Fear of a Muslim Planet
March 22, 2015 4:08 PM   Subscribe

The micro-genre of “Islamophobic futurism” in fiction unites Western liberals and conservatives.

"American author Robert Ferrigno doesn’t pussyfoot. Explaining his vote in the 2004 presidential election, he told Slate, “I’ll be voting for Bush because his approach to stopping the people who want to kill my children is the right one, i.e., kill them first.” Where relations between West and Mideast are concerned, he calls himself “a great believer in the clash of civilizations.” But it was a reasonably nuanced vision of American Islamism that landed Ferrigno on the New York Times best-seller list just under a decade ago with a futurist novel called Prayers for the Assassin. Its protagonist must be one the most popular Muslim heroes in American fiction, and the first sequel — Sins of the Assassin — earned an Edgar Award nomination for Best Novel. A third book rounded out the trilogy in 2009; sketching Islamic futures seems to be a decent living.

This aesthetic and its companion politics — call it Islamophobic futurism — seized the spotlight again this January."
posted by standardasparagus (37 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Islamophobic futurism is, in this respect, an effort towards bipartisanship. If conservative readers experience a certain attraction to this vision of Islam, admiring and fearing at once, it gratifies that impulse – doubly cathartic. If readers on the left are especially vulnerable to the aesthetic’s fearful side, that fear is solicited and sharpened. On that second front, Ferrigno mines a rich vein of unease that surfaces in both liberal-popular and left-intellectual culture. Though ultimately — the trilogy argues — left and right fears are branches of one instinct: that neither, if candid, can really stomach Islam.
posted by standardasparagus at 4:09 PM on March 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ferrigno pulls a nimble ideological maneuver. His plot grants some legitimacy to leftist and Islamist critiques of modernity; in exchange, he’ll eventually get to set them against each other. It’s a gambit in the chessboard sense, a trade of material for the superior position. A trap is set.

Holy shit, someone used 'gambit' as a metaphor accurately, not to mean 'any scheme or plan whatsoever'.
posted by thelonius at 4:25 PM on March 22, 2015 [19 favorites]


Slouching Toward Mecca
posted by telstar at 4:33 PM on March 22, 2015 [9 favorites]


It's interesting that the review of Soumission telstar links above has a completely different take on the novel, but also proposes it stakes out a new genre, the "dystopian conversion tale".

It sounds like it'll be an interesting read when the translation comes out, to say the least.
posted by topynate at 4:37 PM on March 22, 2015


Ever read "We See Things Differently" by Bruce Sterling? That's definitely in this vein; it was written 20 years ago.
posted by Renoroc at 4:43 PM on March 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


Ferrigno suffers from the same malady as Dennis Miller -- a post-9/11 swing so profound, a cartoon view of reality replaced their operating system. Their artistic output was never the same.

A shame, because they're both really talented. Yes, I said Dennis Miller has talent, and Ferrigno's early books are great crime stories, on par with Elmore Leonard's best.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:10 PM on March 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


The do not charge interest part destroys many a 'western' business model. A "reformed" version embracing interest might just sail right on by.
posted by rough ashlar at 5:26 PM on March 22, 2015


Judaism and Christianity also prohibit charging interest, in theory. People managed to get around that. I'm sure the Muslims have workarounds for that.
posted by Anne Neville at 6:04 PM on March 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm sure the Muslims have workarounds for that.

It's called Islamic finance.
posted by pravit at 6:50 PM on March 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


I mean it's pretty obvious that this is gonna be a gross dude, but this really solidifies his grossness:
“Strangely enough, a lot of observant women come to my readings with the hijab head dress and I think they look beautiful, it really focuses your attention on their features. I don’t remember ever seeing a woman who didn’t look beautiful with that.”
posted by NoraReed at 11:03 PM on March 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


Anybody read Prayers? I'm curious if aside from the Islamophobia is it well written as a book.
posted by BinGregory at 1:06 AM on March 23, 2015


Well, I got just the soundtrack for this bullshit.

United States of Islam by Muslimgauze.

Fuck this guy.
posted by symbioid at 1:25 AM on March 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


The "problem" with Islam is there seem to be more of Islamic literalists (compared to over all number if Muslims) than there are Christian literalists vs. Christians.

Even religion needs to evolve, and Christianity dealt with this via various conferences (such as Council of Turin) and various Schisms (Anglican, Protestant, etc. etc. and there's so many factions of Christianity... )

Islam's primary schism is about who's the "rightful heir" of Prophet Mohammed (blessed is His name) (i.e. Sunni vs. Shiite) which seems almost petty in comparison. Islam is not evolving and any changes with the times are handled locally through Ulama Councils.

