By Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh
EVER since the communications revolution turned the world into a global village through satellites, Ramadan, the month of the Qur’an and spirituality, has become something entirely different in many homes.
It has become a month to watch obscene television series and trivial programmes, which are part of a deliberate campaign to distract people from worship. During this holy month, dramas and satires are showered on the people, washing away all of Ramadan’s blessings and replacing them with a plethora of sins.
Ramadan has become the season of obscene television dramas and provocative advertisements, produced by Saudi and UAE companies, and broadcast by their affiliates in the Arab world. Every Arab satellite TV channel is only interested in attracting the largest possible number of viewers.
As soon as someone starts to watch a series, they find themselves in an endless cycle of provocative advertisements, ranging from offers of luxury villas and beach chalets worth tens of millions of Egyptian pounds to shallow entertainments, interspersed with adverts for charitable projects.
The juxtaposition of extreme wealth and poverty in this way is confusing for viewers, who are lured by luxury items one minute and celebrity-promoted emotional persuasion the next. Amid this overwhelming torrent of advertisements throughout the series they are watching, commercial breaks are no longer short; they have become excessively long, almost as long as programme itself.
Religious and historical series have been absent from the Ramadan season, as they call it, for about a decade or more. However, this year, Saudi Arabia took the series Muawiyah down off the shelf. It could not be aired two years ago because the Shia Iraqi government objected. Baghdad threatened to destroy Saudi Arabia if it was broadcast, and promised to produce a series about Abu Lu’lu’ah the Magian, who killed the Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab.
I do not know what has changed to allow the Saudi broadcasters to air it this year. Could it be to sow discord amongst the Muslims? We are witnessing a backlash from scholars at Al-Azhar, critics and the public alike, as they engage in polarising arguments, which restore the discord.
The difference in the narratives raised suspicions of historical inaccuracy, especially with the portrayal of sensitive events such as the conflict between Muawiyah and Ali bin Abi Talib, which led to the series being accused of distorting facts for political purposes.
The controversy sparked by Muawiyah was largely expected, given the importance of the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) companion, who founded the Umayyad dynasty, and his status in Islamic history. However, what many did not anticipate was the creative controversy that resulted from the overall weakness of the work and the falsification of history.
The series is very weak on a professional level. The script is weak; the performances are weak and lacking in emotion; and the direction is below par. Its depiction of the battles is poor, despite being a large production rumoured to have cost $100 million, a figure never before spent on such an Arab series.
It does not specifically depict the life story of the companion Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. Rather, it presents an image that the creators of the series wanted to depict as his life. The writers let their imaginations run wild and decided to rewrite history, and develop characters in a manner inconsistent with what has been handed down over the centuries.
Despite the seriousness of the historical inaccuracies in the series, the time jumps which caused the creators to overlook pivotal events in Muawiyah’s life could be considered a creative crime due to these events’ significant role in clarifying and explaining the overall picture. For example, the key Battles of Badr and Uhud are only mentioned briefly in the series.
In general, Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan was not a simple character who can be subjected to the judgmental standards of ordinary people. He was a complex person. While one thing about him may upset you, other things may please you. The added problem is that the series itself works within the framework of a political effort to portray a Muawiyah who is very different from the Muawiyah known to historians.
If we look at the actor playing the title role, we can see that with his makeup and his expressions he resembles Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. This was probably deliberate in order to make “MBS” look like a hero and the new conqueror of the Islamic nation, leaving the opposition, on the other hand, to be made up of those who rule based on emotions.
Whatever the intention, however, such programmes are unsuitable for Ramadan, which should be a month of spiritual renewal and devotions. TV should have no role to play in this. – (Middle East Monitor)
Orginal article: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250317-the-spirituality-of-ramadan-is-being-erased-by-obscene-and-seductive-tv-content//a>
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