamid’s and Naqvi’s protagonists pass it or fail it?