Abstract :
This paper evaluates a novel written by Fatimah Busu entitled Salam Maria from the Tawhid and women leadership perspectives based on the al-Qur’an and al-Hadis as its bench-mark. A comparative study is also undertaken with some Indonesian, Middle East and Western literature. This paper is to alert a serious ‘carelessness’ been done by the writer of the novel for taking myths, dreams and the novelist’s own experiences to built irrelevance symbols to Islam teaching particularly that related to the Divine Unity of God (Tawhid). This has aroused ambiguity in the text which could derogate the aspect of Tawhid, the theme which the writer is seeking to articulate. Furthermore, other than presenting cosmetic symbols that could confuse the readers, the writer of the novel was in the state of negligent in portraying the novel’s protagonist, Maria Zaitun, by injecting feminist image which is inconsistent with the true teaching of Islam.
Keywords :
Tawhid , banian tree (beringin) , animism , ‘carelessness , ’ and feminist.
