YousefAbdulHusain – The Dune Movies Erase Islam [video] | Hacker News Reader

YousefAbdulHusain – The Dune Movies Erase Islam [video]

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9 pointsabdelhousni28 comments

Ironically the Fremen in Dune weren’t really Islamic. They were Zen Sunni, an artificial/syncretic religion created by the Bene Gesserit specifically so that they could be used as a power base by someone with Bene Gesserit training. Instead of empowering the Fremen it allows them to be controlled by an outsider who can step into the role and say the right words.

Zensunni was an authentic religion after what Herbert implies was a "Buddhislamic" syncretism in which, according to their beliefs, Muhammad reincarnated.

The prophecy of the messianic leader the "Voice of the Outer/Occulted World" was what the Bene Gesserit planted to exploit.

Well, the Fremen certainly thought it was authentic. But when you have a whole line of Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers guiding the evolution of your religion over generations then maybe “authentic” isn’t the right word to describe it.

As I understand the book's appendices, the Buddhislamic syncretism and the formation of the Zensunni sect happened before the Missionaria Protectiva ever got to them, so at one point it was authentic.

I think he tells the story differently in one of the sequels, but it’s kinda moot. There’s really no contradiction between the two.

Anyway, modern Muslims would regard the Fremen as apostate either for altering the religion or for allowing outsiders to alter it.

It can be a surprise to you but not everything turns around your religion.

Sure but we're speaking about things that may matter to some people. You don't have to partake if you don't want.

I had similar moment while watching "The Rings of Power" when I heard "But that is something only the gods can do", "I will not second-guess the gods" - no gods, no religion in Tolkien's world (except worship of Morgoth) - only the creator and offsprings of his thoughts (as harmonic and disharmonic music).

Dune is fiction.

I haven't watched the video (not my preferred medium), but I assume the point is that while the Dune (fictional) movie erases Islam, the Dune (fictional) book very much does not.

“Erase” is sleight of hand. Islam isn’t affected at all by it being omitted from the movie.

That is likely the point, but it's clearly phrased deliberately poorly to elicit a specific interpretation from viewers.

"The Dune books were all about islam, the movies are not; Today I will analyze what was lost in translation and why they did it!" doesn't have the same ring to it than "ISLAM IS BEING ERASED BY HOLLYWOOD!"

Dune books criticize islamic concepts, this video misses the whole point. Dune talks about Islam, yes, but in a (very) bad way.

it concurs with what Youssef tells... The film erases all the narrative from the books. But it will not be the first time that a book-film adaptation kills the original artwork.

Even opinion on fiction is forbidden it seems (my post has been killed)

Hi Yousef,

What do you have to say to the typical response that Villeneuve erased Islam from the Dune films - and I agree he did! - to avoid defaming Islam? Paul Atreides, after all, is a villain protagonist or tragic antihero, not a hero. While Herbert wrote Muad'dib's Jihad as historically analogous to the early rise of Islam under Muhammad and the Rightly Guided Caliphs, that's quite an unflattering impression of Islam to give people in our day and age, even given that the historical analogy does hold and that people in Amazigh, Arab, and Muslim societies see themselves in the Fremen and in Dune broadly.

Hello, I just quoted Youssef but you can tell him in his YouTube channel. Nice comment btw I didn't think it through that angle.

I can't really take credit for the insight: we've had this Discourse ten thousand times over in the Dune fandom groups on Facebook and Discord.

That's because it was only a quote, I think.

Probably because this is normal with movies

They're not the result of an author in a room diddling their own imagination

They’re complex logistics projects and getting everything aligned materially requires short cuts

Visual art conveys a lot of the narrative to ...visually. Shock I know. The audience is to assume the relationship to the real world it any is implied

Tale as old as time when it comes to movie adaptations. See the 1990s Mario movie

Has nothing to do with a goal of erase Islam.

Take heart in the fact you are a literate, in an apparently materially comfortable, stable lived experience since you have the time to complain about the world at large not validating your personal inner mind palace

Go sew a couple shirts with this time to take pressure of kids in sweatshops ensuring the local mall is stocked for you

First world problems, bro; millions of your Muslim brothers and sisters running from bombs and gunman could use someone like you, soooo concerned with the erasure of the culture, leading a movement to get them out of their predicament

Log off and touch grass

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