#author crit
Okay so I’ve seen a lot of people go after cc today and I’ve seen an overwhelming amount of people defend her, so let’s talk a little about one of the points brought up again and again that never seems to be phrased properly or people just can’t seem to grasp.
Islamophobia in YA. Specifically in tsc but this post is about more than just one woman’s writing.
What is Islamophobia? It’s the fear, hatred of, or prejudice against the Islamic religion or Muslims generally.
How can a book be classified as prejudiced? When it does not contain even a mention of a single Muslim character. I’m not saying lack of Muslim mcs, I’m saying zero Muslims in an entire book. An entire series. A whole collection.
You can’t tell me you don’t know a single Muslim person, or that you’ve never passed a Hijabi on the street or walked by a Mosque, because if you do you’re lying.
Just the same way we expect authors to diversify their cast of characters with Black rep, Asian rep, POC rep, LGBTQ rep, this is just as important.
The biggest problem? Misrepresentation. It’s when an author chooses to include a Muslim character and then turns Islam on it’s head and dulls down this character by things like: a Muslim character that is ‘not that close to their religion’ (see: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green) or a Muslim girl that doesn’t believe in her hijab/takes it off sometime during the series/claims she only wears it so her hair doesn’t get dirty while baking (see: Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire) that’s not how Islam works.That is not how Muslims act or treat their religion.
Islam, to a Muslim, is more than just a piece of cloth or a weekly trip to the Mosque. To a Muslim, their religion is their identity. It’s part of who they are. It’s how they dress, how they eat, and what they do with their time.
You cannot disclude these aspects of a Muslim and then claim you have represented them.
Now I know some people were upset about cc being called out as Islamophobic and not having enough Islamic rep, so I’ll get into that as well.
There are no Muslim characters in tsc. Not a single one. And as we discussed this makes the series Islamophobic. When asked about this, Cassandra Clare said that Shadowhunters do not have a religion because they worship Raziel.
This is what I like to call: a really shitty excuse.
Will proposed to Tessa on Christmas. Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. If Shadowhunters did in fact have their own religion, then why don’t they have their own holidays? Why, when they supposedly have no relationship with mundanes and hardly understand what goes on in the mundane world, would they celebrate Christmas?
Furthermore, Simon Lewis is Jewish. He used to be a Mundane, but when he became a Shadowhunter, he was not asked to leave his Religion. So is he both? Did he quit being Jewish? If being a Shadowhunter is indeed a religion, it is a very underdeveloped one.
And then we have Sona. Sona who is ‘partly Muslim’. I don’t think you understand how wrong that is from start to finish. There is no ‘partly Muslim’. It’s take it or leave it, you cannot take the aspects of this religion that you like and call yourself partly Muslim. How did cc mess up with this one?
First: Sona is married to Elias Carstairs, who is not Muslim. He is a white British man of no known religion or indeed his religion is just being a Shadowhunter. He is in alcoholic. He has many other issues but again he is not a Muslim. In Islam, marriage between a Muslim woman and a Non-Muslim man is not allowed.
I could go on, about how there isn’t a single memory of Cordelia’s where her mother is praying, or making duaa. That she never sat down wither her daughter to discuss her beliefs. That despite Sona being Cordelia’s only role model with the absence of her father, she has carried with her none of the Islamic beliefs, morals, or even just habits. But I won’t.
This is not Islamic representation.
I would appreciate it if people who were not Muslims and have never faced discrimination based solely on their religion, did not interact with this post.
Reblog. Don’t defend authors who have done Muslims dirty. Educate Yourself.
