ABSTRACT

H.M. Naqvi’s 2019 novel The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack interweaves anthropological, historical, spatial, religious, cultural, and political narratives in comic fashion. Drawing on the tropes of the postcolonial city and “decolonization”, this article analyses Naqvi’s text in terms of political, cultural, and religious factors significant to urban centres like Karachi, and their implications for post-Independence Pakistan in its struggle to achieve a pluralistic and inclusive democratic system. Abdullah, the novel’s protagonist, seeks to present himself as a secular counterpart to the prevalent Sunni/Wahhabi orthodoxies in Pakistani culture. However, alongside his dramatization of a secular challenge to religious orthodoxy, Naqvi constructs a paradoxical representation of the enunciation of Islam at a Sufi Shrine, through the glorification of Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s tomb in Karachi. Thus, the novel’s representation of Islam contains unresolved paradoxes, in that it alternates between secularist denunciation of orthodox Sunni Wahhabism and a sympathetic representation of Brelvi/Shia sects.

摘要

HM Naqvi 的 2019 年小说《哥萨克阿卜杜拉的作品集》以喜剧的方式将人类学、历史、空间、宗教、文化和政治叙事交织在一起。本文借鉴后殖民城市和“非殖民化”的比喻，从对卡拉奇等城市中心具有重要意义的政治、文化和宗教因素分析纳克维的文本，以及它们对独立后巴基斯坦争取实现多元化的影响。和包容的民主制度。小说的主人公阿卜杜拉试图将自己塑造成巴基斯坦文化中盛行的逊尼派/瓦哈比教派的世俗对应者。然而，除了对宗教正统的世俗挑战进行戏剧化处理外，纳克维还通过美化卡拉奇的阿卜杜拉·沙阿·加齐 (Abdullah Shah Ghazi) 的坟墓，构建了一种在苏菲派圣地宣读伊斯兰教的自相矛盾的表现形式。因此，