And Fundamentalistic Islam (Wahabbism, Salafism) and their factions, such as the Taliban, are the most widely known. It'd be like learning Islam through watching the Westboro Baptist crazies.

The result is Islamophobia. And if you want a fictionalized version of what could be... Check out the novel "Caliphate" by Tom Kratzman. It's free over at Baen free library.
posted by kschang at 2:08 AM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Islam is not evolving and any changes with the times are handled locally through Ulama Councils

Yeah, um. I'm just going to leave this here. Believe me, Islam is just as massively convoluted and contentious internally as Christianity is.
posted by AdamCSnider at 2:40 AM on March 23, 2015 [5 favorites]


Renoroc that was my first thought, too. There was a cluster of "resurgence of Islam" SF pre-USS Cole. Rather prescient, looking back on it.
posted by Leon at 2:49 AM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is also useful on the specific phenomenon of Islam "evolving" to deal with the modern world.
posted by AdamCSnider at 2:55 AM on March 23, 2015


I was thinking about this lately when reading "The Adjacent" by Christopher Priest. It's set in a post-climate-change future, partly in the "Islamic Republic of Great Britain". Howvever the IRGB is not depicted with the usual Islamophobic elements: stadium beheadings, amputations, no female education, etc: it's presented as a rather British-style bumbling bureaucracy. (Though a character is surprised to find that someone can be a senior civil servant and not a Muslim). I was wondering whether it's even possible to have a non-Islamophobic depiction of an Islamicised Western nation, or if that well is poisoned now, by myths of "Muslim birth rates" and so much more.

At this point it might be refreshing to break the trend with science fiction with a positive vision of an Islamic future. You could have capitalism tamed by anti-usury laws, a generous Islamic welfare state. You could leave out the burqas (which are not in the Koran), the literalist interpretations of sharia law, and of course the obligatory sports stadium executions inspired by Taliban Afghanistan. You could contrast it to a hypersexualized, hyper-unequal state of secular capitalism.

Problem is it would also be seized on by Islamophobes as evidence of the Great Muslim Conspiracy...
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:03 AM on March 23, 2015 [6 favorites]


At this point it might be refreshing to break the trend with science fiction with a positive vision of an Islamic future. You could have capitalism tamed by anti-usury laws, a generous Islamic welfare state. You could leave out the burqas (which are not in the Koran), the literalist interpretations of sharia law, and of course the obligatory sports stadium executions inspired by Taliban Afghanistan. You could contrast it to a hypersexualized, hyper-unequal state of secular capitalism.

Personally, I think that this is a great science fiction concept - in that I feel that an Islamized West, of any flavor, is approximately as likely to appear in the real world as those other hoary sci-fi staples: FTL, aliens with forehead bumps, and cold fusion. It really is just the newest Iteration of a very old fantasy, and is useful in precisely the same ways as its predecessors.
posted by AdamCSnider at 3:12 AM on March 23, 2015 [4 favorites]


Anyone got any good pointers to SF written by Islamic authors? The closest I have in my repertoire is a short series whose author I have forgotten - it was a cyberpunk thing, set in Turkey, with a main character who was referred to as 'the maghrebi'. Very noir, very well written.
posted by Fraxas at 3:49 AM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are you thinking of the Budayeen series by George Alec Effinger? I too wish to read more like it.
posted by squinty at 4:00 AM on March 23, 2015


Anyone got any good pointers to SF written by Islamic authors?

Escape from Baghdad! by Bangladeshi novelist Saad Hossain. NPR review. I'm reading it right now. It's awesome. It may be a 'searing indictment of nation building', but it's also a fun and gory genre-busting SF/supernatural thriller.
posted by Ziggy500 at 4:04 AM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


At this point it might be refreshing to break the trend with science fiction with a positive vision of an Islamic future. You could have capitalism tamed by anti-usury laws, a generous Islamic welfare state. You could leave out the burqas (which are not in the Koran), the literalist interpretations of sharia law, and of course the obligatory sports stadium executions inspired by Taliban Afghanistan. You could contrast it to a hypersexualized, hyper-unequal state of secular capitalism.

Per the review linked above, this is almost exactly what Houllebecq does (I didn't read anything about anti-usury law, but literally every other element is there).
posted by topynate at 4:50 AM on March 23, 2015


Giving The Turner Diaries a run for its money when it comes to feeding the WCM persecution complex.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:35 AM on March 23, 2015


And seriously, is it really advisable to make some sweeping "the problem with Islam" assessment, not least of all for what "seems" to be, as opposed to what factually is?
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:52 AM on March 23, 2015


Anyone got any good pointers to SF written by Islamic authors?

