DeLillo s novel, written mostly from an American perspective and focusing

on the personal trauma of American citizens, stands in sharp contrast to Pakista

ni
writer Nadeem Aslam s The Blind Man s Garden, which is set in Pakistan. Even
though the latter novel does not directly deal with the attacks, it shows some o
f the
consequences the U.S. military response to the attacks had for people living in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the novel places 9/11 in the historical cont
ext of
U.S. neo-colonialism, dramatizing the impact of U.S. foreign policy on ordinary
citizens in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and on the internal conf
licts in
these countries concerning government corruption and religious radicalization. T
he
novel features a variety of Muslim characters, emphasizing their humanity and
vulnerability, contrary to Bush s us vs. them rhetoric that emphasized their
otherness or even demonized them. In an interview Aslam has said that this clash
between an incomplete understanding of the East and an incomplete understanding
of
the West that occurred in the decade after 9/11 inspired him to write this book
(Hong). The Blind Man s Garden shows that not only American citizens have been
affected negatively by the attacks and are the victims of a personal or collecti
ve
trauma, but that citizens in Islamic countries experience the devastating conseq
uences
as well, and are in many ways much more vulnerable than Westerners.
The characters stories make clear that the consequences of the 9/11 attacks
go beyond the borders of the United States. Pakistani citizens are affected too,
and,
like many families in the U.S., have lost loved ones as a result of the 9/11 att
acks and
the War on Terror that followed. The novel places the trauma of 9/11 in an
Van
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49
international perspective, as the protagonists and settings are not American. Ju
dith
Butler points out that those who remain faceless or whose faces are presented to
us
as so many symbols of evil, authorize us to become senseless before those lives
we
have eradicated, and whose grievability is indefinitely postponed (xviii). Instea
d of
focusing on traumatized Americans who narrate their traumas to their fellow
Americans within the U.S., Aslam s novel puts 9/11 in an international context,
narrating the trauma of Muslim victims of both neo-colonial politics and Islamic
radicalism. This draws the reader s attention to the international consequences of
9/11 and the conflicts within Islamic countries related to the rise of religious
extremism. Aslam s novel humanizes the Others, giving them a face and thus
enabling the reader to recognize their suffering and losses as well.
The main characters in this novel are Mikal, Naheed, Jeo, and Rohan, all
Pakistani citizens, who live in post-9/11 Pakistan. Jeo and Mikal are foster bro
thers.
Although Jeo and Mikal are both in love with her, Naheed marries Jeo, who is mor
e
suitable as a husband according to her mother, due to his profession as a prospe
ctive
doctor. Jeo and Mikal leave for Afghanistan, as volunteers to help people who ha
ve
been injured in the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan. They are ambushed and Jeo is
killed, while Mikal is captured by warlords and subsequently sold to the America

ns,
who offer money for captured terrorists. Both sides torture him, and he struggle
s to
make his way back to Naheed, with the intention of marrying her. When Jeo s body
returns home, Naheed is left a widow and longs for Mikal to return, as she is
convinced he did not die. Besides the narrative of Naheed s and Mikal s love, there
is
the story of Rohan, Jeo s father, a pious Muslim, who, due to the loss of his wife
and
now his son, struggles with grief and guilt.
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50
The Blind Man s Garden does not simply portray Muslims as the religious
fanatics and dangerous terrorists that the conservative media showed American
viewers after 9/11, despite the presence of characters who belong to this catego
ry. On
the one hand, the novel reinforces the binary opposition between good and bad
Muslims. Like Rendition, The Blind Man s Garden tries to complicate the existing
stereotypes by showing a variety of well-rounded Muslim characters. Extremist an
d
repressive Muslim characters, such as Major Kyra, are contrasted with sympatheti
c
characters, such as Naheed and Mikal. In his review of the novel, Peter Faber no
tes
that Aslam s characters
whatever their background or motives, and even as they
advance into the crosshairs of history
are never emblematic of anything but
themselves (Faber), indicating that the characters are individualized and wellrou
nded.
The novel seeks to undermine the stereotypical picture of Muslims in the
media that was raised after 9/11 as male, bearded, extremist terrorists with Mik
al, the
protagonist of the novel, who is a non-threatening male Muslim character. Aslam
uses Mikal, whose journey back home to Heer from captivity in Afghanistan, takes
up a significant part of the novel, to counter existing Orientalist views of the
Other.
Although Mikal s suffering is partly caused by American soldiers sent to
Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, he never blames the Americans. In the course of
Mikal s captivities by the Afghani warlords and the Americans, and his struggle to
reach Heer, he becomes more and more paranoid. During captivity by the Americans
,
Mikal is convinced that his fellow prisoner has been placed in the next cage to m
ake
Mikal reveal information (162). When Mikal is about to be set free, he is certain
that
the Americans are about to execute him (192), which causes him to kill an
American soldier during his release. Despite all these challenges, Mikal does no
t
regard the Americans as the enemy, stating that even though they may have killed
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51
others, that s not how it works and they didn t kill me (203). At the end of the
novel he suggests that the white man s eyes are a doorway to another world, to a
mind shaped by different rules, a different way of life (333), indicating he is a
ble to
recognize the value of other cultures and does not perceive them as a threat to
his
own identity.
Rohan, the other important male character, is an interestingly problematic
figure whose religious convictions, though sympathetically portrayed, at one tim

