SOURCE: Allen, M. D. Review of The Innocence of the Devil, by Nawal El Saadawi. World Literature Today 69, no. 3 (summer 1995): 637-38.

In the following review, Allen finds The Innocence of the Devil fraught with omens and negative imagery in which the text becomes mired.

“I knew,” reflects Firdaus in Woman at Point Zero, the best known of Nawal El Saadawi's novels, “that men were in control of both our worlds, the one on earth and the one in heaven.” The Innocence of the Devil makes the same point, going on to claim that male control of women in this world is facilitated by a patriarchal theology that subordinates them sub specie aeternitatis. The father of one of the two main female characters appeals to a linguistic nicety of the Koran, God's own perfect word in the eyes of believers. After the primal sin, God forgives Adam alone, using...