The Space of the Transnational by Shirin E. Edwin

Author:Shirin E. Edwin [Edwin, Shirin E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Literary Criticism, African
ISBN: 9781438486406
Google: aTwpEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2021-12-01T05:29:07+00:00

Interreligious Windows and Marriage in Abubakar Gimba’s Sacred Apples

Abubakar Gimba’s novel Sacred Apples (1997) is feminist in its purpose, as he dedicates it to women—to mothers, wives, “womankind,” and “womanhood.” The novel maps a woman’s journey from psychological dependence on male guardianship in marriage to gendered self-determination in the figure of Zahrah. Zahrah divorces her overbearing husband Yazid for adultery and moves out of his home with their two children. Penniless and clueless about her future as she lived in Yazid’s shadow, Zahrah quickly emerges from a state of psychological dependence on men to discover her own abilities. This is facilitated by Miriam, a Roman Catholic friend who is married to a Muslim (67). Over the course of the story, the Christian woman becomes “like her sister” (70). The conversations with Miriam serve as models for community that develop within national borders across geographies of religion. Zahrah actively claims this community with Miriam to understand her own stance on gender and society. As a result of this community, Miriam “had become Zahrah’s role model as a woman: intelligent, assertive, and having a career” (66). Thus, Miriam’s abetment of Zahrah’s consciousness as an independent woman twins the novel’s dedication to women and gendered self-determination as a statement on pluralism within Nigeria. This strong sense of communion and community with a Christian woman makes a double statement about the nation space that must be equitable on both religious and gendered grounds. Gimba’s novel unambiguously exemplifies the idea that equitable and inclusive transnational organizing must proceed from this stance. Equally, solidarity, as seen in Miriam’s and Zahrah’s community, develops transgeographically across religions and genders first within national spaces. Furthermore, aesthetically, the novel’s narrative on gendered consciousness unfolds as a dialogue, a multireligious exchange that illustrates Zahrah’s gender consciousness. Like Ba’s narrative that unravels in tandem with the transformation of the newly independent nation-state, Zahrah’s journey of gender consciousness is traced on pluralism. In other words, the route to gendered consciousness is essentially through an understanding of other religions. Thus Gimba’s presents Zahrah’s psychological transformation as an exchange with Miriam.

A long series of conversations on gendered roles, rights, and responsibilities spurs Zahrah’s gendered consciousness. She gradually revises her thinking about entrenched gendered roles after several conversations on gendered identity and roles. Zahrah feels light in spirit, much happier, stronger, and “more confident in herself” (86). Zahrah first encounters independence through Miriam’s reference to the custom in Islam of taking the husband’s name upon marriage. Miriam tells Zahrah that her Muslim husband suggested that she should “retain my father’s name, and remain Miriam George. I thought he was up to something mischievous, till he showed me the place in your Book where it says, Call them by their father’s name” (67). Zahrah compares this provision in Islam with her former spouse’s unwillingness to let Zahrah keep her maiden name to expose the gap between religious decree with individual practice. The longest exchange deals with the conjugal contract as the first step toward an equitable community.

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