Debating Ambivalence: A Postcolonial Perspective Of Muhammad Asad’s The Road To Mecca

Abstract

The current research deals with the debate of ambivalence, considered the both blessing and curse at the same time because of its fluctuating position. Ambivalence holds the subjected position of colonized as the complicit’ and some ‘resistant based elements are existed. In the said the research is about the debating ambivalence in Muhammad Asad’s The Road to Mecca. The researcher used qualitative methodology whereas the nature of the research is analytical. Further, Homi K. Bhahba’s theory of postcoloniality with reference to ambivalence is used to give the complicit and resistant based representation in Muhammad Asad’s The Road to Mecca. The research shows the main character of the story reveals to visit from the West on pilgrimage to Mecca and reflecting the ambivalent position of main character from the perspective of post colonialism and his position hangs between the true in-between of West and East, both Muslim and Western. The research work adopts a postcolonial framework, shaped by the ideas of Homi Bhabha and Edward Said, to critically analyze the general ambivalence within Muhammad Asad’s The Road to Mecca. It examines Asad’s narrative not only as personal memoir but as a textual space where identity, colonial legacy, and spiritual transformation interconnect. The work by Asad criticizes Orientalism and combines the Islamic mysticism with western reason to produce a new understanding. He strongly criticizes the binary logic of idealizing the Western dominance and exoticizing the inferior Eastern culture and orientalizing it. He reveals the inconsistencies in the colonial discourse through assessing the Eastern corruption and Western materialism.

Keywords: Ambivalence, Post Colonialism, M.Asad, The Road to Mecca