Islamic Traits In Three Selected Works Of Khaled Hosseini: Religiosity Perspective

Abstract

This research seeks to capture the representation of Islam in three novels of Khaled Hosseini, “The Kite Runner”, “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, and “The Mountain Echoed”.  This research applies several approaches in order to reach the objectives. structural theory comes to identify the characters to construct the Islamic traits of those characters. Objectives of this research are formulated to 1) to explain how the Muslim characters expressing their religiosity in three novels, and 2) to elaborate the parallelism of literary facts and social facts of the three novels and the social facts of Afghanistan. The Islamic measures in this research used general perspective of religiosity by Stark and Glock. It is immediately followed by the genetic approach of Lucien Goldmann to identify the poetic pattern of the literary works and its parallel counterpart in the Afghanistani realities. This first part elaborates the Islamic attributes by combining the structural theory of Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan and the elements of religiosity of Stark and Glock that relied on Ideological, ritualistic, devotional, experiential and consequential aspects of religiosity. The existence of radical Islam, represented by the Taliban movements and characters such as Assef and Rasheed, serves only as a social background of the novels. It is a view that stresses on the respect of the humanitarian sides of man, from which many possibilities become source of creativity and initiatives that can lead to the glory of mankind. To avoid the excessiveness that possibly crosses the lines of humanism, Islamic attributes is needed to mark a restrictive line. This view can be understood and implemented as several facts of poetically or non-poetically. Poetically, seen in several patterns such as repetitive actions of redemption, while non-poetically, Islamic humanism is seen as a harmonious encounter of Islam and the cultural values of Afghanistan, then the Mullah as a representative and peaceful traditional Islam