READING IRAQ FROM INDONESIA: DIALOGUES BETWEEN IRAQI LITERATURE AND INDONESIAN SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31969/alq.v31i2.1710Keywords:
Iraqi Literature, Literary Voice, Tashari, Transregional EthicAbstract
This study addresses a critical gap in global literary discourse, the near absence of Southeast Asian
perspectives in interpreting Arab post-secular fiction. While Iraqi literature is often analyzed within
Middle Eastern frameworks, this study argues for a necessary transregional approach. Focusing on
Inaam Kachachi’s Tashari, it examines how the Christian-Iraqi protagonist, Wardiyah Iskandar,
whose narrative embodies sacred agency, ritual memory, and moral dislocation, resonates ethically
and affectively within Indonesia’s pluralistic, post-authoritarian, and culturally contested context.
The study aims to: (1) analyze the reinterpretation of Iraqi post-secular narratives through
Indonesia’s sociocultural and religious context; (2) reveal ethical and spiritual rearticulations
emerging from transregional encounters; and (3) reframe Arab trauma fiction through Southeast
Asian hermeneutics. Methodologically, it adopts an interdisciplinary qualitative approach combining
post-secular literary theory, sociocultural analysis, and comparative hermeneutics. A close reading
of Tashari is conducted alongside Indonesia’s discourses on interfaith pluralism, spiritual
fragmentation, and moral reformulation. The dialogic mapping reveals interpretive pathways
neglected by dominant paradigms. The findings show that Tashari functions as a transregional
ethical archive, a literary space where theological boundaries blur, interfaith solidarities form, and
sacred dissent emerges. Indonesian readers, shaped by histories of colonialism, authoritarianism,
and religious negotiation, actively reconstruct the novel’s moral and spiritual meanings,
transforming Iraqi suffering into a shared space of ethical reflection and collective mourning. This
study proposes a new model of transregional literary ethics, demonstrating how post-secular fiction
mediates cross-cultural understanding, rehumanizes the other, and generates transformative moral
and spiritual resistance across contested geographies.
References
Al Aqeedi, A. 2021. The Vanishing Intellectual: Identity and Erasure in Contemporary Iraqi Fiction. Arab Scientific Publishers.
Al Aqeedi, Rasha. 2021. “The Exiled Archive: Kachachi and the Intellectual Loss of Iraq.” Middle East Review Quarterly, 34 (2), 9-17.
Al Hamad, Z. 2023. New Horizons in Arabic Literature: Voice from the Diaspora. Syracuse University Press.
Al Hassan, Z. 2023. Islamic Ethics and Literary Narratives in the Contemporary World. Edinburgh University Press.
Al Jubouri, S. 2019. Trauma and Representation in Contemporary Iraqi Fiction, University of Chicago Press.
Al Jazairi, L. 2024. The Aesthetics of Belief: Spiritual Dimensions in Contemporary Arabic Fiction. Edinburgh University Press.
Al Sayyed, F. 2024. Sacred Agency in Contemporary Arabic Fiction. Bloomsbury Academic.
Al Shaykh, H. 2022. The Evolution of Arabic Literature in the 21th Century. Edinburgh University Press.
Anderson, W. 2020. “Finding Decolonial Metaphors in Postcolonial Histories” History and Theory, Vol. 59, No. 3, p. 430-438.
___________. 2020. “Decolonizing Histories in Theory and Practice” History and Theory, Vol. 59, No. 3, -. 369-375.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2006. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. W.W. Norton.
aslami, Z. 2020. “Buffer Zone: Notes on Afghanistan, Race and Empire” Victorian Studies, Vol. 62, No. 3, p. 433-445.
Asfour, R. 2023. Fiction: Inaam Kachachi’s The Dispersal or Tashari. The Markaz Review.
Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford University Press.
Assmann, A. 2011. Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives. Cambridge University Press
Attridge, D. 2004. The Singularity of Literature. Routledge.
Audi, R. 2020. “Religion and Democracy” Daedalus, Vol. 149, No. 3, p. 5-24.
Azra, Azyumardi. 2020. Islam dalam Arus Globalisasi dan Konflik Peradaban. Prenada Media Group.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. University of Texas Press.
Benhabib, S. 2023. The Ethic of Political Judgement: Essays on Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas and Others. Priceton University Press.
Bennett, S. 2024. Rethinking Secularism: Religion, Modernity and the Public Sphere. Oxford University Press.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. Routledge.
