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    Alifa Rifaat

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    Alifa Rifaat was an Egyptian author who wrote under a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing her family. She grew up in a time when women in her culture faced oppression. Her writings explored themes of women's oppression under conservative interpretations of Islamic tradition, including restrictions on women's rights, education, and autonomy. Her works addressed controversial topics like sexuality and were banned in some places but helped spark feminist discussions in the Arab world.

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    Alifa Rifaat

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    280 views9 pages
    Alifa Rifaat was an Egyptian author who wrote under a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing her family. She grew up in a time when women in her culture faced oppression. Her writings explored themes of women's oppression under conservative interpretations of Islamic tradition, including restrictions on women's rights, education, and autonomy. Her works addressed controversial topics like sexuality and were banned in some places but helped spark feminist discussions in the Arab world.

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    Alifa Rifaat was an Egyptian author who wrote under a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing her family. She grew up in a time when women in her culture faced oppression. Her writings explored themes of women's oppression under conservative interpretations of Islamic tradition, including restrictions on women's rights, education, and autonomy. Her works addressed controversial topics like sexuality and were banned in some places but helped spark feminist discussions in the Arab world.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    280 views9 pages

    Alifa Rifaat

    Uploaded by

    api-362740913
    Alifa Rifaat was an Egyptian author who wrote under a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing her family. She grew up in a time when women in her culture faced oppression. Her writings explored themes of women's oppression under conservative interpretations of Islamic tradition, including restrictions on women's rights, education, and autonomy. Her works addressed controversial topics like sexuality and were banned in some places but helped spark feminist discussions in the Arab world.

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    Alifa Rifaat

    Presentation by Megan Tafoya


    Biography
    Born in 1930 in Egypt as Fatimah Rifaat

    Wrote under the pseudonym of Alifa Rifaat to


    avoid embarrassing her family

    Grew up oppressed like most women in her time


    period and culture

    Wanted to attend the College of Fine Arts but was


    married off to her cousin instead

    Her writings are deeply rooted in Arabic and


    Islamic traditions

    Her husband denied her to publish her stories for


    more than a decade because her themes of
    eroticism and sexuality were considered an
    embarrassment

    Her writings have caused her to be the target of


    religious fundamentalists, conservative critics,
    religious leaders, and other authors
    Islamic tradition
    and women
    Other interpretations of the Quran say
    that the testimony of a women is only
    half that of a mans
    Women are viewed as inferior, female
    rulers are frowned upon as well as
    women in academia
    Wives should be subservient to their
    husbands, wives always need their
    husband's permission to almost
    everything
    Women are also deemed lacking in faith
    and intelligence
    continued
    Womens rights are compromised by a section of the Quran that has
    been interpreted to say that men have pre-eminence over women or
    that they are overseers of women

    In Islam, women can have one spouse while men can have four

    The legal age for girls to marry is very young and occasionally is
    exploited by pedophiles

    Wives in Islamic societies face great difficulty suing for divorce, they
    often fear poverty or losing their children

    This and other values have been used to legitimize abandonment and
    beating of wives

    Wife beating is very prevalent in the Muslim world and victims often
    have to be convinced that violent acts by husbands are unacceptable
    Politics and Arab
    feminism
    A feminist movement has emerged in Egypt in the
    latter half of the nineteenth century
    The movement has received true recognition in the
    past fifty years
    Western concepts of feminism are often confused with
    feminism in third world countries, especially Arab
    countries
    Egyptian feminist writers have struggles to obtain an
    identity of their own within the boundaries of the
    Islamic tradition
    The problem

    Alifa Rifaat and other authors argue that the male


    dominance that governs Arab societies is the result of
    misinterpreting the Quran on the part of men

    They feel many of the parts of the Quran that deal


    specifically with women and their social rights are
    ignored

    Rifaat argues that if the Quran teachings were


    practiced and read in the proper way, Arab women
    would have a much higher social status one that is
    close to equality with men
    writing
    Rifaat has also written other
    books with themes of
    lesbianism, female circumcision,
    and rape
    Many of her writings have been
    extremely controversial and were
    not sold in most Egyptian
    bookstores
    They were considered too
    violent or strayed too far from
    the existing social norms in the
    Arab world
    Themes
    Rifaats characters mostly live in Egypt and re often women who are oppressed by men
    in their lives

    Regardless of the setting, her characters feel the need to be free or liberate themselves
    from social constraints

    Also the mother-daughter relationship and the length mothers will go to protect their
    daughters

    Challenging established expectations and demands of the right to the preservation of the
    female body

    In Bahiyyas Eyes she critiques female circumcision and arranged marriages

    Sexuality is another theme of her writings, she writes how husbands do not provide
    sexual satisfaction to their wives

    Her most popular story A Distant View of A Minaret, she challenges the males right
    within marriage to dominate, control, and deny his wifes achievement of pleasure
    Works Cited
    "Alifa Rifaat." Dangerous Women Project. N.p., 04 May
    2016. Web. 15 June 2017.
    Al-Manteeqi, Immanuel. "A Woman Under Sharia: 8
    Reasons Why Islamic Law Endangers Women."
    CounterJihad. N.p., 07 Sept. 2016. Web. 15 June 2017.
    Beyer, Lisa. "The Women of Islam." Time. Time Inc.,
    25 Nov. 2001. Web. 15 June 2017.
    Salti, Ramzi. "Feminism and Religion If Alifa Rifaat's
    Short Stories." The International Fiction Review 18.2
    (1991): 108-12. Web. 14 June 2017.

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