Muslims and the World of Fiction. Part (1)

In the past five years, my rate of reading novels scored a rate of one novel per year. When life gets busy and more serious issues arise, the result is an increasing graph of focused non-fiction readings and a declining graph of fiction purchase. Recently, I have finished reading “Life of Pi” by the Canadian author Yann Martel.  The fiction itself did not arouse my appetite for reading more fiction; however, it threw me into deep reflections and amazing recall of the extensive fiction-reading old days. Speaking from a Middle Eastern background, reading fiction is perceived as a waste of time. In the west, the situation is strikingly the opposite. Getting into “Chapters”, “Indigo” or even “the largest bookstore in the world”, it is very vigilant that Fiction dominates the shelves. This post tries to answer the following two questions: What type of fiction should we advice our children to read? Should Muslims engage in fiction writing?

Before moving to the west, I always heard that in the “west” people read a lot. I heard this by my school teachers, later the university professors and even in media broadcasts. After living enough in the west, I found this inaccurate. People here do not read much; they read fiction much. Hence, understanding the fiction culture is partially essential for non-westerners’ understanding of the North-American/European culture.  In one of the book stores a note read like: “Every successful movie is extracted from a brilliant book”. This is true, because many screen-plays are derived from published fiction. The media and the market are the crazy driving cabinets of our globalized world.  Understanding fiction will hopefully help us understand one of the sources of media production, and consequently understand much more about the world we live in.

A fiction is not a synonym for a story. A fiction is an extra large dose of a story. A story can be a legend or a real-life situation, while a fiction is an exhaustive intellectual product where virtuality is mixed with reality.  And thirdly, a fiction is accessed by the educated sector of the society, while stories are a speech style. With such definition, the Quran has stories not fictions.

Fiction can be classified into six main categories: (1) Mystery, Detective, Adventure (2) Comedy, Tragedy, Romance (3) Social and Political (4) History, biography (5) Science fiction and fantasy (6) Horror and Erotic. The first three will be discussed in this part, and a discussion of the latter will appear (insha’Allah) in Part 2.

In the first category, the fiction revolves around the “unknown” and the narration rhymes around curiosity. A successful mystery should keep the reader out of the clue until the end of the story. In adventure, the reader should be excited about the coming events and see less of what they have predicted. This is why this category attracts teenagers, especially males. The authors of this type are normally sharp mind brilliant individuals with an artistic touch. Generally, this type of fiction is safe and leaves positive impact on the education of children/teens. It can be thought as a chess game, where entertainment is mixed with mental exercise. In addition, it is normally moral-neutral making it far from controversial ethical and religious issues; thus reaching a wide range of readers.  On the other hand, there are two issues associated to it. The first is its addictive nature. For example, those who happen to read a story for Agatha Christie normally end up reading all her novels. Similarly, those who read a story of “Rajulu Al Mustaheel” [The Man of Impossible – a famous Arab detective series] normally read the rest of the 200 episodes. The second disadvantage is its potential source for triggering criminal motivations. Many teenagers would fancy the intelligent methods for robbing banks or hiding the crime traces. It is good that our teens have a specific level of knowledge about crime, because it exists in our societies. However, going further on the road has undesired effects on the in psychological health of the teens.

The second category can be called the master of human emotions. Tragedy reflects sadness and misery, comedy depicts amusement and happiness and romance reflects one of the essential human emotions: love. Most of the world classics and noble prizers are in this category. Emotions are basic human language that transcends political borders, ethnical backgrounds or religious beliefs. In my humble opinion, this is the strongest and most influential form of fiction. At the same time, it is the most dangerous because talented manipulation of emotions can convey any ideology. Compared to the first category which reflects the author cleverness, this category reflects the author’s strong personal and ethical beliefs. There are always universal ideals like: sacrifice, honesty and helping the needy which is better delivered through fiction than through direct advice or non-fiction passages. However, we can endlessly debate on what is chastity, the nature of human-divine relationship, the types of sins, the good choices …etc. As Muslims, we have clear vision of these issues, and the question is how to encompass the power of fiction in our education without compromising our ideals. The censorship strategy would not work, and ironically, fictions that are banned in Saudi and Iran get high access from the public. We need instead to enroot in our educational systems the analytical skills that would enable the student to differentiate between what is “right” and “wrong”. In the early stages, directed reading and carefully selected classics produce amazing educational outcomes. However, it is essential to keep the entertaining part far from the claws of forced learning.

