Literature and Literary Theory, Arts and Humanities
7
Scopus Publications
73
Scholar Citations
5
Scholar h-index
3
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Freedom as Connection to God: An Analysis of Two Novels by Muslim Women’s Writers in the Western Diaspora Intellectual Discourse, 2025
Conditional Belonging in Muslim Women’s Writing: S.K. Ali’s Love from A to Z Amrah Abdul Majid International Journal of Arabic English Studies, 2025 Conditional belonging refers to a set of rules to determine one’s eligibility to belong to a certain group. In migration studies, it is used to understand the status hierarchy that exists between members of the dominant majority and the minority immigrant community. In this paper, I offer a two-part discussion on conditional belonging. I first attempt to contextualize its practice in the genre of Muslim women’s writing in the West. I argue that their creative endeavours are often subjected to certain expectations of readers and publishers, leading to the creation of stock images. Ironically, within these restrictions, some writers subvert the marginalization of Muslims by offering positive stock images of Muslim characters. Here, in the second part of the article, I bring in S.K. Ali’s Love from A to Z (2020), a young adult (YA) novel, as an example. By portraying a young hijabi woman as the protagonist, the novel challenges the practice of conditional belonging both as a theme in the novel, and in the larger contextualization of the Western book industry. It demonstrates that the potential solution against prejudice is often found within the community that one is in and within the identity that one subscribes to.
"You'll get used to it": Alterity in jean rhys' voyage in the dark Hiba Meteab Faja, Ruzy Suliza Hashim, Amrah Abdul Majid 3l Language Linguistics Literature, 2020 Due to the complex intersecting parameters of identity, race, class, and history of Jean Rhys’ writing life, her works allow for interpretation from various disciplines. Rhys' writings reveal the realities of people caught in the complexity of such a web. Her 1934 novel Voyage in the Dark provides insights into the life of Anna Morgan, the heroine of this novel who moves from her home in Dominica to England to face the entire psychological and social struggle by her journey that ends her up with destruction caused by the challenges that seem to conspire to her tragic fate. In understanding the life of Anna Morgan, the woman who has been told that she will “get used” to her circumstances, the concept of alterity is a useful reading approach in unveiling the push and pull factors that drive her to her downfall. As a concept, alterity is explained in this paper through making overt the structure of the novel that exposes various factors that markedly contain facets of alterity such as alienation, assimilation, and separation. By appropriating this reading lens, we hope to show how multiple factors machinate to show the systematic ways in which Anna Morgan’s fate is sealed when the heroine herself and others around her cannot accept otherness and fusion. Keywords: Jean Rhys; alterity; gender; class; ethnicity
The philosophy of nature in the poetry of ghulam sarwar yousuf and william wordsworth: A comparative ecocritical analysis Amatulhafeez Alvi, Ravichandran Vengadasamy, Amrah Abdul Majid Gema Online Journal of Language Studies, 2019 This paper is a comparative ecocritical investigation considering the relationship between man and nature in cross-cultural contexts as reflected in the poetry of two great admirers of nature in England and Malaysia: William Wordsworth and Ghulam Sarwar Yousuf. Both poets have composed poetry that strengthens man’s bonds with nature and inspires environmental consciousness. Their nature poetry has been previously studied from different individual perspectives, but none has approached it comparatively from an ecocritical stylistic viewpoint. This study aims at analyzing selected nature poetry to identify the unique philosophy of nature both poets adopted, highlighting the artistic and aesthetic values their poetry are teeming with. The study demonstrates the cognitive development of the poets’ environmental consciousness through three phases of attitudes towards nature; the physical, the intellectual and the mystical. Using major ecocritical concepts like ecocentrism, symbiotic interrelationship and ecological consciousness, the study adopts a comparative stylistic approach to scrutinize linguistic and literary representation of nature in the selected poems. It identifies the similarities and differences between both poets concluding that despite differences in their times, places, cultures, language and style, there is an affinity between both poets in their treatment towards nature. The present study responds to the enormous need for literary-linguistic investigation of leitmotifs of nature across geographical, cultural, and linguistic contexts as a means of facilitating environmental sensitivity and sensibility.
