I am writing this article while I am facing my humble home library. Fiction occupies around one fifth of the library, and I admit that its order in the shelves gives the library a handsome look. The collection is diverse, ranging from the classics of Shakespeare to the 2009 Noble prize winner: “The Passport” (for Herta Muller). From time to time, I wonder if reading all these novels made me a better person, and in a shy sense, a better Muslim. To claim that we read to build our knowledge and personality without losing the big picture of “benefiting the Ummah” is an exaggeration, which is in our case a polite expression for the word “lie”. Entertainment has a huge role behind our reading motivations. Let us call it innocent entertainment, probably this is softer. However, it is wise to remember that one day we will be asked about this “time” why was it spent on fiction and not on anything else.
The scene from the next world is scary, and yes the devil is in the details. We will be asked about every book why was bought, and why was it read. It is better to struggle in answering this question now than later. This is not a religious dialogue, but since this article is about the relationship between Muslims and Fiction reading, this concept cannot be ignored. If Muslims are to produce world-class fiction, then it has to be unique. The uniqueness is not in the style, the language, or the plot. It is in something else. It is hidden in the power of the Muslim soul. If the author’s sincere intention (backed by talent) is absorbed within the words, the shadow of the beliefs and principles is lightening the sentences, the spirit of the ultimate love for the Divine shining the passages, then the produced fiction will shake every cell in the reader’s body. This is taken from the sea of the verse: “God has revealed the most beautiful Message in the form of a Book, consistent with itself, (yet) repeating its teachings in different aspects; the skins of those who fear their Lord tremble thereat; then their skins and their hearts do soften to the celebration of God’s praise…”[39:23].
Speaking about the fourth fiction category, History and Biography, is related to the above discussion. Humans love history. We find something in it which we cannot find in something else. Similar to how an adult remembers the innocence of childhood, as humans we remember our historical period in amusement. It can be beautiful memories, or harsh heart-breaking memories. In both cases, it has a big share in defining who we are now. History is powerful; nay selected presentation of historical events can move the masses into revolution. The Quran is our model. Historical narrations are used to revolutionize us into “real” humans. Generally speaking, successful historical fiction has either a wisdom penetrating the passages of time, or an earlier prediction of our current events based on historical examples. This is the spirit of historical fiction, compared to the descriptive history which only gives birth to dry and boring fiction.
Biography is a special type of historical fiction; a historical narration putting an individual on the spot light. Whether it is biography or history, whatever we call it, historical fiction is dangerous. We do not forgive false historical narrations, and the apology “… it is just fiction” would not work. If one nation forgives, the other would not. It is said, that fiction is written by the hands of winners. There is a good number of junk historical/biographical fiction that is mere fabrications and reflects no more than the pride of the winner, which is most of the time also the oppressor. Noble and honorable fiction should stand by the other side, i.e. by the side of those who cannot speak it. The novel “The roots” is a good example, as it speaks loud for the suffering of the (African) slaves in the colonial period. “Malcom X” is a similar example from the biographical category as the message does not escape the fiction pages. If Muslims are truly the “protectors of the weak”, then this venue should be used exhaustively.
History fiction should not be always bright. The stories of Pharaoh, Qaroon, and Hamaan are as important as the stories of prophets. As Muslims, I believe we should avoid the recurrent theme in recent Muslim history fiction of showing our history as complete purity. We should be more realistic in our descriptions and less judgmental. At the same time, there is no blame in showing and emphasizing the bright side of our history to be a source of hope for our desperate young generation. However, many times I feel like shouting, for God’s sake why should every historical Muslim fiction revolve around a military event or historical war? This gives the wrong message, and we should slightly raise our head and look to the right and left to narrate the dominating non-military portion of our history.
The fifth category in our classification is science fiction and fantasy. The first English novel I read happened to be “Journey to the Center of the Earth” by the fantastic French novelist Jules Verne. In my humble observation, this novel gathered the three elements of a successful science fiction, which are imagination, soundness and simplicity. Science fiction is strongly held between the arms of imagination, which is the source of the “future” dimension of humans. Predicting what might come next will help us evaluate what we are doing now. Compared to the other fiction categories, science fiction might be the most “modern” category. We live in a time when many people worship science, and they speak its language even in their dreams. It is surprising though, that most science fiction is shaded by pessimism. Destruction of the world, star wars, biological modifications [dating back to Frankenstein], invading aliens, smart robots controlling humans...etc are frequent themes. This seems to contradict the basic message that modern society preach about science. As Muslims we might want to stand in the middle. Calling science fiction as a useless waste of time is not wise, because there are complete generations who speak this language [see the Japanese cartoons for example] and speaking through science fiction should present itself as an effective tool. At the same time, we should not be driven by the “madness” of science or its pessimism.
