Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

This study deals with the themes implicitly explained in the novel "Esvât (Voices)". The novel by Sulaiman Fayyad (1929-2015) deals with the circumcision of Simon by the village women. Simon is the wife of Hâmid, an Egyptian immigrant, whom he married in France and brought back to his hometown for a visit years later. Behind-the-scenes reading, which is also mentioned in the heading, is used metaphorically in the sense of the hidden aspects of an event and refers to the analyses that Feyyaz hides among the lines. It is not the narrative and tragic conclusion of the novel that is discussed in this article, this article focuses on the cultural conflict narrated through the characters of the novel and on the author's implicit criticism of customs and traditions, his indirect opposition to the current administration after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and his allegorical narrative stemming from his concern for censorship. Sulaiman Fayyad (1929-2015) is an Egyptian story and novel writer who was trained as an Arabic linguist and whose biographical works about some famous figures in Islamic civilization were translated into Turkish. He received his bachelor's degree in 1956 and his master's degree in 1959 from Al-Azhar University, Faculty of Arabic Language, and started his career as a teacher. In addition to teaching in various Arab countries, he also worked as a manager and secretary in different publishing houses. Fayyad was known for his first and most famous novel called "Aswāṭ (Voices)" and attracted great attention both in the Arab world and in the West. The novel was based on a real event that took place in a village in Egypt in the 1940s. The East-West cultural conflict is the main theme of the novel. However, different from earlier novels, the setting is not Europe but Egypt, and it is not an Arab young man who suffers a sad end but a French woman. Simon is the wife of Hâmid, who went to France from Egypt to work and got married there. After many years, Hāmid returns to his homeland with his wife. There is not much difference between the Egypt he left and the Egypt he sees after all these years. Therefore, Hāmid does not want his wife to see the pollution of the streets, the backwardness of the society, the shabbiness of village life, the selfish and mundane approach of uneducated people. However, the situation is not limited to the defeatism of a war-torn society, its riddled life, its decrepit houses and its backward mentality that strives to save the day. The novel goes as far as the victimization and innocence of the West in the case of Simon, who is forcibly operated on by traditionalists who believe that women should be circumcised. On the other hand, Simon, whom people look up to, has a culture similar to that of East, which victimizes her. And her culture irritates people, disregards the unofficial laws of the society in which she lives and, moreover, is condemned by an Easterner. No matter how much criticism she deserves, Simon is a relatively beautiful woman, charming, well-groomed, helpful and she is a character that no one can take their eyes off. But unfortunately, her vacation ended in her death. Simon bleeds to death despite all her good deeds. Simon is the West, and the one who causes discord in society and corrupts the thoughts of men and women. Does the West deserve this after all? Is it the West that dies, or the East that does this to the West? The author has managed to present this cultural difference and conflict to the reader behind the scenes, taking into account the conjuncture of the period. The problems arising from the backwardness of the Egyptian society, the erosion of moral values and the East-West cultural conflict are revealed through the monologues (voices) of the characters in the novel. It is possible to read this as the muted voice of the West, which exists only as much as the Easterner speaks and defines it.