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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Muhammad & Islam
A Basic Introduction Primer
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 3/11/08

Born fatherless, orphaned at age six and reared briefly by a grandfather, then by his Uncle Talib, Muhammad learned caravan management from Talib, while growing alongside Talib’s own awesome action-hero son, Ali. The adult Muhammad managed a caravan for the widow-businesswoman Khadija when he was 25 and she was 40. Ali married the Prophet’s beloved daughter, Fatima, borne of the long marriage between Muhammad and Khadija [who proposed matrimony to Muhammad, and was his very first convert, thus the ‘first Muslim’], which appears to have been a true soulmate marriage akin to that exalted in Medieval poetry. Fatima’s children became the only blood descendants of the Prophet, yet Ali became only the fourth of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs. This in part thanks to a long-past slight to Aisha, the famous child bride, on whose bosom the Prophet died when she was eighteen.
 
Just a few of my favorite things, this story akin to a blend of “General Hospital,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Falcon Crest” plus a dash of “Dallas” with “Fernwood Tonite” – a gift to fellow conservatives, as a small aid to understanding this world before us. Not a single source can bring this summary – but to get a start on your own edification, begin with “What Went Wrong” by Bernard Lewis [and any other works by his seminal Princeton mind], and if militarily inclined, “Muhammad, Islam’s Greatest General” by Richard Gabriel [published by OU Press, another recommendation for its value!].  Check the endnotes for each text, for a rewarding pathway to your own continued self-reading, to flesh out what now continues.

Generations before Muhammad’s birth, Mecca was ‘mecca’ to the Hejaz – that area of southwest modern Saudi Arabia surrounding Mecca and Medina. The Ka’aba was the era’s local “Vatican” for the Hejaz – an ecumenical cube-shaped mosque for multiple pagan and polytheistic beliefs, and Mecca was off-limits to any violence or brandishing of weapons.  As many as a thousand graven idols drew worshipers in that day’s city-commerce equivalent of SuperBowl Sunday, for every day of the year.  There were many holy holidays we hear today, such as Ramadan, and both lesser and greater pilgrimages – these traditions existed long prior to Muhammad’s birth.  All religions worshiped the Ka’aba stone – a black sphere reputedly once white when it fell from the sky as a gift to mankind from the gods, absorbing sins from pilgrims over many centuries, turning it black as it is today on display in the modern Ka’aba.
 
Abu Sufyed became one of Muhammad’s greatest successor generals, once his main opponent as key military leader of Mecca’s forces opposing the Prophet’s attempt to return victorious to Mecca, after being forced to abandon his birth city and relocate to Medina – this due to his incessant insistence that all Meccans convert to Islam, abandoning their traditions and thus condemning their ancestors to eternal damnation. Since the dead cannot proclaim the shahada [adherence as a Muslim], the ancestral denial of holy bliss made Muhammad’s new view of Allah [a term also which long predates Muhammad’s life] a source of rising political friction with other Meccan tribes.
 
Sufyed enjoyed a unique opportunity to destroy Islam, but his then-normal chivalric code allowed the vulnerable Prophet to live, rather than be slaughtered by the victorious Meccans just outside Medina. [An error of generosity that never would have been committed by Muhammad.]  After Ali’s assassination years later, Sufyed’s Umayyad family became the first Muslim dynasty, moving its HQ to Damascus, thus Islam’s fourth holy city [after Jerusalem].
 
And this is just a taste of this complex family/tribal story worthy of anything Count Richelieu concocted. Aisha’s onetime brush with condemnation for infidelity included Ali’s verbal doubting of her claims of innocence, the divisive matter fortuitously resolved by Allah’s revelation to the Prophet, acquitting the tartish bride, quieting the boiling controversy. But she never forgot; betrothed to the Prophet shortly after Khadija’s death, and during the critical window that included Talib and Fatima also dying, she was sexualized three years later, at age nine, after the Hejira [journey out of Mecca] was established in Medina.
 
Reviewing this and enhancing it: Ali doubted Aisha, who had been betrothed at six, sexualized at nine, grew to be the Prophet’s favorite wife [among many], which status as a sexualized girl she exploited readily [think: Jody Foster in “Taxi Driver” with an opportunity for political revenge], decrying at her husband’s death that Ali should not succeed as Caliph. Ali was as close to a real incarnation of Conan, Rocky, Rambo and Sgt. Rock as you can imagine, trusted with Muhammad’s most critical military and diplomatic initiatives, adopted by him, thus considered his ‘son’ and vital lieutenant. Yet, Abu Bakr was advanced by consent of most lieutenants to become the First Caliph.
 