e
caused him to withhold medication from his dying wife, as James Lasdun puts it in
his review. Aslam explains in an interview that he separates his characters from
their
religion, for he believes that a person has many layers to his personality (Hong).
He
points out that just because [one is] religious doesn't mean all [one s] acts are i
n
accordance with [one s] religion (Hong). This becomes evident in Rohan s
character. Rohan is a devout, peaceful follower of Islam. His wife Sofia, on the
other
hand, was an artist and even though she married Rohan as a devout Muslim, she wa
s
unable to preserve her faith, valuing the real, natural world more than her beli
ef in
Allah. Because she rejected the faith, it is later disclosed, Rohan withheld her
medication when she fell ill, in order to force her to embrace Islam again. He
attempted to save her soul, wishing for her to reach heaven instead of being doo
med
to hell, but in effect kills her.
After Sofia died, Rohan burned all the works of art she created, fearing she
would be judged for disobeying Allah (19). Her art, consisting of images of the
natural world, could, according to Islam, lead to idolatry, and is therefore for
bidden.
At the time, Rohan carried out his actions without hesitation, yet after two deca
des
of thought he does sometimes suspect that his conduct had resembled sin (39).
Lasdun writes that Rohan s existence is a kind of atonement (Lasdun, par. 9),
Van
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52
indicating Rohan has been trying to make up for his mistakes. Contemplating on h
is
life, Rohan in the end concludes his blindness is an punishment for his actions.
He
didn t want to see what [Sofia] had painted, now he won t be able to see the real
things (113). Though Rohan is a devout Muslims, he is shown to be struggling with
some aspects of his faith. Rohan, just like Mikal, might be a Muslim, yet he is
not
portrayed as extremist or dangerous.
Major Kyra, a hateful and violent man, who has connections with radical
Islamism, initially confirms the Orientalist view of Muslims. He resents the U.S
. for
invading his country and believes that 9/11 is a conspiracy that was staged to
invent an excuse to begin invading Muslim lands one by one (27). Moreover, he
considers the teachers at Ardent Spirit, the school founded and formerly run by
Rohan and Sofia, are Muslim but traitors to Islam, filling the heads of children
with
un-Islamic things like music and biology and English literature (152). Major Kyra
obtained the school through his jihadist brother, Ahmed, a former student of the
school, who took over the school from Rohan and turned it into a strictly Islami
c
school. When Ahmed died in Afghanistan, he left the school to his brother. Under
Ahmed, the school developed links with Pakistani s intelligence agency, the ISI
(27), for which Kyra formerly worked. Ahmed s death meant the dissolution of that
connection, meaning the Ardent Spirit pupils now belong to [Major Kyra] alone and
through them he ll set his plans in motion, moulding them to be warrior saints,
brilliant in deceit against the West (28).
Under Major Kyra s leadership, a group of radicalized Arden Spirit students
plan a terrorist attack on the Christian St. Joseph school in Heer, in retaliati
on against

