Pious characters in this novel trade present dangers for deferred divine rewards

Evidence

As her faith grows, Islam for Najwa becomes consolation and explanation as well as a mode of punishment. The book appears to advocate a necessary purging in gaining true piety, with the refrain “wash my sins with ice” encapsulating Najwa’s mindset (35, 159). Islam in Minaret is about deferred rewards, the bringing of human will into line with divine requirements, and scriptural literalism. Najwa comments on how she lives to bury her desires, not indulge them, and she is exhorted by a friend to “think of all the reward from Allah you’re getting” for abstemiousness (105). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 482

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes a template for reading Islam in Aboulela’s fiction as consolation-plus-punishment, a vocabulary element the reader may test against Hamid and Naqvi.