And who be Abu Bakr? The very father who betrothed his daughter twelve years earlier to the Prophet as his post-Khadija companion.  “Beverly Hillbillies” anyone?  Got an Arkansas joke, Mr. Leno?  
 
No mini-series will arise, for all in Hollywood fear Islam’s vengeful nature, even while attacking those who imply such a characterization. Courage in Hotel Whiskey is limited to praise for George Clooney’s version of courage, in making his anti-McCarthy docu-drama.  Too bad – it would take more episodes than “Centennial” to cover this tale’s Prophet Chapter. A second season for the Umayyad Dynasty, and more TV seasons to cover the other eras by other dynasties. Could employ WGA writers by the battalion for a decade.
 
The only real cinematic ‘view’ of this culture’s inclinations is David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” – set in WW-One, it captures one enduring key element of Arabic and Muslim culture.  The warring tribes, briefly united by T.E. Lawrence’s Prophet-like monomania, ultimately disperse at film’s end. A metaphor for Muhammad’s Sissyphean mission, and that of his caliphs since.
 
As has happened so frequently since Muhammad’s death.  A religion founded by a man who married an older woman, a business owner and manager, who might be seen as ‘modern’ by many today, and then at her death went into what must be a medieval mid-life crisis of monumental proportions. Losing his uncle and beloved daughter in this same short period led to his “Night Journey” by winged horse, the Buraq, to Jerusalem’s “Far Mosque” for a visit to the prophets of both testaments of the Bible before counsel with Allah.  This episode alone would fill a three-hour episode of the mini-series. The problem of this story’s claim is with the far mosque’s construction: it was begun decades after Muhammad’s death.
 
Perhaps if Khadija had lived into the Medina residency, Islam’s misogyny would instead be very woman-friendly.  But alas, all due to a tart’s revenge – which continued until years later, when Aisha mounted a military campaign, commanding it Joan-of-Arc style from a camel to stop Ali when he finally became the Fourth Caliph. For want of a nail, a movement’s soul was lost…due to memory of the Battle of the Camel!
 
The various slaughters of Jewish tribes, and other tribes and clans, would make singular, startling night’s viewing – on HBO if done honestly to the bloodiness and treachery akin to Vlad the Impaler and the Borgias scheming. Muhammad’s Koranic revelations before driven from Mecca, divided into three sections, are the more gentle of the four eras; in Medina, his utterances became the most toxic of the four periods. Yet, the longest and most vitriolic suras [chapters] are the opening ones in the Koran. Storytelling methodology dictates the writer acquaint the novice with your most appealing chapters first – but not Islam. Hit ‘em with the nastiest rants in your whole package – this seems to be the Koranic prescription.
 
That tasty morsel hints at how complex this Weltanschauung is, and how much we have to learn, and understand. Muhammad was a seventh-century triangulator to make Dickie Morris and Billie Clinton shrink in wonder – he adopted the Ka’aba and its holidays, banishing all statues save for one of Mary, and kept the high holy days, as well as honoring ‘People of the Book’ [the Bible, both testaments] in certain shrewd ways. This along with once designating Jerusalem, to the north, as the qibla [direction to face when praying], as a triangulation to lure Jews into his fold. When he suspected them of treachery among his Medina brethren, the qibla was reversed, thereafter to be southward toward Mecca. Thus, during prayers, the Jews stood out like Hitler’s yellow Star of David in the Third Reich. Not Mr. Kumbaya, no relative to Mr. Rogers is this religious and military leader.
 
The books by Lewis and Gabriel can expand this mini-series in your head, then you’re ready to undertake “The Truth About Muhammad” by Robert Spencer. It’s a helluva mini-series – NOT coming to a theatre, or network, or cable outlet, near you anytime in this century.
 
A shame the Tribe in Hollywood, along with the oh-so ‘courageous’ George Clooney, don’t make this story into the Ultimate Mini-series.  But you’ll have to forego waiting to see the movie – you gotta read not just ‘the’ book but many books to get this crucial picture in your head.  Five separate tomes were completed before I connected Aisha with Abu Bakr, and thus my ‘nookie theory of Islam” – like a jigsaw puzzle finally revealing the view I’d been seeking. But so much is available that different author emphasize different facts and assessments.
 
So venture forth – learn, understand, worry, and don’t wait. This mini-series is written, but its episodes separated into many books and articles. Ya can’t understand this play until you get a program – and that program has to be put together by your own arduous, endless efforts.
 
Hopefully this primer has piqued your taste buds for pursuing further history of the Hejaz, and Aisha’s vengeful turn of the tides that march today into our own modern times. If only Clooney’s Tribe had real courage to make reel courage on the screen. Lacking that, you’re on your own… ExileStreet

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Look for Part Deux: “Islam: The Mini-Series”…..

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

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