Maryam Jameelah’s Critique of the West

A Corpus-Assisted Stylistic Analysis

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive, corpus-assisted stylistic analysis of Maryam Jameelah’s religious writings, offering a critique of Western civilization and modernization. Previous interdisciplinary research on Jameelah’s works has mostly relied on discourse or textual analysis. This work is innovative as a corpus-assisted stylistic investigation of religious texts. The research examines her lexical choices, linguistic features, stylistic variations, and rhetorical strategies used to emphasize her ideological and theological views. The framework integrates Stylistics, Corpus Linguistics, and Jameelah’s texts. Using corpus linguistics, the study explores vocabulary, syntax, stylistic differences, and linguistic patterns to identify Jameelah’s unique style. The methodology combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. Quantitative methods involve tools like AntConc and a Reference Corpus (to establish patterns, keywords, and concordance lines), while qualitative analysis focuses on selected Chunks and lexical choices. The study adopts the corpus model proposed by (Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011). The features and patterns identified reveal how Jameelah’s lexical and linguistic choices reflect her critique of modernism and her negotiation of multiple identities through the intersection of stylistics, corpus linguistics, and Islamic studies. The results show that Jameelah intentionally and consistently uses specific stylistic and linguistic strategies to construct a detailed critique of Western civilization and modernization. This research offers valuable insights into the linguistic framing of religious discourse and the rhetorical techniques employed by a prominent Muslim thinker for a deep critique of Western civilization.