Branch, Lori and Mark Knight. 2018. “Why the Post-secular Matters: Literary Studies and the Rise of the Novel.” Religion and Literature 67 (3), 493-510.
Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. Polity Press.
Brugioni, E and Ute Fendler. 2021. “Islands, Theory and the Postcolonial Environment: Reading the Work of Khal Torabully”, Portuguese Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 165-177.
Butler, Judith. 2018. Frames of War: Ehen is Life Grievable? Verso.
___________. 2015. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Harvard University Press.
Casanova, J. 2013. The Post-Secular in Question: Religion in Contemporary Society. NYU Press.
Cao, S and Shuaidong Zhang. 2020. “Variation in Literature Communication and the Formation of World Literature” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 57, No. 3, p. 475-484.
Chen, L. 2024. Hermeneutics of Global Literature: Self, Other and Ethical Translation.
Choudary, V. K. 2024. “The Promise of Memory” CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 202-219.
Cooke. Miriam. 2014. Dancing with Ruin: War, Gender and Arab Women’s Writing. Duke University Press.
_____________. 2014. Dancing in Damascus: Creativity, Resilience and the Syrian Revolution. Routledge.
Dash, B.C and Ashim Hazarika. 2025. “Anxiety of Influence and Intertextuality”, Indian Literature Vol. 69, No. 5, p. 204-212.
Damrosch, D. 2003. What is World Literature? Princeton University Press.
Davies, J. 2024. Literature and the Art of Moral World-Making. Oxford University Press.
De Certeau, M. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press.
Effendy, B. 2023. Religious Pluralism and Democratic Transitions in Indonesia. Cornell University Press.
Farouki, S. 2024. Embodied Piety: Islamic Subjectivity in Contemporary Arab Fiction. Syracuse University Press.
Felski, R. 2008. Uses of Literature. Blackwell Publishing.
Fish, S. 1980. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Harvard University Press.
Gallien, C and Karl Jaliyan. 2020. “A Decolonial Turn in the Humanities”, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 40, p. 28-58.
Ghanem, R. 2023. Literary Reconstructions: National Identity in Post-Conflict Narratives. Routledge.
Ghanim, L. 2022. Beyond and Battle-field: Spirituality in Modern Iraqi Novels. Routledge.
Giling, M, Aldi Hidayat and Khaerul Asy’ary Ulama’i. 2025. “Democratic Caliphate: A Reconciliation of the Caliphate and Democracy through the Lens of Prophetic Social Science” al Qalam, Vol. 31, No. 1, p. 98-106.
Gilroy, P. 2004. After Empire: Melancholia of Convivial Culture? Routledge Press.
Goswami, P. 2022. Literature of the Global South: New Perspective on Comparative Studies, Routledge.
Habermas, Jurgen. 2008. Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays. Polity Press.
_______________. 2008. “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.” New Perspective Quarterly 25 (4): 17-29.
Hassan, F. 2024. Secularism and the Sacred: Women’s Voices in Modern Arabic Literature. University of California Press.
Hefner, R.W. 2011. Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton University Press.
Heryanto, A. 2018. Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesia Screen Culture. NUS Press.
Ihsan, N. H, Wan Mohd. Azam Mohd Amin, Muhammad Ammar Tsaqib, dan Jusmidar. 2025. “Bridging the Epistemological Divide: Arsyad al Banjari’s Ma’rifah as a Response to Western Epistemological Dilemmas” al Qalam, Vol
Hu, J. 2020. “Orientalism, Redux”, Victorian Studies, Vol. 62, No. 3, p. 460-473.
Kachachi, Inaam. 2013. Tashari (The Dispersal). Dar al Jadeed.
Jones, C. 2024. Ethical Accountability in Postcolonial Narrative. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kadhim, A. 2023. Global Voices: The Transnational Appeal of Contemporary Iraqi Novels. Bloomsbury Academic.
Kersten, C. 2015. Islam in Indonesia: The Contest for Society, Ideas and Values. Hurst Publisher.
Khan, M. 2024. The Post-Secular Turn in Contemporary Arabic Fiction. Edinburgh University Press.
_______. 2024. Aesthetic of Faith: Islamic Literary Expressions in Southeast Asia. NUS Press.
Khalid, A. 2024. Aesthetic Resistance in Contemporary Arab Literature. Edinburgh University Press.
Lopez, A. J. 2021. “Intentions, Methods and the Future of Global South Studies” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol 58, No. 3, p. 485-508.
