Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
Evoking Polyvocality in Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love
Abstract
While interest in Elif Shafak’s novel The Forty Rules of Love (2010) continues to grow, commentary on issues of narrative
technique is limited. The focus of previous studies is on sufism and feminism. This article examines the politics of
polyvocality in Shafak’s text, which aims to reflect the multiple and diverse voices within the Islamic community. While
polyvocality can deconstruct the myth of the Muslim monolith, The Forty Rules of Love illustrates that this strategy is
not neutral. Written in the bildungsroman form, the story follows the parallel life paths of Rumi and Shams Tabrez, a
famous pair in the thirteenth century vis-à-vis the 21st century world of the Scottish (originally Christian) Sufi wanderer,
Aziz Zahara, and the American Jewish housewife, Ella Rubinstein, who embraces Sufism at the end of the novel. In this
article, I argue that Shafak’s novel uses polyvocality to draw distinctions between the soft face of Islam, Sufism, and a
fundamentalist version of the religion perpetrated by the fanatics. The text privileges select voices that reinforce Sufism’s
ostracism within the traditional Muslim community and prove it responsive to inclusion with the West while representing
non-Sufi Islamic voices as cut out of the same cloth of fundamentalism, sanctioning phobia against Muslims who are not
followers of Sufism.
