DIALECTICS OF TENSION BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN NADEEM ASLAM’S THE GOLDEN LEGEND AND MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS: A POSTMODERN ANALYSIS

Abstract

To save and rescue Islamic philosophy and methodology from absolutists and traditionalists, secularists, modernists, and postmodernists is the serious and pressing matter in present day scenario. In the desert of postmodernism, vision of tradition, in Islamic context, is trivialized and confused with traditionalism. In Nadeem Aslam novels, anxiety is always predictable, and everything is proved right with reference to sacred and worldly absolutes. Tradition is being confused with traditionalism, shown as static and rigid phenomenon, which do not evolve. For Sardar, Islamic Fundamentalism is the product of triple alliance of traditionalism, modernity and postmodernism. Islamic traditions are compatible to Modernity in current scenario. But in Aslam’s fiction both modernists and traditionalist Muslim characters work within a very limited and constrained scope. This study shows how Sardar’s ideas regarding tradition and modernity work as an invitation to reason in the context of their lopsided representation, thought and action, as manifesto to embrace traditional pluralism.