TRADITION VS MODERNITY - Essay Example

teenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the lustful desires of the European powers to capture the lands and resources of the weak Asian and African countries for the prosperity of the European nations at the cost of the poor Asian and African subjects. As a result, the cruel Europeans invaded over these regions of the globe in the name of so called exploration, occupied the countries, toppled the governments, enslaved the populations and declared them as their colonies. Though colonial system paved the way towards the development of the colonized countries and showed them the path towards progressive western countries, yet the sense of slavery told upon their minds and nerves, and their generations still have not come out of the same imagination of slavery their ancestors had to undergo severe trials and humiliation in past.

Somehow, the colonial era has not gone still from these regions, as the powerful states are still ruling over them through their culture, technological advancements and so called funds and donations. The novel under analysis throws light on the same problems and argues that the main objective before the Europeans was not to bring improvements in the life of the colonized population; on the contrary, they aimed to impose their culture on the subjugated people. The story of the novel revolves around the brilliant and outstanding Senegalese child Samba Diallo, who has been studying in the local Koranic school (called madrassah in local language), where the mentors focus upon religious education including the Holy Qur’an, the Prophetic sayings (i.e. Hadith) and education related to Islamic jurisprudence.

Being the part of the African culture, the writer explores how harshly the religious mentors treat the innocent children, where physical torture is the order of the day in almost all Muslim societies. Since religious mentors of this kind have little concern with the spiritual values of Islam as well as no knowledge regarding the modern