Reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Works Through an Islamic Lens: The Absence of Islam in Moses, Man of the Mountain and Jonah’s Gourd Vine.
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Saudi Digital Library
Abstract
Zora Neale Hurston is an African-American writer, anthropologist, and ethnographer of
the Harlem Renaissance. She is distinguished for documenting and celebrating the religions of
African Americans in the South. In this study, the author argues that Hurston represents the
practiced religions in Southern African-American communities in Jonah’s Gourd Vine and
Moses, Man of the Mountain while noticeably omitting Islam, despite the fact that Islam
predominated in more Northern African-American Communities as a reclaimed religious history
and practice. Hurston’s exclusion prompts inquiries into the history of Islamic erasures in
Southern African-American communities and introduces ambiguity in interpreting the metaphors
found in Jonah’s Gourd Vine because of the differences between the Biblical and Quranic
narratives surrounding the figure of Jonah. The author concludes that Hurston omits Islam
because it was not noticeably practiced in the South among the African-American community.
Finally, the author argues that Muslim readers must understand the Biblical Jonah to understand
the metaphorical meanings of the vine relative to the protagonist John Buddy Pearson in
Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine.
Description
Keywords
Zora, Hurston, Religions, Islam, Bible, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Moses Man of the Mountain, Hoodoo
Citation
Alqahtani, Asma Abdullah S. Reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Works Through an Islamic Lens: The Absence of Islam in Moses, Man of the Mountain and Jonah’s Gourd Vine.2023.Wright State University, MA thesis. Saudi Digital Library