Muslim Futurism: The Aliens are Coming and They’re Reclaiming the Narrative
As part of our new series of guest writers, Arts Commons is inviting Calgary thinkers, artists, writers, philosophers, movers and shakers to inspire discussion and critical dialogue within our creative community.
Rukhsar Ali is a summer student working as Marketing and Communications Coordinator for Arts Commons. She is an artist, writer, and science fiction enthusiast who has developed a deep interest in the portrayal of Muslim culture in her favourite genre of fiction.
As COVID-19 restrictions loosen and movie-goers begin hitting theatres once again, there’s a tangible excitement in the air to watch the delayed releases of highly anticipated films. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert, is one of those movies I’ve been patiently waiting to watch. It premieres October 2021, and you can bet I’ll be standing first in line on opening night.
But to say I have a complicated relationship with Dune doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Dune is widely-loved for its epic science fiction storytelling but its use of Islamic culture and Islamicate aesthetic is one to note, particularly when more conversations around Muslim representation in media are being had after the rise in Islamophobic attacks across Canada.
In the last eight months, Alberta has seen a string of attacks against mostly Black, hijab-wearing women. Four weeks ago, a Muslim man in Saskatchewan was attacked with a knife and his beard was forcefully cut off. Just last month, a Muslim family was murdered in Ontario in a hate-motivated terror attack, leaving Muslims across the country feeling unsafe and unwelcome. The increasing trend of Islamophobia has brought into question the media’s role in fuelling Islamophobic rhetoric through its representation—or more accurately, misrepresentation—of Islam.
As a Muslim sci-fi enthusiast, I’m constantly aware where my identities intersect in a story like Dune, and even more aware of the weight of representing an Islam-like culture as alien. Dune is not the only sci-fi work to have borrowed (or appropriated) aesthetics and ideas from the Islamicate world, but it’s perhaps the most notable and deeply entrenched.
And though I love the story of Dune, I wonder: why must Muslims always be the alien other?
Aliens
My fascination with Dune first began years ago when I picked up the classic for some summer reading. I was captivated by the desert landscapes of the planet Arrakis and the larger-than-life characters of the novel, feeling a familiarity with the world Frank Herbert had built. I understood some of the terms the Fremen (Muslim-like aliens) spoke like “jihad” and saw myself in the tan-skinned Fremen, Chani, the protagonist Paul’s love interest.
It was only after finishing the book that I realized I saw myself in the aliens of the story—in the desert-dwelling, nomadic warriors who were protecting their precious resource from the colonizers who wanted to mine it. Fremen culture so closely shares terminology and cultural aesthetic with the Islamic and Islamicate world that I found I related to Fremen people more than any other character in the novel.
Though I wouldn’t classify Dune as a white saviour story (the plot is more nuanced than that) there’s no doubt that Islam and its related culture plays an integral part in building the world of Arrakis. Dune’s desert aesthetic, borrowed Islamic themes, and its allegory to the Middle East build a foundation for a world that is one of the most memorable aspects of the novel even 56 years after its release.
But what is the alternative to this? Can Muslims see themselves in the future without being relegated to the alien other?
The answer lies in a burgeoning art and cultural aesthetic and movement that recentres Islamic and Islamicate cultures in the science fiction narrative: Muslim Futurism.
An Emerging Aesthetic
Muslim Futurism is a relatively new term that is still being shaped by creators and academics, with a conference dedicated to defining the concept further taking place January 2022.
Building on the path blazed by Afrofuturism, Muslim Futurism encourages conversation between Islamicate culture and visions of the future. In my opinion, it’s the true alternative to Western sci-fi's orientalised aesthetic, allowing nuanced representation and unique creation at the intersection of futurism and the Muslim and greater Islamicate world.
For myself, as a Muslim sci-fi writer and artist, Muslim Futurism feels like the perfect intersection of my identities, allowing me to explore my culture freely in a vision of the future that is inclusive of my community and centres our stories.