Mamoud, Z. 2021. Contemporary Arabic Literature: A Discursive Analysis. Oxford University Press.
Mailloux, S. 2020. “Theory Again Author” Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 53, No. 1, p. 62-74.
McBride, M.K, Marley Caroll, Jessa L. Mellea and Elena Savoia. 2022. “Targeted Violence” Perspective on Terrorism, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 24-38.
Moretti, F. 2000. Graphs, Maps Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History. Verso.
Moretti, S. 2000. “Conjectures on World Literature.” New Left Review 1: 54-68.
Mustonen, L and Stephen Scheel. 2024. “Engaging with Three Predicaments of Transnational Migration Research in the Postcolonial Condition”, Vol. 14, No. 4, p. 1-11.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1997. Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Harvard University Press.
Patel, S. 2024. Literary Encounters in the Global South: Empathy and Resistance. Routledge.
Peterson, S. 2021. “Critical Privilege Studies”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 52, p. 17-27.
Phelan, J. 2007. Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression and the Interpretation of Narrative. University of Chicago Press.
________. 2007. Experiencing Fiction: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Harvard University Press.
Podis, L. A. 2020. “Literary Lions: Chinua Achebe and Ongoing Dialogues in Modern African Literature” Research in African Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4, p. 142-164.
Pozzoli. Federico. 2023. Post-2003 Iraqi Fiction: Voice, Audience and Narrative Authority. University of St. Andrews.
Pozzoli, M. 2023. Narrating Conflict: Trauma and Resistance in Modern Arabic Literature. Palgrave Macmillan.
Purwanto, B. (2023) Indonesia’s Plural Future: Religion, Society and Memory. Gadjah Mada University Press.
Ramadhan, A. 2023. Intercultural Ethics in Global South Literature. Routledge.
Ricœur, Paul. 1981. Hermeneutics and Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation. Cambridge University Press.
Ridgeon. Lloyd. 2010. Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition. Routledge.
_____________. (Ed). 2010. Morality and Justice in Islamic Thought: New Essays. I.B. Tauris.
Robbins, B. 2018. The Virtue of Cosmopolitanism: Literature, Ethics and the Imagination. Columbia University Press.
Safar, N. 2023. Translating Trauma: Arab Women’s Narrative in Global Contexts. Columbia University Press.
Said, A. 2023. Literary Encounters: Fiction, Ethics and Global Solidarity. Columbia University Press.
Said, E. 2000. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Harvard University Press.
Santner, E. 2022. The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames of Sovereignty. University of Chicago Press.
Singh, P. 2023. Reading Across Borders: Postcolonial Narratives and Global Receptions. Bloomsbury Academic.
Scott, Joan Wallach. 2017. Sex and Secularism: On Gender, Culture, the Public Sphere and the State. Princeton University Press.
Sharma, R. 2024. Transnational Literary Studies: Methodologies and Challenges. University of Toronto Press.
Sobhani, M. A. 2021. “Religion, Fanaticism, and Magic” Chasqui, Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 95-112.
Subekti, A. 2024. Literary Imagination and Social Change in Southeast Asia. NUS Press.
Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Harvard University Press.
Toman, C. 2023. “Changing Tides in Contemporary Middle Eastern Literature”, The Comparatist, Vol 47, p. 192-211.
Verma, S. 2023. Spiritual Resilience in Post-Conflict Narrative. Routledge.
Wibowo, S. 2024. Ritual, Performance and Cultiral Resilience in Contemporary Indonesia. Gadjah Mada University Press.
Wood, M. 2021. “In this World” Daedalus, Vol. 150, No. 1, p. 5-13.
Wolff, F. 2020. “Beyond Genocide“, Historical Social Research, Vol. 45, No. 4, p. 97-129.
Yacoubi, Y. 2020. “Redirecting Postcolonial Theory”, Alif: Journal of Comparative Peotics, No. 40, p. 85-114.
Zaidel, A. 2020. The Aftermath: Literature and the Shaping of Post-Conflict Societies. Columbia University Press.
Zaidel. Ronen. 2020. “Pluralism in the Iraqi Novel after 2003: Literature and the Recovery of National Identity.” Journal of Arabic Literature, 51 (1-2), 55-71.
Zhao, W and Qing Yang. 2020. “Cross-Cultural Migration and the Academic Boundaries of Comparative Literature” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 57, No. 3, p. 464-474.
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ita Rodiah
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