America s foreign policy and interference in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The plan is
to
raid the school and hold everyone hostage (151) in order is to force the Americans
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53
to leave Afghanistan and free all our brothers who are being held prisoner by the
m
(151). Their aim is to remove all Western influence and military presence from
Afghanistan, and they are willing to resort to extreme violence to reach this go
al;
Kyra even proposes, we must purchase a camcorder
to film the beheadings (190).
After the siege has begun, the terrorists release a list of demands:
We are followers of Allah s mission and let it be known that that mission is
spreading the truth, not killing people. Peace not war. We ourselves are victims
of murder, massacre and incarceration. The West s invasion of Afghanistan
the only true Islamic country in the world
is an unprecedented global crime,
and our brothers and sisters and children are being killed as we write this,
abducted and taken way to be tortured. (255)
By staging this attack in Pakistan, Aslam points out that the U.S. invasion of
Afghanistan as part of its foreign policy only fuels the radicalization of the a
rea,
sparking violence against moderate forces within Islam. Butler argues as well th
at in
pursuing a wayward military solution, the United States perpetrates and displays
it
own violence, offering a breeding ground for new waves of young Muslims to join
terrorist organizations (Precarious Life 17).
The siege of the school bears similarities with the reality of the situation in
the
East after 9/11. In 2004, militants attacked a school in Beslan, Russia, for fif
ty-two
hours, killing 334 people, among whom 186 children (Balmforth). In December
2014, a similar siege was carried out in Peshawar, Pakistan, where a group of se
ven
terrorists attacked a school wearing bomb vests, killing 141 people, of whom 132
were children (Boone). Especially Kyra s suggestion to record the beheadings
Van
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54
reminds the reader of the actual situation in the Middle East and the violent
beheadings recorded by IS, which occurred shortly after publication of the novel
.
These correlations between the events in the book and the terrorist attacks on s
chools
in real life prove how compelling and topical the events in The Blind Man s Garden
are.
Butler points out that the acts of violence carried out by the U.S. do not
receive graphic coverage in the press, and so they remain acts that are justifie
d in the
name of self-defense, but by a noble cause, namely the rooting out of terrorism
(Precarious Life 6). She connects this with the U.S. government s use of female
oppression in Islamic countries as a justification for the War on Terror, an iss
ue that
is addressed in The Blind Man s Garden as well. In Aslam s novel, however, the
stereotype of Muslim women s oppression is complicated. Naheed, the main female
character in The Blind Man s Garden, is a strong woman. She does not fit into the
traditional picture of an oppressed Muslim woman. First of all, Naheed chooses t
o
remain a widow initially, even though her mother insists that she has to remarry
. Her

mother warns her that life as an unmarried widow in Afghanistan is not safe, yet
Naheed refuses to marry merely for the sake of safety, which would be giving in
to
the dominant culture of oppression.
Secondly, Naheed aborts her husband s child. When she discovers she is
pregnant with Jeo s child, her mother arranges for medication to abort the child,
going so far as to lock Naheed up in a room in an attempt to force her to take t
he
medicine. Naheed initially refuses to do so, insisting that she will bring him up
[herself] (92). Her mother accepts her decision after a few days, letting her out
of the
room, but Naheed miscarries anyway, admitting to her mother, It wasn t Allah. I did
it myself (102). She appears to be afraid of the consequences of being an unmarri
ed
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55
widow with a child after all. When towards the end of the novel she becomes
pregnant with Mikal s child, however, Naheed gives birth to it even though she wil
l
have to raise it herself. Both her choice to have a sexual relationship out of w
edlock
with Mikal, and her decision to have the baby are courageous, even if these choi
ces
were made out of love. Despite the fact that she hides her sin by pretending it is
her
sister-in-law Yasmine s child, because there is no alternative (366), Naheed shows
strength and independence.
The Blind Man s Garden represents post-9/11 Pakistan as a dangerous place,
especially for an attractive young widow such as Naheed. Sharif Sharif, the land
lord,
has his eye on Naheed and wants to make her his second wife. Naheed stubbornly
refuses Sharif Sharif s proposal, though her mother anxiously reminds her of the
vulnerability of single women and widows in Pakistan. She arranges another boy f
or
Naheed to marry, because it s the only way (187). After some time Naheed accepts
Sharif Sharif s offer, as she realizes she has no other choice and [she] didn t know
what to do (277). However, before a wedding can take place, Mikal returns from
Afghanistan, fleeing from the Americans who seek him for the murder of an
American soldier. Naheed is represented as a sensitive woman, who behaves as
independently as she can. Aslam acknowledges the harsh circumstances she lives i
n,
yet does not reduce all the problems she is faced with to Islam, but also shows
that
her precarious situation is connected to U.S. foreign policy and international w
arfare.
As Yaqin and Morey point out, Muslim women are primarily stereotyped by
means of their clothing habits. In the West, female Muslims are stereotyped as
women whose individuality has been obliterated by the burqa (Yaqin 205). Many
Westerners assume a link between women wearing headscarves and burqas and the
oppression of women in Muslim culture, a notion that is reinforced by the media.
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56
Nevertheless, The Blind Man s Garden complicates this link. When Sofia, Rohan s
deceased wife, was a young university student, the other students excluded her a
nd
made fun of her because she wore a burqa. Her father advised her to take off [her
]
burqa because modesty and decency dwell in the mind, not in a burqa. Her
father s liberal approach contrasts sharply with that of Sofia s mother, who feels t

