Introduction
Chapter 1: Al Qur’an’s Teachings with Respect to the Disabled
Chapter 2: The Tunisian Deaf Mute through the Lens of American
Orientalism
Chapter 3: Tunisian Camera’s Treatment of Disability
Chapter 4: The Disabled Native: Ressource Humaine for the French: A
Literary Study of Algerian Rachid Mimouni’s Tombéza
Chapter 5: The Case of Female Characters with Disabilities:
Moroccan Fatima vs. “Cure or Kill”: A Disability Study of Tabar Ben
Jelloun’s l’Enfant de Sable [Sand Child]
Chapter 6: Disability and Shame in Salman Rushdie’s novel Shame:
What it means to be a Pakistani Disabled Postcolonial Woman
Chapter 7: The Egyptian Visually-Challenged Sheikh Husni’s
Treatment of Blindness in the Egyptian Film Al Kitkat
Chapter 8: Iraqi in Paris: Speaking Volumes: the Bond in Deafness
of an Iraqi Father and Son
Conclusion
Bibliography
Saloua Ali Ben Zahra is assistant professor of Arabic culture, language and literature in translation at Appalachian State University.
With thoughtful studies of individual works Dr. Ben Zahra has dared
to compile an alternative canon of contemporary Arab literature by
focusing on the portrayal of disability. She has also challenged
some received truths about colonial and postcolonial periods and
the curious mix of gains and losses for challenged and marginalized
individuals associated with them. Dr. Ben Zahra in her book makes a
convincing case for acceptance of what might have seem a niche
category—the portrayal and construction of disability in modern
Arab literature—as central to discussion of Arab and North African
literature and culture.
*William M. Hutchins, Appalachian State University of North
Carolina*
Saloua Ali Ben Zahra’s Arab Islamic Voices, Agencies, and
Abilities: Disability Portrayals in Muslim World Literature and
Culture has filled a huge gap in Disability Studies. Her work
examines disability as portrayed in the Quran, Arabic films,
literature and culture. The text will prove indispensable to
scholars of Disability Studies and their students, adding a much
needed cultural dialogue and exchange between East/West depictions
and understandings of disability. The strength of the book lies in
its accessibility and Dr. Zahra’s desire to bring forth a neglected
area of Disability Studies. As the discipline thrives, so must its
global examination of ableism across cultures, religions, and
languages.
*Shahd Alshammari, Gulf University for Science and Technology,
Kuwait*
This thoughtful collection of close-readings is an important
contribution to the emerging dialogue between American disability
studies and contemporary North African culture. Zahra’s insightful
and detailed analysis of a range of fictional and filmic texts
reveals the complex ways in which non-normative bodies are
represented, rejected and sometimes celebrated by able-bodied Arab
Muslim societies. The readings of disability in the Qur’an offer an
extremely helpful contextualization of Muslim teachings and the
subsequent discussion of a wide selection of fictional depictions
cleverly reveals that Arab Muslin attitudes to disability are
complex and often contradictory. Zahra skillfully deploys her
extensive knowledge of the works of a range of American disability
studies theorists to weave an insightful and persuasive commentary
of her chosen texts which is particularly effective in its
discussions of the intersections of gender and disability.
*Hannah Thompson, Royal Holloway, University of London*
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