In this argument, I am largely following the secularization thesis as it has been applied to the English novel, with a full awareness that there is much more to be said about its nuances and sometimes outright contradictions as it plays out in slippery literary texts. Indeed, my point is to indicate the inadequacy of this thesis to a proper understanding of literary texts such as Minaret and to suggest a divergence between literary practice and critical modes of apprehending that practice when it comes to certain kinds of cultural difference.

SEED: A potential essay angle: how a dominant critical framework (secularization theory) falls short when applied to fiction from Muslim-majority or postcolonial contexts, and what frameworks might serve better.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 956