ABSTRACT
Travel writing is a medium to report about the world, reveal the traveller’s self and represent other cultures. Problems related to a conflict of values, either cultural or religious, could be seen in the works of female Muslim authors. Berjalan di Atas Cahaya is a compilation of travel stories written by Hanum Rais, Tutie Amaliah and Wardatul Ula in Europe. They share their thoughts, experiences and feelings during their trips, as well as the various stereotypes of Islam centred on the position of women in both the public sphere and the global world. The awareness of female Muslim travellers as cosmopolitan characters is based on female perspectives. In this article, we examine the discourse of cosmopolitan female Muslims aimed at describing how female Muslim travellers find and address the conflict of values, cultures and religions and explaining the construction of Islamic cosmopolitanism by prominent female Muslim travellers. Furthermore, we argue that such a construction is carried out by characters, points of view and the tones of the writings examined.