Imagining Muslim or Islamicate futures when those communities have had their aesthetics and terminologies appropriated for so long by Western science fiction is a radical act of reclaiming the narrative. It means to envision a future in which Islamicate culture is not deprived of its essence and used as decoration for mysterious or harsh desert settings, but rather is depicted through informed storytelling that truly represents a culture too often viewed as the other.
From telling stories about Muslim characters, to subverting the notions of traditional sci-fi by interjecting fair representations of the Islamicate world, any act that explores futures that value and appreciate—not appropriate—Muslim and Islamicate cultures can be seen as part of the foundation of the emerging trend of Muslim Futurism.
We see glimpses of what this art and cultural movement can and will look like even now in the works of creators across the globe. Though many don’t self-identify as Muslim Futurists, their work embodies the intersection of Islamicate and future to create visions of the world through a lens rarely used in current sci-fi.
For example, in the world of performance, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s drag shows as his alter ego Faluda Islam, and his visual arts exhibits explore a Queer Muslim Futurism that depict “[q]ueer creatures evolved to fight Western Imperialism and survive in a toxic world ravaged by apocalypse.”
Faig Ahmed’s rugs distort traditional Azerbaijani carpet weaving into patterns typically found on a computer screen, reimagining the ancient craft and creating new visual boundaries.
At first glance, Fumihiko Maki’s architecture of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada—with its large white marble walls and unique Islamic geometrical structures—looks like a building from the future. This resemblance has even been noted by Hollywood as the building’s stunning, futuristic display earned itself a cameo in Star Trek’s Discovery in 2017.
MIPSTERS’ music video “Alhamdu” is “[a]n ethnographic montage of a speculative Muslim future where Muslim joy is a form of resistance, a form of liberation. The shear act of imagining a utopian existence is an act of self-preservation and survival.” It features bright colours, Islamic imagery, and empowered Muslims existing unapologetically in their vision of a Muslim future.
Creating a Muslim Future
As a writer and artist myself, I’m heavily influenced by Muslim Futurism. Before I begin creating, I always ask myself how I want to see my community represented in the science fiction genre. How can I subvert the harmful tropes and create a space for Muslims and Islamicate culture in sci-fi that does the community justice?
Often this takes the form of intentionally placed Muslim and BIPOC protagonists and a relationality between religion and technology. I particularly like to explore ideas around what Islam looks and feels like in a technological world.
In contrast to mainstream Western sci-fi's use of the Islamicate aesthetic to depict a harsh, foreign quality in the land or people, I consciously try to envision the positive interconnectedness between religion and technology, of spirituality and machine. It's important to me that I approach these ideas not as dissonant, but as harmonious, because my vision of a Muslim future reflects my own existence and lies in the synthesis of faith and a technologically developing world.
I’m excited to see how Muslim Futurism develops from here—in both my own work and in the work of other creators—particularly now, as we’ve seen a rise in Islamophobic incidents and policies across the globe. Given this context, the best time to explore this trend is now because, like everyone else, Muslims and the Islamicate world deserve to see themselves in the future too.
How Can You Help Create an Inclusive Future?
The lens of Muslim Futurism is inherently an empowering one, allowing creators like me to talk back to Western sci-fi like Dune, but it’s also an educational lens that can be used by all audiences to critically examine the media they’re consuming. For people who love Dune or will encounter it for the first time in theatres, looking at the novel and film through this lens will encourage you to question what you’re consuming: is it representation, appropriation, or a mix of both?
This is an important question for people to ask themselves with any media, and I encourage you to ask it too. When you read Dune and imagine brown-skinned aliens who speak in Arabic terms, does that subconsciously inform a bias in your mind? When you see Muslims in movies playing the roles of cab drivers, convenience store owners, and terrorists, does that become the basis for how you view an entire community? To ask yourself these questions is to actively work towards a more inclusive future and create space for true Muslim and Islamicate representation.
For me, Muslim Futurism is a movement that everyone can take part it in one way or another and it starts with acknowledging and uplifting the voices that have historically been missing from the sci-fi conversation.
Because, as we’ve learned, the aliens too have a story to tell.
