Thus she witnesses misery all the time, everywhere. She performs abortions so that the women who had conceived as a result of rape do not have to carry the stigma. Maya is a liberal-minded ‘village doctor’ who helps women victims of war. They have charted their own ways, opposite to each other's, of moving forward in the shadow of the tortuous history. This difference is the central conflict in The Good Muslim. The ideological difference between Sohail and his sister creates a deep-seated schism in their minds. She still has the same revolutionary zeal, but Sohail has resorted to religiosity in its puritanical form and has become a charismatic religious leader, reflective of Bangladesh under the regime of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, the President and dictator of Bangladesh who has promoted Islam over secularism. In 1984, Maya returns home after almost a decade of absence and finds her beloved brother Sohail completely transformed. While A Golden Age tells their story before and during the liberation war of Bangladesh, The Good Muslim tells their story a decade after the war. The central characters of the novel are Maya and Sohail. The family that has taken active part in the war of independence has now to face the challenges of peace, within and outside. It is a story about faith and family shadowed by a war. This novel is a sequel to her debut novel A Golden Age and spans the year from 1984 to 1985, with occasional flashbacks to the aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The Good Muslim is a novel by Tahmima Anam.
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