RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION IN THE QURANIC STORY OF ASHAB AL-KAHF AND SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDY THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46827/ejls.v3i2.344Keywords:
Quran, Ashab Al-Kahf, religious discrimination, Shakespeare, The Merchant of VeniceAbstract
Racism, in all its forms, has always been a prevailing theme in many works over the decades. This study aimed to compare and analyse aspects of religious discrimination in the Qur'anic story of Ashab Al-Kahf and in Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice. In addition, this study examines the psychological effects on characters due to this phenomenon and the ways they either coped with or resisted it. The approach employed here was qualitative, and the study was conducted from Bhabha's postcolonial perspective. The findings showed that both Ashab Al-Kahf and Shylock experienced identity crises related to religious discrimination, which they resisted through hybridisation and withdrawal subsequently. Not only would this study be beneficial to researchers in literature, but it would also be so to others in sociology, psychology, and forensic studies. However, this study is limited to one theory of analysis, and the sample was insufficient, especially on the part of the story of Ashab Al-Kahf. This study recommends a reading of the story of Ashab Al-Kahf and Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice from psychoanalytic perspectives.
References
Bassi, S. (2022) Angry Jewish resistance: Interpreting Shylock’s rage, Shakespeare, 18:1, 8-23, https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2021.2017336
Clemente García, A. (2020). There's no mercy for me in heaven": Converting Jews in William Shakespeare's" The Merchant of Venice.
DeCoste, K. (2019). Problem Plays. Spectrum, 3. https://doi.org/10.29173/spectrum49
Freud, S. (2015). Civilization and its discontents. Broadview Press.
Hamza, R. F. (2022). To mimic or not to mimic: That is the question. بحوث فى تدريس اللغات, 18(18), 380-415.
Moghari, S. (2021). Racism, Ethnic Discrimination, and Otherness in Shakespeare’s Othello and The Merchant of Venice. International Journal of English and Comparative Literary Studies, 2(4), 25-41.
Rubenstein, H. (2022). Representing Shylock: The Performance History of Shakespeare’s Jew as an Indicator and Instigator of Cultural Change. Meliora, 1(2).
Saheehinternational. (2022). www.saheehinternational.com
Said, E. W. (2012). Culture and imperialism. Vintage.
Sasani, S. (2015). A postcolonial reading of Pygmalion: A play of “mimicry.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 4(2), 238–245. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.2p.238
Shakespeare, W. (2022). The Merchant of Venice (B. Mowat, P. Werstine, M. Poston, and R. Niles, eds.). The Folger Shakespeare https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/the-merchant-of-venice/
Sun, Q. (2022). An interpretation of multiple values in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Journal of Higher Education Research, 76. https://doi.org/10.32629/jher.v3i1.643
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