The conflicts between the secular and the religious in Tahmima Anam’s the good Muslim Amrah Abdul Majid, Dinnur Qayyimah Ahmad Jalaluddin Gema Online Journal of Language Studies, 2018 This paper discusses the relationship between the ideologies of the secular and the religious in the process of nation-building as presented in Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim (2011). It centres around the conflicts between the Haque siblings, Maya and Sohail as they navigate their ways in life after the Bangladeshi Liberation War of 1971. The novel portrays how Sohail’s submission to extreme dogmatism which has led him to neglecting his son, Zaid, and Maya’s inability to tolerate her brother’s transformation, result in their estranged relationship, eventually leading to a devastating family tragedy. Using Talal Asad’s (2003) definition of the secular as an ideology that brings together different concepts and practices, and which is neither a break from religion nor a continuity of it, this paper suggests that the skirmish between the siblings is a metaphorical representation of a conflict between the secular and the religious in the efforts towards nation-building. This formulation foregrounds the importance of establishing an intricate balance between the secular and the religious, which also has the social implication of destabilizing the binary that is often drawn to differentiate between a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ Muslim.
Reading the hijab as a marker of faith in randa abdel-fattah’s does my head look big in this? Amrah Abdul Majid Gema Online Journal of Language Studies, 2016 Randa Abdel-Fattah’s 2006 novel, Does My Head Look Big in This?, is about a teenage Australian Muslim protagonist who voluntarily chooses to wear the hijab to her elite private school in Melbourne, and the personal and social challenges that she faces after making this decision. In this paper, I suggest that the novel portrays the action of wearing the hijab as mainly apolitical, and that it is instead a spiritual and religious act which demonstrates aspects of the hijab as empowering to an individual’s life. This subverts the stereotypical understanding of the hijab, particularly by the West, as either a tool of control and subjugation of Muslim women, or as a stand against Western society and ideology. By using Saba Mahmood’s (2005) study of Muslim women piety, which argues that Islam and its practices can be used as a tool for women’s empowerment, particularly for achieving self-improvement and self-actualization, this paper pays attention to the representation of the hijab in the novel. The decision to wear the hijab opens a path for the protagonist to become more adherent to her religion, as well as improving her attributes and individuality as a whole. This creates a wholesome young woman who is not only committed to her religion, but is also mindful of her character. DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2016-1603-08
RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
The Persistence of Power: Social Energy and the Critique of Authority in Kee Thuan Chye’s Swordfish+ Concubine (2018) AA Majid, EW Bakar Race, Religion, Royalty in Malaysia: Discursively Reproduced, Resisted … , 2025 2025.0
Faith, Love and Spiritual Growth in Norhafsah Hamid’s 'Will You Stay?' and 'Will You Love Me?' AA Majid Akademika 95 (2), 319-332 , 2025 2025.0
Freedom as Connection to God: An Analysis of Two Novels by Muslim Women’s Writers in the Western Diaspora AA Majid Intellectual Discourse 33 (2), 475-496 , 2025 2025.0
Conditional Belonging in Muslim Women’s Writing: S.K. Ali’s Love from A to Z AA Majid International Journal of Arabic-English Studies 25 (2), 439-456 , 2025 2025.0
" You'll Get Used to It": Alterity in Jean Rhys' Voyage in the Dark HM Faja, RS Hashim, AA Majid 3L, Language, Linguistics, Literature 26 (2) , 2020 2020.0 Citations: 2
