The refereed academic journal Al-Ustath, sponsored by the University of Baghdad, recently published an “Islamist Critique of American Society: An Analysis of John Updike’s Terrorist and Mohsin Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist,“ by Assistant Professor Azhar Hameed and Assistant Lecturer Afrah And Al-Jabbar.

Abstract:
In this paper, I will show how the American writer John Updike (1932-2009) and the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid (1971- ) criticize the American society. They push their readers to think hard about America’s culture and place in the world. They both encourage the readers to a more extensive understanding of terrorism in the post–9/11 era , and they refuse to put all the blame on the shoulders of the terrorists. They narrate the justifications for terror in ways that invite, if not sympathy, then understanding. In this paper, I will demonstrate how both Hamid and Updike allow for a broader, and more troubling understanding of Islamic terrorism in a time when every attempt to know how the terrorist thinks and lives was considered abomination. They argue that understanding the motivations and causes of terrorism helps to frame a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. I have made a selection of two novels by those two culturally different writers and emphasized their similar attack of the American society.

A full-text PDF of the article is available through the link above.