Last week, Channel 4 broadcast a film by Antony Thomas (of Death of a Princess fame) called The Qur’an (see it here), which attempted to explore “what the Qur’an actually says”. Karima Hamdan has done a fairly comprehensive review of it at UmmahPulse, and there is another critical review by Rachel Cooke in the current New Statesman. The latter contains a crucial inaccuracy: it accuses the Saudis who print translations of the Qur’an of inserting “anti-Semitic verses”; these are in fact parenthesised explanations derived from books of tafseer or exegesis. I have seen both of the well-known Saudi translations and agree that the Khan-Hilali one is full of jarring interpolations, but they are not “verses” inserted into the Qur’an; there is no attempt to alter the Arabic text. (Other Muslim reviews: Hamza Tzortzis, Adnan Rashid & Hamza Tzortzis.)
From my point of view, there were two big failings in this documentary. The first is that too much of it was unrelated to the Qur’an itself, but rather was related to common controversies about Muslim practice and culture. There was a section about female circumcision, which featured shocking, but quite unnecessary, footage of a girl having this done in Kenya (if I remember rightly from seeing this footage in an earlier documentary from 2005 or so, which one reviewer said made him vomit); this particular practice is nowhere mentioned in the Qur’an, so given that this was a documentary about the Qur’an, not about Islam in general, and that the majority of Muslim women in fact do not have this done, what was it doing in this film? The section about the Egyptian woman who had given up her career to be a stay-at-home mother was another example: while it is true that veiling the head is mentioned in the Qur’an, veiling the face comes from the Sunnah. Of course, the biggest change this woman made to her life was not wearing the niqaab but becoming a stay-at-home wife and mother, something hardly unique to Egypt or the Muslim world, as sister Karima points out:
He also let himself down by using the hackneyed image of the “tragic niqabi”. In this case he interviewed a niqab-wearing woman who eloquently and forcefully explained that she gave up her career as a lawyer when she married in order to take care of her children and feels that the niqab brings her closer to Allah.
The whole interview is imbued with such a subtext of tragedy despite the woman in question being perfectly happy with her choices. I can only imagine that if the woman had said that she had given up her legal career to become a pole-dancer in order to explore her sexuality or left to grow organic almonds on a hillside in Tuscany in order to explore her inner chi life-force, Thomas would have been a great deal more enthusiastic.
The second is that, in an attempt to demonstrate the “diversity” of Islam, there was too much weight put on fringe groups in Islam and also controversies which mean nothing to Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims are Sunnis, and while one can understand Shi’ites making an appearance, there was also an array of fringe Sufis and modernists. Abdel-Aziz Bukhari, for example, is the sort of “Sufi” who gives Sufis a good name among non-Muslims and a bad name among Muslims; the fact is that most Sufis believe that Islam is the final religion which abrogates all others; Shaikh Nuh Keller’s Letter to Christians in the Ukraine makes this point clearly. It is important to distinguish boiler-plate rhetoric designed to keep the peace between religious communities in places like Syria from the actual beliefs of Sufis, who are still numerous in Syria and Jordan. Genuine Sufis are strict about their practice; they do not include music in their dhikr and they do not drink wine; the references to it in their poetry are strictly metaphorical. They are usually not the people putting on big dhikr shows either; you have to ask around to find genuine dhikr sessions (particularly in Syria, where big religious gatherings are restricted by the government).
Another fringe figure they presented was Taj Hargey, a guy who popped up out of nowhere on John Ware’s Panorama show in 2005 who alleged on this programme that the Hadeeth (the reported sayings of the Prophet, sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) were just a whole lot of hearsay and that the Qur’an is all that a Muslim needs. This is the belief of one small sect, the vast majority of whose adherents live in the west, which does not seem to have much currency in the study of Islam but has absolutely none among Muslims.
