“There’s something to be said, / after all, / for giving in”: An Analysis of the Veil in Imtiaz Dharker’s Purdah and I Speak for the Devil

Abstract

The veil is often used as a potent symbol by both ends of the ideological spectrum. It is
often associated with women’s oppression and misogyny of Islam on the one hand and
a symbol of cultural identity and rejection of the gaze on the other hand. This paper
attempts to look at Imtiaz Dharker’s Purdah and I Speak for the Devil, to understand
how she engages with the veil and “purdah of the mind.” The paper also looks at the
Islamic feminist debate about the veil and the questions about agency, morality, choice
and selfhood that it raises. By drawing upon the theoretical tools of Judith Butler, Toril
Moi and Iris Marion Young, the paper looks at, how the “lived body” acts and is acted
upon by its socio-cultural context and how Dharker questions the pre-discursive
understanding of sex.