Literature is not halal

On TikTok and other dedicated platforms, some young Muslim women are rejecting French literature and promoting stories compatible with Islamic values, forgetting all too quickly that the great works written in Arabic were far from being prudish, analyses the Franco-Syrian writer Omar Youssef Souleimane. In his latest book, Les Complices du mal (Plon, 2025), Souleimane—who was born in Syria into a traditionalist Sunni family—denounces the Islamophile French left. “I lived for years on the outskirts of Paris. I was always surprised that some imams supported Mélenchon without reservation. Islamists use La France insoumise as a Trojan horse to pursue political interests and gain seats in parliament,” the writer states in the book.

“A fully veiled woman, whose face cannot be seen, is walking through a library,” writes Le Point. “She expresses her frustration in French at having closed a book several times because it was not what she, as a Muslim woman, wished to read. ‘This trivialises deception, romanticises violence’.” And since she “loves romance novels”, she invites other young women to join her in reading and writing so-called ‘halal’ books, which she believes are compatible with the values of Islam. It is one of the many videos currently circulating on TikTok. On the one hand, these influencers call for a break with French literature; on the other, they urge the adoption of the literature of a ‘modest’ Islam. But is Arab-Muslim literature really modest? And can one claim to belong to France without engaging with its literary works? Pulsely is the name of a ‘halal’ literature website. Launched in 2026, the platform presents itself as a community space for writing and reading dedicated to fiction that conforms to Islamic values. Its catalogue is organised into genres tailored to this editorial line: ‘Halal Romance’ – which is also a widely used hashtag on TikTok – ‘Halal Thriller’, and sections such as ‘Spirituality’, ‘Islamic Fantasy’ or personal development guided ‘by the divine path’. The works are written by female authors using pseudonyms, and the project as a whole presents itself as a movement to reclaim Muslim creativity. Behind these videos, as well as behind the platform itself, lies the same ambition: to build an Islamic identity for young French Muslim women. The identity defined by the hijab, daily Islamic rituals and Muslim values placed above those of the Republic already exists; only literature was missing. But this belongs to an imaginary world that recognises neither religious boundaries nor traditions: a new form therefore had to be created, this time strictly defined. Halal, in this sense, is no longer merely a dietary or ritual norm: it becomes a total way of life, a framework applied to all aspects of existence. What these young people are missing out on is Arabic literature itself. During the Abbasid period (750–1258), in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate, it was common to write about wine, sensuality, sexual relations and even homosexuality. One need only read Le Mille e una notte or Il Libro dei canti – a vast anthology of poetry and anecdotes – to come across hundreds of erotic texts. This tradition forms part of a broader context, that of the mujun: the deliberate transgression of moral prohibitions in the name of freedom of thought. Later, in Al-Andalus, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (died 1505) wrote Al-Wishah fi fawa’id al-nikah (“The Ribbon on the Benefits of Coitus”), one of the best-known works in the Arabic erotic tradition. This literary movement has always had an adversary: fundamentalism, which for a long time maintained that men of letters were infidels. The Qur’an itself expresses mistrust towards poets, stating that ‘they are followed by the misguided’, who wander ‘through every valley’ and say ‘what they do not do’ – a verse from which the most strict interpretation has drawn to cast suspicion on all literary creation. Yet the Qur’an and the hadith, the words of Muhammad, are not without highly sensual passages when it comes to describing the women of paradise, the houris reserved for the faithful. It was precisely from this very ground that, twelve centuries later, the opposing struggle arose – no longer literary, but political. With the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, a new movement emerged: that of ‘adab islami’, or ‘Islamic literature’. It never really gained widespread popular support. At the same time, a renaissance was taking shape in the Arab world – the Nahda – strongly influenced by Western literature, and in particular by French literature: from Georges Henein with the Egyptian Surrealist group ‘Art et Liberté’, in direct dialogue with André Breton, right through to Adonis, shaped by his reading of Rimbaud. Two paths that emerged almost simultaneously, yet were diametrically opposed: one that confined literature within religious orthodoxy, the other that opened it up, via France, to modernity. Ironically, today young French Muslim women seek inspiration in ‘halal literature’, whilst much of contemporary literature in various Muslim countries has been shaped precisely by French literature, with the novel at the forefront. Whilst here these Muslim women can read and write whatever they wish, this is not the case in many states where Sharia law is in force. One need only think of Nadia Anjuman, the Afghan poet beaten to death by her husband in 2005 because she wrote. Or Nawal el-Saadawi, who was imprisoned and received death threats in Egypt because of her feminist ideas, and who passed away in 2021. Or Bothayna al-Essa, whose novel Khara’it al-Tih, published in 2015, was banned that same year in Kuwait for “offending public decency”. These writers have paid a heavy price for not living in a country where they could express themselves freely. Yet such a country does exist: it is France. A country from which some young Muslim women wish to break away.”