Finally, Antony Thomas’s handlings of some of these issues really revealed his ignorance. One can understand the study by the German academic calling himself “Christoph Luxenburg” which alleged, among other things, that the reference to “virgins” as being among the rewards for martyrs actually referred to grapes, because of some misunderstanding. The fact is that the grapes of paradise are known of among Muslims because they are mentioned in the Hadeeth, while the companions of paradise are mentioned in many verses which refer unambiguously to human beings and not fruit. He does allow a commentator to reply to this by calling the Luxenburg study “Christian-centred”, but no textual refutation is given. Similarly, the controversy about the confusion presented by early, undotted writings of the Qur’an ignores the fact that the text was transmitted orally as well as in writing; people would have heard it, and quite possibly never seen it written down. It was quite common for any aspiring Muslim of knowledge - and many others - to have memorised the entire text as a child, and continued reciting it daily for life (the term haafiz when applied to an Islamic scholar refers not to memorising the Qur’an, which was taken for granted, but to substantial numbers of hadeeth - 100,000 including chains of transmission). So, even if an undotted Arabic word can have 30 different meanings, which meaning each word actually has is well-known.
In conclusion, while I have little to add to Karima Hamdan’s assessment of the views conveyed in the programme, as a documentary its main failing is not, as Rachel Cooke wrote in the New Statesman, that it was so even-handed that it became boring; rather, it cast its net too widely, starting out as a documentary on the Qur’an but diverging into a discussion of emotive issues about Islam which are not directly related to the Qur’an, while much of the on-topic material was about irrelevant side issues. There could have been coverage of Qur’anic art or calligraphy, or about different ways of reciting the Qur’an, or about any of the well-known reciters of the Qur’an, or about the derivation of Islamic law, or about a host of other matters, but the presenter preferred to dwell on a few emotive issues which would have appealed to non-Muslims, not all of them relevant at all. This was an unusually long programme which appeared well-crafted and therefore probably had a large budget, but the money and the airtime were wasted on this.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Muslim women driving, and contrasts on niqab
- Defamation: perception and reality of anti-Semitism
- Review of “Does God Hate Women?”
- Review of Channel 4’s “Revelations: Islamic school”
- Waterloo Road stretches the bounds of credibility
Regarding that ludicrous Syriac re-reading of the Qur’an then that was assessed in 2003 by MSM Saifullah of the Islamic Awareness, that research can be read here: http://www.islamic-awareness.o.....view1.html
I think that the Azhari Shaykh was not supporting FGM but rather a circumcision that is mentioned in the Sunnah and which does not involve destroying the clitoris. Yet this however was neatly skipped over by the documentary and they made it seem as if the Azhari Shaykh was all for FGM, yet they did not ask him. There is a precedent for circumcision which is well known in the Sunnah and that does not involve FGM.
Generally, it started off okay but then descended into all sorts of crazed things. Interestingly, the arm-chair experts and Christian evangelists are already using the Syriac-version as a proof, along with Puin’s analysis. By the way, Puin’s argument was totally deconstructed and rubbished by Dr Azami in his book: The History of the Qur’anic Text; From Revelation to Compilation, A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments (Leicester: UK Islamic Academy, 2003/1424).
I must say that it is rather patronising for a non-Muslim to come to Muslims and attempt to “tell” Muslims what the correct interpretations and history is of their religious text, as if Muslims have no idea as to the history of it. The documentary made no referral whatsoever to the abundant manuscripts of the Qur’an that are in the Topkapi library in Turkey or the early Mus-hafs in Egypt, Iran and elsewhere.
The documentary also showed an Egyptian woman who claimed that “at Nasr’s funeral all of the women are uncovered” and she later claimed that women in Egypt only began wearing the hijab and niqab in the 19070s!!? This is false, and it is historically bankrupt to say this as all throughout the 19th century and early 20th century Egyptian women all wore niqab and the same is for Morocco, Algeria and the Arab countries generally. Taking off the niqab occurred after colonialism in the 1940s, not to mention that the practicing Muslims were not exactly fans of Nasr hence their non-attendance at his funeral. The documentary however ran with this and claimed that her claim was historically accurate when in fact it is ahistorical.
AbdulHaq
“The Quran” program which aired recently on Channel 4 I thought would be a good attempt to open the doors on such a beautiful and glorious Holy Book and help many realise why all the coverage relating to this faith over the past decades bears no reflection to the religion at all.
