Deterioration of Self, Emotions and Islamic Values: A Critical Survey of Tehmina Durrani’s Blasphemy

Self-identity is the way one looks at oneself and one’s relationship to the world. This allows a person to examine who he/she is and more importantly create who he/she wants to be. Blasphemy, Durrani’s second major work, is a serious comment on the challenges about dying self-identity faced by Muslim societies especially by women. It is a commentary not on Islam but on the so-called religious leaders who are the main source in exploiting the true spirit of Islam. The present study is done under what postmodernism said about the life of human beings in this age. Postmodernism, in recent years, has decentered oneness of the universe and created disorder in human life. In the same context the present study looks the novel as an agonizing study of evil; an uncompromising look at the distortion of Islam by voracious religious leaders. The purpose of the study is to highlight the tragic story of the protagonist Heer, and how she is dehumanized and dishonored by Pir Sain, the man of God, whom she is married to when barely fifteen. In the Pir's haveli, unspeakable horrors are perpetrated every day and every night, all in the name of Allah. Gulped into the stinking hell of her lord's making, Heer loses her self-respect, her freedom, even her humanity.