The political and social fictions are similar to the previous category with the exception that they deal with the bigger picture. It is the individual experience vs. the social experience, or the human concerns vs. humanity concerns. Poverty, social justice, oppression, liberty, revolution and national identity are recurrent themes in this type. Les Miserables  by Victor Hugo which speaks about the French revolution and the concurrent social and political dynamics is a good example. On other hand, Crime and Punishment for Fyodor Dostoyevsky which goes into the inner psychology of crime is an example of the previous category. Both categories share their strong ideological motivation, and what is said above does not need reiteration. 

I humbly believe that these two categories provide an open area for Muslims that awaits their contribution. The majority of educated Muslims have grown up in Western educational models, and thus they are equipped with strong linguistic and analytical tools. The universality of Islam, its virtuous ethical system, and clean vision on who is the Creator and who is the created provide an additional mental and psychological stability that is necessary for producing world-class novels.

The world of fiction is safer than most other mediums of speech. If the Muslim voice is suppressed in the journals and audio/visual channels, fiction should be considered as a viable option.  The authors would be also protected from the intimidations, and sometimes legal pursuits, that non-fiction writers face when they publish their opinions.

Going back to the “Life of Pi” which I started the article with; there is an important lesson to get out of it. It is no more practical to assume that sitting in an isolated island with a paper and a pencil (or speaking in our language with a laptop) would be enough to produce a world-class novel. Authors should study well and prepare for their writings. Yann Martel produced a beautiful peace because of his careful study of zoology and more interestingly animal psychology. It is a story but also a source of scientific facts and results of state-of-the-art. This mixture did not affect the narrative style or the adventurous nature of the novel. This is what I vision the product of future Muslim novels. It is not only a piece of amusement, but also a source for education, reflection and reality.

It is not wise to expect our Muslim novelists to speak about Islamic issues, or the Muslim struggle. No doubt, this can be a demanding area to explore taking in mind that most of the world do not really understand what has been recently declared as one quarter of the world are. What is more demanding is to present the Islamic principles in convincing fictionist styles. It is the idea, not the vocabulary.

I would love to see my children read mystery, adventure, social, comedy…etc novels as part of their education. However, I strongly emphasize that we should not only expose them to the western literature. They should read Chinese, Indian, Latin and African fiction. They should have a balanced view of the world and less suffering from of the Western syndrome.  The first step in the road is to prepare some scholars in international literature which can later prepare customized curriculums taking into account our social and religious norms.

The East has splendid and extraordinary history of poetry. The west can not even come close to it. Being brought up with classical Arabic poetry, I was shocked when I first read English poetry. Until this date, I still wonder if it is actually poetry. A good balance of metaphor, rhythm and eloquence is not pervasive within the Western poetry compared to the Eastern. Nevertheless, the west was able to produce some wonderful pieces. On the other hand, the East has poor history of fiction. But we got wonderful legacy of short stories. With determination, educated steps and seek of divine help, our societies are capable of giving birth to world-class novelists. 

The ideology of “Arts for the Sake of Arts” does not have roots in the Islamic art theories. Fiction should not be an exception. We are more towards optimism than pessimism, so comedy will outnumber tragedy. There is a lesson to learn or a beauty to observe, which both bridge towards Divine Love. Simplicity or complexity of the plot depends on the context and the intended audience. In the same way, the style should be accessible to the greater audience but without striking the strength of the language.

If the achievement of future Muslim-novelist movement is limited to bringing back our youths to reading in exchange of the dominant audio-visual culture, then that is a great step towards appreciating our greatest miracle: the Quran. The Quran is not a fiction; it is a text; nay, it is a unique text.

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