Unfortunately I was wrong, the program turned out to be another typical crass, unstimulating, poorly researched attempt at entertaining the non muslim mass which should have been called “The Common Stereotypoes about Muslims- Again”. The representatives chosen to speak about the religion were far from capable bar one or two and the content, well it was obvious that Antony Thomas himself had not read the Quran but decided he was playing to an audience who new even less than him and what the hell, he blagged it.
The Quran, the word of God is very different from other religions in that its Holy scriptures do not allow clergy (i.e priets, popes, pirs or sheikhs) for God is very well aware of they ways in which mans vanities and often simple lack of knowledge can innocently lead people away from the truth. In Islam an ‘Imam’ sometimes called a Sheikh can preach the Holy words and explain them as they are but at no point can he impress his own personal interpretation or opinion to the people. This is why any ‘Quran’ when translated in English or any other language will often make clear that the translation can in no way be taken as the Quran itself and any true muslim must learn Arabic and read the text as God intended.
Your program proved to be a perfect example of why God does not allow such practice (clergy) as any representative that makes a living off preaching the word of God is in complete contradiction with Islam. The Quran is free and therefore none should accept donation, charity etc for explaining it. If they are claiming to have any special knowledge that is not in the Quran than they are basically saying the Quran is incomplete and this is false. To add the speakers had wildly varying understandings and opinions of the text and some of their practices bore no resemblance to the teachings of the Quran whatsoever.
Firstly not only did the program focus on differenct sects, mainly shiites (which make up only 20% of the muslims) and sufis (which are really gnostic, mystics first and foremost rather than muslims) the point is sects themselves are against the Quranic teachings of a united Ummah. It continued to focus on cultural traditions such as the female circumcision which is a totally barbaric act and if you remember that Islam was brought down to liberate women so that women could choose who they wanted to marry and not be forced into marriage, so that parents no longer buried daughters in favour of sons, you begin to realise that this is nothing to do with the Quran at all.
The Quran is a Book which is guarded by God so that “none can change it” but they claim the Saudis have done so to include ‘anti semetic verses’ this is not the case. But it made the program more an excercise about placing blame yet again rather finding truths or understanding.
Then another predictable stereotype shows up when a woman wearing a niqaab gives up a good job to be a stay at home wife and mother. The way Antony Thomas proceeds with this interview incites the viewer to be shocked and disturbed by it. If it were the Jerry Springer show and a woman had left her husband and kids to run off and join a circus group as a half naked trapeez it would have seemed normal. Never does Antony Thomas actually remind the viewer that the niqaab is absolutely not mentioned in the Quran and in fact neither is a veil covering the hair.
More to the point by the end of this long and tedious collection of stereo typical propaganda the only lasting memory your left with is the disgusting image of a mutilated little girl, which I’m sure is no accident by Channel 4. I strongly suggest that if Channel 4 are not bothered about researching the subject matter of a program they are making they stick to doing what they do best, letting the subject make the program…i.e Big Brother.
Channel Four’s documentary on ‘The Quran’ is another example on the continuous misinterpretation of the Quran which is becoming alarmingly common amongst those who claim to be ‘experts’ in Quranic understanding. Unfortunately, the doc was only a collaborator to those individuals who seem that they can portray the teachings of the Quran for their own ideas and understanding and has added fuel to fire in its attempt to ‘clear the air’. Amongst many misreadings, the author has portrayed the film to be a basic guide for those who are new or unfamiliar with the themes of the Quran (and as he said on an interview with Radio 5.) However, what is so inappropriate is the amount of time he dedicates to mere and unpopular accusations which a recent ‘reformist’ has claimed to discern. The doc highlights these measly claims to an extent which cultivates a sense of doubt in the reader which can only be seen as ignorance. The parable would like of a teacher explaining to a history class the basic background of the 9/11 attacks and dedicating the majority of the lesson to conspiracies and inside cover-up allegations. Amid the claims of neutrality and impartiality, the documentary is yet another bias report of the Quran from a western ‘thinker’ who fails to discover the true luscious savour which outbursts from the Quraan for those who seek with a heart of sincerity.