Science fiction should have some “soundness” that respects the reader’s knowledge and imagination. Soundness in fiction means building the plot on some minimum border of sound scientific facts/findings, or through basic scientific reasoning that does not contradict the abc’s. What we mean here is that a science fiction built on fabricated facts or obvious wrong reasoning either disrespects the reader’s intellect or teaches the reader how to think stupid. I understand that this specific point can be brought into debate, as some readers search for pleasant imagination regardless of its scientific sounding. However, I prefer to call this fantasy which we will soon discuss.
Much of contemporary science fiction can be described as “noisy”. I use noisy here as the opposite of simple. It is no more a balloon traveling in eighty days; it is about thousands of aliens invading and causing chaos. The reason I argue against this noise element is the spread of the audio-visual pollution in our technological era. Fiction, as a type of art, should have some aspect of beauty and peace. Mirroring our “nosiness” from reality into fiction is not a healthy practice [unless the objective of the novel is to depict reality – but this turns it into the social/political category]. In contrast to detective fiction which is beautified by complicated plot, simple science fiction plots are generally better because the exercise of imagination is safely practiced without polluting the soul. Moreover, simple science fiction plots give more room for expressing the human nature and/or delivering constructive messages. To avoid being misunderstood, simplicity here is focused on the unrealistic part of the scientific imagination, compared to the characters or setting complexity.
Fantasy is broader than science fiction because it includes almost anything “unreal”. The power of imagination is also stronger. Its popularity today is shown by the wild response to Harry Potter and some popular movies like The Lord of the Rings. Children and teens are normally targeted by this genre, but ironically even adults get stuck in it. Fantasy in general has an innocent-look mixed with comedy, but since it is widely read/watched by our children we should not be deluded by its “innocence”. It would be funny to find an adult affected by Alice’s trip in the wonderland, but the situation is not the same for children. Giving inspection to child psychology, we cannot struggle in noticing how fantasy absorbs and strongly controls a child. Without sounding Freudian, but this has great hand in defining the child’s subconscious and hence his/her personality. We can mutually agree that some fantasy has good impact on children, especially when children are told about good virtues (e.g. sincerity, trust, respect) on the tongue of speaking /human-like animals. This is not only a good educational tool but also constructive medium for transmitting ethics, culture and even religion. “Animal Farm”, for example, is not a mere fantasy story; it is a great study of revolution and post-revolution social/political dynamics which can be easily read by an audience of wide age-range. My worry is on the excess exposure to fairy-tales and magic-related fantasies which is what we have now.
Not everything is materialistic. As Muslims, we believe in physics and metaphysics, but according to specific frameworks revealed to us by the Creator. There are angels and jinns, and we do not need Newton or Einstein to invent a new law to prove that. However, we do not define our life based on the angelic/satanic interaction. It is the world of the unseen which we believe in, but we are not obsessed by it. Obsession with this world is condemned by the Shariah. It either leads to the doors of magic, which is one of the ugliest and most enormous sins, assuming that it does not lead its practitioner into disbelief. Or in the case of angles, and similar respected creatures, it leads to the delusion of seeking miracles and supernatural powers, which is unanimously condemned by scholars including the pious Sufis. I have seen people on both sides, and they ended up in an ill condition. Our clear belief in Allah and His Oneness puts us in peace that He is the Governor of the worlds, and He is the only One.
For a child, a ghost or a fairy is not a simple concept. It is something that is scary or lovely, causes harm or grants love. Unfortunately, there is much gibberish in our cultures about black magic, ghosts, jinns which only bring up a generation that is shaky, coward, irresponsible and unfounded on the belief of Tawhid. This is my main worry about fantasy, and I do encourage parents to carefully inspect what they expose their children to. For adults, the harm might be minimal or absent, but it is in most cases a waste of time. Little of “Charlie in the Chocolate Factory” might be sweet, but too much will cause serious toothache.
[Part (3) is to follow insha’Allah]
8 comments:
"Modern Western art, particularly in the form of the novel, has become an instrument of self-exposure and, in most cases, what is exposed is the inner sickness. The novelist works out his 'complexes' in writing. He externalizes his despair and parades before the public all the elements of ugliness and disease present in the soul. Muslims can only find this unspeakably wicked if they can only recognize it for what it is, but for the most part they are unlikely to recognize something so totally alien to their faith and their culture. This freedom of artistic expression appears from the Islamic perspective, no more than a license to vomit in public."
The author also makes a note later that idolatry is partly to prefer allusion to reality.
Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man.
Sayyid Hossein Nasr also had an interesting chapter on art in which he addresses literature in his book A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World.
Azhar,
The quote is more than fantastic. I have read the quote more than 10 times. It is eloquent and straight to the bone. You have encouraged me to read Eaton's book, and I will do that insha'Allah.
I sincerely thank you for your presence here.
It has been a very long time Qutaiba since we've touched base, but I still remember you vividly, and alhamdulillah I am continuing my readings. Of Gai Eaton's books, I've read Islam and the Destiny of Man and I enjoyed it very much.
