Zahia Smail Salhi

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• Licence ( BA), PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Sharjah

Caught in a web of cultural and religious conservatism, a totalitarian government that does not permit any form of civil society organisation, it is hardly surprising to note that before 1991 Saudi women could not mobilise in a movement to demand their confiscated rights. Until very recently, Saudi women were deprived of suffrage rights, freedom of...

This article aims to discuss and analyse a wide array of stories produced in nineteenth century French Algeria and told by different actors about native Algerian women. While some of these stories were written as true-to-life war testimonies about Algerian women told from multifarious angles and perspectives, others were produced in the form of pha...

Purpose: This article aims to engage in a meaningful discussion of Occidentalism as a discourse that draws its roots from Orientalism. It scrutinizes the limitations of Occidentalism in investigating the East-West encounter from the perspective of Orientals (Arab intellectuals) and the multifarious ways the latter relate to and imagine the Occident...

Striving for Autonomy and Feminism: What Possibilities for Saudi Women? Caught in a web of cultural and religious conservatism, a totalitarian government that does not permit any form of civil society organisation, it is hardly surprising to note that before 1991 Saudi women could not mobilise in a movement to demand their rights. Until very recent...

The increasing interest in Saudi women’s literature written in recent years is mainly ignited by its audacity to address forbidden themes, and ability to shatter pre-existing stereotypes about them as oppressed and silent women. The fact that Saudi women novelists write about sex in a society that is typically perceived as pious, hermetically close...

The potential impact of the internet on women’s empowerment can be identified in a variety of ways. The internet can provide diverse avenues for women’s social, political and economic empowerment and valuable sites can help with education, health, information and awareness of human rights in the public and the private spheres. Beyond these paramete...

This chapter studies three representative novels that voice their authors’ fascination with the Occident and desire to see their people become part of the civilised world. Although these novels are guided by their authors’ unbending belief in France’s civilising mission, the social ills they depict invite the readers’ doubts of this view. Whether t...

The prime objective of this book is to underpin the Maghrebi encounter with the Occident, which evolved from fascination (Occidentophilia), to Ambivalence, to rejection of the Occident (Occidentophobia) through a process of decolonization. It sheds light on many neglected areas in the study of Maghrebi literature and culture by rehabilitating and r...

Starting with European images of native women and a presentation of testimonies on colonial violence against them, this chapter explores the work of French feminists and their mission to save Algerian women. A discussion of Hubertine Auclert’s book Les Femmes arabes en Algérie, is central to this chapter as an Occidental woman’s rare testimony on O...

As a reaction to European women’s campaign to save native women from their own men, Algerian authors debated the condition of native women and called for their emancipation through education. Questions around whether French education would divert them from their prime role as the guardians of national culture, whether too much Occidental culture wo...

This chapter argues that the 8 May 1945 massacre is the direct impetus behind the 1954 Algerian revolution. It is a major game changer in the rapport between the Algerian intelligentsia and the Occident resulting in a political divorce, which engendered an important volume of literature that recorded the painful birth of a nation painfully tearing...

This chapter analyses the discourse created by colonial France to consolidate its rule in the newly conquered Maghreb. This discourse was supported by imperialist authors who worked towards a discursive reversal of history primarily aimed to strip the natives from their own history reminding them that before its Islamisation the Maghreb was part of...

This chapter argues that while French occupation of the Maghreb was motivated by economic gain, religion played a pivotal role in the Maghrebi encounter with the Occident. This is demonstrated by Chukri Khodja’s historical novel El-Euldj that addresses the theme of the Barbary corsairs, their control of the Mediterranean Sea, and their tyranny agai...

This chapter attempts to construct a non-biased definition of Occidentalism and argues that the term is still an evolving concept being constantly nourished by the ongoing relationship between Orient and Occident. It rejects the view that Occidentalism is the exact reverse of Orientalism and contends that there are many Occidentalisms as expression...

This article argues that the 1991 Gulf War had a deep transformative effect on Saudi Arabia. It aims to analyze the extent to which this war brought about major ideological changes to a society seemingly deemed unchangeable. Through the study of three Saudi novels which drew on this war as a source of creative and political inspiration, this study...

Classical Arabic sources generally refer to Ibrahim b. Harma (d. ca. 176/792) as one of the " last poets " whose poetry is quoted as lexical and linguistic evidence of sound and " unaffected " language, in other words " pure " Arabic. However, while we argue that the poet's " pure " Arabic is the main reason for his place of excellence in classical...

This book addresses the questions of what and why particular stories are told in films around the world, both in terms of the forms of storytelling used, and of the political, religious, historical, and social contexts informing cinematic storytelling. Drawing on films from all five continents, the book approaches storytelling from a cultural/histo...

This article studies the roles of women as guardians of cultural heritage and national identity, which they preserve and transmit to the younger generations. While their role as 'porte-mmoire' has been recognized as key to preserving national identity, their story as warriors is sacrificed. This study argues that this sacrifice was made in order to...

It is the aim of this study to examine the astrological references in the work of Abū al-'Alā' al-Ma'arrī, an outstanding reclusive misanthropic poet who occupies a lonely eminence among the poets of the mid-Abbasid period. He addressed the ordinary thoughtful citizen and never put his talent at the service of politicians except when under great fi...

It is the aim of this article to demonstrate that, despite great resistance from patriarchy, Algerian women have always played major roles in effecting change in their society. Their new roles during the struggle for Algeria's independence engaged the whole society in a process of change and evolution, and their resistance to the retrograde forces...

While the practice of polygyny is known to be in decline across the Muslim world due to economic restrictions, the spread of education among men and women, and educated women's ability to provide a husband with compatible companionship, which all put together also resulted in a shift from the extended to the nuclear family structure, a revival of p...

To explore the issue of language in Djebar's work is no easy matter. In fact one may speak of languages rather than language and of voices rather than voice. And even when we speak of voices, Djebar's work is often about the non-voice and the multifarious silences of women. One important factor that groups these languages, voices and silences toget...

The Arab Diaspora examines the range of roles the Arab world has played to various audiences on the modern and postmodern stage and the issues which have arisen as a result. The variety of roles explored reflects the diversity of Arab culture. With particular focus placed on political, diplomatic and cultural issues, the book explores the relations...

Women's struggle for both equality and national liberation are crucial to democracy: if a democratic state is one in which citizens have the right to participate in society and the way it is governed, women must, automatically, be included in the equation. Yet in many so-called democratic states, women lack full citizenship. This article traces Alg...