Alifa Rifaat - Distant View of A Minaret

Distant View of a Minaret opens with a husband and wife performing the act of intercourse. The story is told from the wife’s point of view and it is quickly revealed that during this interaction she is both uninterested and feels estranged from her husband. She recalls how in the past she attempted to express her desire for sexual satisfaction to her husband which was met in return with denial and anger. At some point during the act she becomes aware of the call to prayer. Afterwards she performs necessary ablutions and her prayers, a ritual with which she feels more in touch with than with her own relationship with her husband. She then peers out the window to look at a minaret in Cairo, recounting how there used to be a view of multiple minarets before new buildings blocked them out. The husband then suffers from an attack while still in bed and dies. In the end the protagonist is dully surprised at how calm she has remained during and after the event of her husband’s death. This story conveys the passive female sexual role as pushed by selfish male domination of the sexual relationship in marriage. The lone minaret likely represents the solitude that the female protagonist experiences having resigned to this role.