I also read Remembering God: Reflections on Islam, however it was not as good, I did not feel he was correct though when he critiqued Imam Khomeini (RA) and the Iranian revolution. However that tends to be typical amongst the perennialists. But it was a good read nonetheless.
I also did start to read this article of his titled "What We Are and Where We Are" and there were some excellent bits and ideas in it, I thought at least. You can find it at http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/articles/What_We_Are_and_Where_We_Are.aspx
and they have a lot of article for one to read on the website.
I've pasted quotes in the following posts of some of my favourite exerts from Islam and the Destiny of Man since you seemed to have enjoyed the last quote so much.
"Where, then, are we to find a specifically 'human' art? No art is closer to us both physically and psychologically that that of dress, and if the human figure is excluded --or enters only as an element in the design-- elsewhere, it is none the less clothed in splendour at the centre of the Islamic environment. 'No art', says Titus Burckhardt, 'has a more telling effect upon a man's soul that that of clothing, for a man instinctively identifies himself with the clothes he wears.' He also dresses in accordance with his idea of himself and of his role in the scheme of things. Burckhardt identifies modern occidental dress as representing 'a turning away from a life entirely dominated by contemplative values, with its bearings fixed on the hereafter'; the lesson implicit in the traditional dress of Islam, however much it has varied from one region to another, is that the human body is among the 'signs of Allah', and to veil it, Burckhardt says, is not to deny it, but withdraw it, like gold, into the domain of things concealed from the eyes of the crowd'. (Art of Islam, Titus Burckhardt, pp.99-100)
It is common enough in the West to dress chimpanzees in human clothing, either for the amusement of children visiting a zoo or to advertise products on television, and contemporary Western tailoring looks very well on monkeys; it looks less well on human beings and absurdly inappropriate on Muslims at prayer; but it is the badge of 'civilization' and worn as such. A soldier knows that he is truly in the army when he puts on his uniform and a monk is assured of his vocation when he dons the robes of his order; both Kamal Ataturk and Mao Tzetung, when they wished to make a complete break with the past and create a new kind of Turk and a new kind of Chinese, started by changing their people's mode of dress, and it is interesting to note how quick Catholic priests are to adopt secular clothing when they loose confidence in their priestly function.
Those who think of themselves as clever monkeys will dress as clever monkeys, while those who believe themselves to be the 'Vicegerents of Allah on earth' will also dress accordingly. Sometimes we are more concerned with peripheral threats than with the threat closest to us; many Muslims are deeply concerned about the threat to their way of life represented by such Western customs as dancing and 'dating', but only a few are aware that not merely their way of life, but their very identity as Muslims might be undermined by a mode of dress totally alien to the Islamic concept of man's role in creation. (According to a hadith, classified under the heading 'Clothing': 'He who copies any people is one of them.')
The argument one hears only too frequently is that 'outward things' do not matter; all that matters is 'what you have in your heart'. This argument is, to say the least, naive. What we have in our hearts is constantly influenced --and eventually changed-- by our immediate environment, and the environment closest to us is the robe, suit or dress we wear; after that comes the home, and after the home, the city."
"Those who have close contact with Muslims will be accustomed to hearing, with monotonous regularity, the parrot-cry: 'We will take the good things from Western civilization; we will reject the bad things'. It is strang that any Muslim should imagine this to be possible. Islam itself is an organic whole, a gestalt, in which everything is interconnected and in which no single part can be considered in isolation from the rest. The Muslim above all others should understand that every culture has something of this unity and should realize that the modern civilization created by the West, even if it seems constantly to change shape as in a kaleidoscope, forms a coherent pattern in terms of cause and effect. To draw one fibre from it is to find that this is attached, by countless unseen filaments, to all the rest. The small fragment of 'good', lifted from the pattern, brings with it piece after piece of the whole structure. With the light come the shadows; and with everything positive comes all the negative elements which are related to it either as cause or as effect"
On Qur'an when he talks about how in Arabic everything has a root word
"It is as though each individual word emerged from a matrix which contains, potentially, a variety of meanings that are subtly interrelated, or as though, when one string is plucked, many other vibrate in the background; and it is precisely through such interrelations that tawhid finds expression in the midst of limited diversity. Word association - echoes and reverberations in the ear and in the mind - provide a glimpse of unsuspected depths and extend out perceptions of the interconnectedness of all things (giving the Qur'an layer of inner and outer meanings). In Arabic one word implies all possible modes of an idea (from the concrete to the symbolic) whereas in English a noun indicates a thing in isolation from all others (arabic pierces this barrier). This is why no translation no matter how accurate can be /do justice to the Arabic Qur'an"
وَلَسَوْفَ يُعْطِيكَ رَبُّكَ فَتَرْضَى"
"
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