Post date: 09-Oct-2010 10:42:32
This is my response to an email from SK Films that was received on 07-10-2010. Just after I had sent this message the news of the latest bombing in Karachi appeared on my desk top. I am still awaiting a response to my request for permission to reproduce their message in full. Any changes to my original are indicated by square brackets.
Dear Ms London,
Thank you for your long and informative email in response to my criticisms of ‘Journey to Mecca’. Let me say from the outset that the scenes of a contemporary Hajj are breathtakingly evocative of the real experience visually and aurally. The unique sounds of the Haram vibrating to the circumambulation and the sound of millions of people prostrating together were reproduced with incredible fidelity. Most of the special effects are ok, the mirage puddles were iffy and the rotating stars, lets not talk about them.
I do have a little experience in various areas of film production having worked with independent filmmakers, made a couple of shorts and worked as a religious advisor and co-director. Most of this effort has ended, rightly, in the waste bin. However, the difficulties and costs in this issue are not, despite my sympathy, of any concern to my criticism and it seems that you thought your potential audience would not understand films, Islam or religions.
Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith is of the view that any description of a religious phenomenon that does not agree with the emic understanding is a failure. In my view, as an educated Shi’i Muslim, the views of several Sufi friends and a couple of Christian ministers this film fails to present a true view of the diversity of Islam. It may have seemed a small point in production meetings and consultations with experts on Ibn Battuta but in many parts of the world it may contribute to life and death situations. My points are not simply concerned with the accuracy of the portrayal of Ibn Battuta but the effects of this particular portrayal in a much broader context thus the views of two outstanding scholars with expert knowledge of the Rihla are to a large extent superfluous to the questions my criticism addresses.
I have no problem in accepting your word that your team held long discussions over whet to retain and what to leave out of the finished film but, were they informed of all the issues involved to be capable of asking the right questions? From your brief description of the discussions and the evidence of the film it appears not. Were you or the executive team made aware that followers of the ‘Wahabi’ branch of Saudi inspired Islam have declared followers of Sufism and Shi’ism to be non-Muslims and as such may be killed for no other reason? [Some of] The followers of this belief are responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Shi’as in Afghanistan and the bombings of Sufi and Shi’i worshippers and shrines in Pakistan, they provide the rationale for Al-Qaeda and anything which endorses their extremism or the religious opinions which feeds it must be avoided or opposed. People believe what films tell them and this film, in telling the tale of a Berber Sufi, presents Islam in a manner which excludes the spiritual traditions and conforms to the minority Saudi view. It may be unwitting but it has happened. Of course I hold no expectation of filmmakers used to directing whales understanding the issues that underlie sectarian Islamic tensions or being sufficiently informed to ask experts the ‘right’ questions but they do have a public and ethical duty to consider contemporary political and geo-political issues with caution and draw upon a wide pool of expert opinion.
If Ibn Battuta’s dream had occurred in your film as Tim Mackintosh-Smith described it in his film, at the house of a murshid in Egypt would it have made the film longer or would it have added a dramatic scene? It would certainly have expanded any viewers understanding of Islam and its diversity. You acknowledge that “Islam is so misunderstood around the world” and later ask me “Are you content to leave it to the traditional media in the non-Muslim world to continue presenting the image of Islam…..?” However, it is not a question of the medium but of the gaze which informs the medium! Whatever your intentions [what] you have presented is a film with an “underlying” reductionist view of Islam that to all intents and purposes is in conformity with interpretations made of Islam by the now defunct liberal ‘orientalists’. I want a different view of Islam, properly researched and not just good intentions. I want a view of Islam that I can say, without qualification, “Go and watch this!”
I am telling people to go and watch this film but with qualifications; serious qualifications, to be shared, which affect how the film and the associated ‘educational’ material should be viewed and used. There is no call for boycotts, demonstrations or other silliness. The film is ‘educational’ but not quite as the producers imagined.