This paper is a comparative ecocritical investigation considering the relationship between man and nature in cross-cultural contexts as reflected in the poetry of two great admirers of nature in England and Malaysia: William Wordsworth and Ghulam Sarwar Yousuf. Both poets have composed poetry that strengthens man's bonds with nature and inspires environmental consciousness. Their nature poetry has been previously studied from different individual perspectives, but none has approached it comparatively from an ecocritical stylistic viewpoint. This study aims at analyzing selected nature poetry to identify the unique philosophy of nature both poets adopted, highlighting the artistic and aesthetic values their poetry are teeming with. The study demonstrates the cognitive development of the poets' environmental consciousness through three phases of attitudes towards nature; the physical, the intellectual and the mystical. Using major ecocritical concepts like ecocentrism, symbiotic interrelationship and ecological consciousness, the study adopts a comparative stylistic approach to scrutinize linguistic and literary representation of nature in the selected poems. It identifies the similarities and differences between both poets concluding that despite differences in their times, places, cultures, language and style, there is an affinity between both poets in their treatment towards nature. The present study responds to the enormous need for literary-linguistic investigation of leitmotifs of nature across geographical, cultural, and linguistic contexts as a means of facilitating environmental sensitivity and sensibility.

This paper discusses the relationship between the ideologies of the secular and the religious in the process of nation-building as presented in Tahmima Anam's The Good Muslim (2011). It centres around the conflicts between the Haque siblings, Maya and Sohail as they navigate their ways in life after the Bangladeshi Liberation War of 1971. The novel portrays how Sohail's submission to extreme dogmatism which has led him to neglecting his son, Zaid, and Maya's inability to tolerate her brother's transformation, result in their estranged relationship, eventually leading to a devastating family tragedy. Using Talal Asad's (2003) definition of the secular as an ideology that brings together different concepts and practices, and which is neither a break from religion nor a continuity of it, this paper suggests that the skirmish between the siblings is a metaphorical representation of a conflict between the secular and the religious in the efforts towards nation-building. This formulation foregrounds the importance of establishing an intricate balance between the secular and the religious, which also has the social implication of destabilizing the binary that is often drawn to differentiate between a 'good' and a 'bad' Muslim.

This paper discusses the practice of religious rituals and doctrines and the effects that these have on the protagonist of Leila Aboulela's The Translator. Although it is a love story that highlights the challenges of a relationship between a young and devout Muslim widow and an agnostic Scottish man, I suggest that the novel's focus is on the spiritual journey that the protagonist goes through. She is portrayed as a selfish individual who uses religion mainly as an escape from her tragic life, and she has a flawed belief that she can only feel fulfilled if she becomes a wife again. In return, this belief causes her to be deprived of a contented life, as adherence to religious practices is not only a sign of piety but also a means towards gaining the capacity for self-improvement. This is based on Saba Mahmood's analytical framework of piety that emphasizes the connection between the performance of religious actions and the creation of a moralistic self. In an extension to Mahmood's argument, using Alison Weir's suggestion that religious practices must have a clear purpose towards God, I further argue that the protagonist's religiosity lacks the focus on God. Her desire to be married again suggests a strong dependency on the men in her life, which contradicts her devotion to God, as it demonstrates her inability to put God at the center of her life. This restrains her abilities to improve her life and, more importantly, it inhibits the creation of a relationship with the Divine. The novel therefore suggests that a complete sense of the self can only be achieved when one is able to relinquish worldly desires and depends only on God.

Randa Abdel-Fattah's 2006 novel, Does My Head Look Big in This?, is about a teenage Australian Muslim protagonist who voluntarily chooses to wear the hijab to her elite private school in Melbourne, and the personal and social challenges that she faces after making this decision. In this paper, I suggest that the novel portrays the action of wearing the hijab as mainly apolitical, and that it is instead a spiritual and religious act which demonstrates aspects of the hijab as empowering to an individual's life. This subverts the stereotypical understanding of the hijab, particularly by the West, as either a tool of control and subjugation of Muslim women, or as a stand against Western society and ideology. By using Saba Mahmood's (2005) study of Muslim women piety, which argues that Islam and its practices can be used as a tool for women's empowerment, particularly for achieving selfimprovement and self-actualization, this paper pays attention to the representation of the hijab in the novel. The decision to wear the hijab opens a path for the protagonist to become more adherent to her religion, as well as improving her attributes and individuality as a whole. This creates a wholesome young woman who is not only committed to her religion, but is also mindful of her character.

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