Nazir Ahmed's Ibn-ul-Vaqt forms a part of his later works, and traverses through the questions
of cultural identities, consciousness, crises, imperialism and exile. The
protagonist belongs to a Muslim, Sharif family who is massively impressed and
influenced by the English, their culture and norms. In his opinion, 'the very
fact that a nation had an empire to rule was clear proof of the superiority of
its customs and ceremonies'. His assimilation, however incomplete, is evident
through his self-taught English, his education, his views on the mutiny of 1857
and the 'foolish acts' of the 'tyrants', and most of all, his involvement in
the care of and eventual friendship with Mr. Noble. Juxtaposed next to the white
imperial presence and the brown native, Ibn ul-Vaqt represents a constant
struggle, an oscillation between two opposing poles, represented through, for
example, the desire to adopt English and yet, to purify the native mother
tongue, Urdu, of all foreign, impure elements.
Edward Said, in his essay "Reflections on Exile",
argues that exile is the 'unhealable rift forced between the self and its true
home'. Terming it as a 'terminal loss', the state of exile is portrayed as
essentially terrible and disruptive. Nazir Ahmed's protagonist Ibn ul-Vaqt is
an ironic delineation of similar ideas. This is a man who willingly takes on
the English customs and norms, and actively
seeks to serve the colonialists at any cost. As he moves away from his
religion, customs, and native associations, he goes further into a kind of
self-exile. However, at no point does he achieve a point of completion. Ibn
ul-Vaqt travels to Mr. Noble's house because the streets are too dirty for the
Englishman to use. Ibn ul-Vaqt while given the privilege to dine with Mr. Noble
is starkly at odds with the setting; embedded deep within the confines of Mr.
Noble's house, Ibn ul-Vaqt has never stood out in such high contrast as he does
at that time, seated at the table with confusing cutlery, a face smeared with
food, as (only apparently) impassive servants look on. His 'baptism...into Anglicism'
is characterized by continual crises and irresolution. This is also interesting
to look at within the context of the idea of nationalism and exile as antithetical,
as put forth by Said. While Ibn ul-Vaqt can obviously be looked at as an exilic
figure, can he also be conceived as a nationalistic one, since he stops short
of a complete transformation? And if nationalism is a result of exile and a
struggle, can Ibn ul-Vaqt's exile ever lead to something as stable and complete
as nationalism?
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