Mid-semester, I asked my Contemporary Islamic Civilizations section* to write down
the first thing that pops in their mind when I say, “Name a fictional Muslim
character.” I gave the students a minute, collected the names and then read them out loud.
This is what they wrote (and how they wrote it):
This is what they wrote (and how they wrote it):
- Aladdin: 4 students (one student also wrote: maybe not Muslim?)
- Salah al-Din/Saladin: 3 students (one specified Saladin from Kingdom of Heaven)**
- Malcolm X: 2 students**
- Scheherazade: 2 students
- Can’t think of anyone: 2 students
- Jafar (Muslim or just Arab?)
- Jasmine (Disney princess)
- Marjane Satrapi**
- Marji (from the book/movie Persepolis)
- Rumi**
- Amir Khan in Fanaa (Bollywood film)***
- Lead male actor in Kite Runner (not sure if he’s Muslim)
- Characters portrayed by the Palestinian actor Mohammad Bakri
- Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist
- Abu Nazir in Homeland
- Muhammad Ali**
*All the students are Ivy League undergrads majoring in various subjects; most of them were raised and educated in the U.S.
**These are not fictional characters. I definitely expected the Aladdin characters, and I was not surprised that Saladin was listed. I was surprised to read names of 20th century North American historical figures...especially since the Autobiography of Malcolm X was required reading (in addition to Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi). Was it a result of mishearing the question (i.e., the student listed the first name s/he could think of rather than consider whether that figure was fictional)? Was it a reflection of their age? Or was it from ignorance of more recent American history (i.e. post-World War II) and that American high school students rarely get more than a cursory treatment of the Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, Cointelpro, Immigration Act 1965, etc....if they reach that time period at all?
***Out of all the Bollywood movies with identifiably Muslim characters, a student who watches Hindi films first thought of Fanaa. It does make depressing sense. The film flattens the local and material context of the Kashmiri struggle with India as a powerful nation-state by crafting a narrative which echoes narratives on U.S. national-security and the War on Terror. In a way, it's another commercial film giving a Bollywood flavor to a Hollywood story. In this case, violence is de-contexualized and subsequently generalized under the category of "Muslim violence." Here, Indian nationalism as love of nation (and national security) is made relatable to an American palate which has acquired a taste for the "Islamic terrorist/national-security threat" as a popular character, making Amir Khan's Kashmiri character as a terrorist easily identifiable (and insidiously memorable) as "Muslim."
**These are not fictional characters. I definitely expected the Aladdin characters, and I was not surprised that Saladin was listed. I was surprised to read names of 20th century North American historical figures...especially since the Autobiography of Malcolm X was required reading (in addition to Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi). Was it a result of mishearing the question (i.e., the student listed the first name s/he could think of rather than consider whether that figure was fictional)? Was it a reflection of their age? Or was it from ignorance of more recent American history (i.e. post-World War II) and that American high school students rarely get more than a cursory treatment of the Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, Cointelpro, Immigration Act 1965, etc....if they reach that time period at all?
***Out of all the Bollywood movies with identifiably Muslim characters, a student who watches Hindi films first thought of Fanaa. It does make depressing sense. The film flattens the local and material context of the Kashmiri struggle with India as a powerful nation-state by crafting a narrative which echoes narratives on U.S. national-security and the War on Terror. In a way, it's another commercial film giving a Bollywood flavor to a Hollywood story. In this case, violence is de-contexualized and subsequently generalized under the category of "Muslim violence." Here, Indian nationalism as love of nation (and national security) is made relatable to an American palate which has acquired a taste for the "Islamic terrorist/national-security threat" as a popular character, making Amir Khan's Kashmiri character as a terrorist easily identifiable (and insidiously memorable) as "Muslim."
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