ABSTRACT
This chapter examines here the way in which Bangladeshi diasporic writer Tahmima Anam tackles the subject in her work, particularly in the more recent of her two novels, The Good Muslim. Anam suggests that the borders between religion and secularism are more porous than is often assumed and that each conceptual category contains its share of reason and illogic, moderation and extremism, ethical and unethical behaviour. Anam's debut novel, A Golden Age, is protagonist Rehana to her two children, now in their early thirties: her son, Sohail, and daughter, Maya. They respond very differently to the direction taken by the young Bangladeshi state under the autocratic rule of Hussain Muhammad Ershad and the growing influence of the Islamic Right. Sohail joins the Tablighi Jamaat, a proselytizing religious movement, while Maya remains loyal to the secular, Marxist-inflected nationalism that provided a sense of solidarity during the war years an era of political idealism she wistfully recalls.
