Post 9/11 Fiction: Questioning the real Fundamentalist Terrorist in Omer Shahid Hamid’s ‘The Prisoner’

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the concept of Fundamentalist i.e. terrorists (jihadis) in the contemporary criminal narrative The Prisoner by Omer Shahid Hamid. This text is ultimately a criminal discourse   reeked with the world of crime, violence, murder, sex and pragmatisms of Karachi police and political parties. This study focuses on the violent doings of terrorists (jihadis) through the course of the text, while proving themselves the real Muslim fundamentalists in the name of Islam. It also intends to scaffold through strategic violent doings that how violence is administered on the pillars of religious ideology. It is an attempt to present the dual sides of the terrorists’ world (Jihadis) and their extremist ideology particularly through the character of Qari Saif. Besides, it also analyzes that how the protagonist, Akbar proves himself the real worldly Jihadi, not a fundamentalist one, by his confrontation with the criminals in the streets of Karachi and launching a worldly war against Karachi Mafia. Contextually, this study answers the basic question the text postulates that who is the real jihadi after all. Hence, the researchers, through textual arguments and arguments based on theoretical insights about fundamentalism, intend to present two types of jihadi: the fundamentalist and the worldly. This research is qualitative in design and is based on the conceptual framework build upon the textual clues. It will contribute to the body of Pakistani Literature on one hand and literature on Fundamentalism on the other hand.