The Philosophy of Nature in the Poetry of Ghulam Sarwar Yousuf and William Wordsworth: A Comparative Ecocritical Analysis. A Alvi, R Vengadasamy, ABA Majid GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 19 (4), 327 , 2019 2019.0 Citations: 30
Transformation of the Self Through Islamic Practices in Leila Aboulela's The Translator AA Majid Kritika Kultura 33 (1), 26 , 2019 2019.0
The Conflicts between the Secular and the Religious in Tahmima Anam's The Good Muslim. AA Majid, DQA Jalaluddin GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 18 (4) , 2018 2018.0 Citations: 10
The Many Ways of Being Muslim: The Practice of Immanent Critique in Mohja Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf AA Majid Akademika 87 (1), 221-230 , 2017 2017.0 Citations: 10
Reading the Hijab as a Marker of Faith in Randa Abdel-Fattah's Does My Head Look Big in This? AA Majid GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 16 (3), 115 , 2016 2016.0 Citations: 9
The Process of Faith Development in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf AA Majid Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities 32 (4), 35-57 , 2015 2015.0 Citations: 4
The practice of faith and personal growth in three novels by Muslim women writers in the Western diaspora AA Majid Monash University , 2015 2015.0 Citations: 8
Violence Against Women in Sanaa Shalan’s Falling in the Sun SALDLA AL, RSH Ghammaz, AB Abdulmajid
Honor Crime in Sanaa Shalan’s Tale of Tales RS Hashim, AB Abdulmajid
MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
The Philosophy of Nature in the Poetry of Ghulam Sarwar Yousuf and William Wordsworth: A Comparative Ecocritical Analysis. A Alvi, R Vengadasamy, ABA Majid GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 19 (4), 327 , 2019 2019.0 Citations: 30
The Conflicts between the Secular and the Religious in Tahmima Anam's The Good Muslim. AA Majid, DQA Jalaluddin GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 18 (4) , 2018 2018.0 Citations: 10
The Many Ways of Being Muslim: The Practice of Immanent Critique in Mohja Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf AA Majid Akademika 87 (1), 221-230 , 2017 2017.0 Citations: 10
Reading the Hijab as a Marker of Faith in Randa Abdel-Fattah's Does My Head Look Big in This? AA Majid GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 16 (3), 115 , 2016 2016.0 Citations: 9
The practice of faith and personal growth in three novels by Muslim women writers in the Western diaspora AA Majid Monash University , 2015 2015.0 Citations: 8
The Process of Faith Development in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf AA Majid Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities 32 (4), 35-57 , 2015 2015.0 Citations: 4
" You'll Get Used to It": Alterity in Jean Rhys' Voyage in the Dark HM Faja, RS Hashim, AA Majid 3L, Language, Linguistics, Literature 26 (2) , 2020 2020.0 Citations: 2
The Persistence of Power: Social Energy and the Critique of Authority in Kee Thuan Chye’s Swordfish+ Concubine (2018) AA Majid, EW Bakar Race, Religion, Royalty in Malaysia: Discursively Reproduced, Resisted … , 2025 2025.0
Faith, Love and Spiritual Growth in Norhafsah Hamid’s 'Will You Stay?' and 'Will You Love Me?' AA Majid Akademika 95 (2), 319-332 , 2025 2025.0
Freedom as Connection to God: An Analysis of Two Novels by Muslim Women’s Writers in the Western Diaspora AA Majid Intellectual Discourse 33 (2), 475-496 , 2025 2025.0
Conditional Belonging in Muslim Women’s Writing: S.K. Ali’s Love from A to Z AA Majid International Journal of Arabic-English Studies 25 (2), 439-456 , 2025 2025.0
Transformation of the Self Through Islamic Practices in Leila Aboulela's The Translator AA Majid Kritika Kultura 33 (1), 26 , 2019 2019.0
Violence Against Women in Sanaa Shalan’s Falling in the Sun SALDLA AL, RSH Ghammaz, AB Abdulmajid
Honor Crime in Sanaa Shalan’s Tale of Tales RS Hashim, AB Abdulmajid
