Resisting neo-Orientalism: Ahdaf Soueif’s Mezzaterra: Fragments from the common ground (2004) as a complex representation of Muslim identities

This article traces several aspects of the adversarial project in Ahdaf Soueif’s genre-defying non-fiction, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the common ground, to argue that the author remains vigilant in portraying herself as a 21st-century Muslim, combatting stereotypes regarding Muslim identities. It draws on Ali Behdad’s and Juliet Williams’s argument that neo-Orientalism retains the Orientalist method of homogenizing western perceptions of people understood as being Muslim, who inhabit diverse places such as Asia, Africa, and the west. Behdad and Williams advocate challenging neo-Orientalism’s ideological accounts of contemporary Muslims living in different parts of the world through constant vigilance and criticism. Soueif’s resistance to the monolithic post-9/11 representations of these people is juxtaposed against the oppositional writings of Miriam Cooke and Margot Badran, who resist inflexibility by advocating a non-essentialized cultural common ground in discussions of feminism and Islam. This approach demonstrates the cultural dimensions and dialogues of present-day Muslims and highlights identitarian complexities.