hat
without her burqa the chances of [Sofia] making a decent marriage were in complet
e
ruins (176). This remark complicates the common notion that wearing the burqa is
a
sign of male oppression, indicating that gender restrictions are not necessarily
imposed (only) by men. It is a woman who coerces Sofia to wear a burqa, just as
it is
Naheed s mother who commends the women of Kabul for being wise enough to stay
in their burqas (101), even after Afghanistan is liberated by the Americans. In the
case of the two mothers, adherence to dress codes may be sensible: women know
what happens to other women when they do not obey. As Naheed s mother puts it,
there are no second chances or forgiveness if you are a woman and have made a
mistake or have been misunderstood (101). Yet, although in Islamic countries
women have less authority and independence than men, the novel insists that wome
n
are not simply passive victims: while some women are complicit in the system, fo
r
example, the group of local women who invent the tradition that women are not
allowed into graveyards (83), other women like Naheed resist oppression.
In the last part of the novel, the reader discovers that the brother of the
American soldier Mikal killed is looking for him, seeking revenge for his brothe
r. He
and Mikal, who is fleeing from the Americans, meet by accident, without knowing
who the other is or how they are connected. Mikal captures the soldier, but does
not
kill him. Mikal and the soldier do not speak each other s language, yet they seem
to
develop a connection during the time Mikal holds the soldier captive. Towards th
e
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57
end of the novel, when the soldier starts to sing to himself, Mikal is touched a
nd
responds very emotionally, as the unafraid resonance connecting the two of them
across the heat-thinned air (341). Mikal begins to cry and has the uncontrollable
urge to tell the soldier about his life. He reaches out a hand and places it on t
he
[soldier s] shoulder and tells him about Naheed, Jeo, and his incarceration, even
though his mouth [is] full of failed words (342). Mikal ends with apologizing to t
he
soldier for killing his countrymen (342).
Butler points out that all humans are vulnerable, and that there are others out
there on whom [one s] life depends (Precarious life xii). She argues that to be
injured means that one has the chance to reflect upon injury, [ ] to find out who
else
suffers from permeable borders, unexpected violence, dispossession, and fear, an
d in
what ways (Precarious life xii). Mikal and the American soldier are in a vulnerab
le
condition and their lives depend on each other. Butler argues that because Ameri
cans
suffered from loss and violence, they have the chance to empathize with others w
ho
suffer from the same loss and violence. Mikal and the soldier share a bond, rega
rdless
of their incapability to speak each other s language. This indicates that there is
a
possibility for healing trauma and reconciling the two cultures.
The Blind Man s Garden engages in a wider debate about how Muslims and

citizens of Islamic countries are directly or indirectly victims of 9/11 and its
aftermath as well, by including their perspective, instead of focusing on the do
mestic
consequences within the U.S. The novel s key passage, according to Aslam, occurs
when Mikal finds his way back to Heer and Naheed tells him: It s been four hundred
and seventy-nine days since I saw you last. I feel like I have been in four hund
red and
seventy-nine wars (274). In an interview, Aslam explains that even though it is t
he
men who engage with history head-on during a war, the women who stay behind
Van
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58
are affected as well (Wren). This indicates again that the consequences of war a
ffect
more people than solely the soldiers or the direct victims. Similarly, the 9/11
attacks
and the War on Terror that followed did not just disturb the lives of American
citizens or soldiers; innocent citizens of Islamic countries were affected as we
ll,
fighting a war each day.
In conclusion, in The Blind Man s Garden the stereotypical image that
Westerners have of Islam is complicated. On the one hand, the novel features suc
h
diverse characters, with complex personalities, that the stereotypical connectio
n
between Islam and terrorists is refuted. On the other hand, the novel does not d
eny
that there are extremists who use Islam to justify violence and oppress and abus
e
women. However, most importantly, the novel emphasizes that the wars and
struggles in Afghanistan and the Middle East are not simply due to Islamic relig
ion,
but that U.S. foreign policy helps shape and even fuel these conflicts. The nove
l
rejects U.S. exceptionalism and Western stereotypes. The presence of humane and
psychologically complex Muslims such as Rohan and Mikal s reconciliation with the
American soldier refute the Orientalist presumptions that all Muslims are danger
ous
and extremist.
In contrast to Falling Man, The Blind Man s Garden shows awareness of the
debate regarding the Other that followed the 9/11 attacks, causing the readers to
critically think about their own attitudes and consider the international perspe
ctives
as well, which might encourage a more open-minded view of the Other ; a view that
challenges Orientalist discourse. Falling Man, with its focus on American citize
ns,
does not actively engage the reader in this debate. Hammad s character does give t
he
perspective of the terrorists, yet his motives remain obscure. As Greenwald argu
es, a
post-9/11 novel is not obliged to address the geopolitical circumstances; even i
f it
Van
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59
focuses on trauma, it can still be an effective response to the attacks. However
,
novels can and perhaps should be criticized if they reinforce stereotypical imag
es of
Muslim men and women and thus support binary us versus them divisions. Falling
Man s incorporation of Hammad, with his doubts and to an extent independent mind

counters Orientalist discourse, yet does not succeed in refuting it, whereas The
Blind
Man s Garden does.