Kenny Irwin's intergalactic Pakistani spacefleet &
Dovestar Chronicles
posted by BinGregory at 5:56 AM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


A Mosque among the Stars , an anthology of islamic scifi
and
Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon, although that is fantasy, not sci fi
posted by BinGregory at 5:58 AM on March 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


That Muslim publication, The Economist, even says some Islamic finance products, which avoid things like derivatives, came out rather well from the latest financial crisis. Maybe some restraints on finance aren't the end of the world, who'd have thought...
posted by Anne Neville at 6:20 AM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]




Anybody read Prayers? I'm curious if aside from the Islamophobia is it well written as a book.

Yeah, I did, because I've really liked Ferrigno's stuff in the past.

Yes, it's well-written as a thriller/crime novel. He's actually pretty good at this, like I said.

The problem is that the premise is so absurd, right from the start, that the novel isn't just a what-if piece. It's magic realism. It's as much "futurism" as Star Wars (not in a million years would I have called it "futurism"). From the linked article:

In the first chapter we run headlong into a reimagined Super Bowl, held in Seattle’s Khomeini Stadium. The cheerleaders are men swinging swords...

That is not an exaggeration. And this is supposed to happen in 2040. Thirty years from now, everything is supposed to be upside down. People don't change their minds that fast. Dude, Bruce Springsteen is still touring thirty years after his best-selling album.

(Also, the book doesn't make a distinction between any flavor of Islam, such as Sunni/Shia. It's Khomeini Stadium, for example, but most of the characters appear to be Sunni.)

The premise is so impossible to swallow, you can't attach to it. But sure, the moment-to-moment stuff on the page, the action, the characterizations, that's fine. Workmanlike.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:42 AM on March 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


A couple weeks ago I saw the wonderful Tanya Tagaq perform a recontextualizing performance of the early, racist documentary Nanook of the North at the Aga Khan museum, along with the really impressive Tuvan singer Radik Tyulyush. $20 rush tickets.

Please, yes, do go on about how Islam doesn't evolve.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:42 AM on March 23, 2015


Ferrigno suffers from the same malady as Dennis Miller -- a post-9/11 swing so profound, a cartoon view of reality replaced their operating system.

You're saying that it was a bad idea to make him angry?
posted by yoink at 9:50 AM on March 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


You're saying that it was a bad idea to make him angry?

Ironically, their names are spelled the same, but pronounced differently.

Lou Fur-IG-no <-- the guy that played the Hulk.
Robert Fair-EEN-yo <-- the writer
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:38 PM on March 23, 2015


Fair-EEN-yo, Fur-IG-no. yada yada.

In all seriousnes, though, I wish I had the capacity for appreciating fiction. These books sound so very interesting in the worlds they portray.
posted by symbioid at 12:53 PM on March 23, 2015


Also - ask someone in, I dunno, 1900 Tsarist Russia, if in 30 years time, the Bolsheviks would have won their Civil War (which, while tensions existed, certainly I don't think a revolution that totally conquered Russia was really conceivable)....

Not saying that beheadings are a realistic occurrence, I think there are paths you can take to plausible futures. Khomeini Stadium in Seattle with hordes of rabid fans watching beheadings is certainly not one of those futures.

If I'm wrong and we see public beheadings in 25 years, well, you can come back and quote me on this. May as well just behead me at that point, I guess if that's what happens.

Though - an interesting thing to apocalyptic Christians would be the use of beheadings as imagery from Revelation for those who refuse to take the Mark of the Beast. I can guarantee you (I haven't really looked at right-wing xian nuttery since I was a xian, except from the outside from a political perspective), that there are certainly claims that these beheadings are leading to an Anti-Christ/NWO that will do these actions.

Though now I wonder what an apocalyptic fiction of an actual "False Messiah" coming would look like. How would the various monotheistic religions react? What would each strand look like, and what would the more Eastern religions perceive (Maitreya, etc...)

Has anyone written such a book, I could see that being an interesting inversion. No actual "rapture". Just a world dictatorship bringing about peace for a period of time, followed by a bunch of delusional religious people arming themselves for holy war against this global order, but then also, against each other....

I mean, it's not really fiction now that I write it out, is it. Except for the lack of an anti-Christ, all these folks are already engaging in these wars against each other. The Anti-Christ could unite them against him, or something.
posted by symbioid at 1:02 PM on March 23, 2015


And if you want a less Islamic, but more... Lovecraftian take on the Middle East and its current politics, Cyclonopedia is certainly a different take - though I don't think it's necessarily "Islamic" (the author, Reza Negarestani, is Iranian) and it seems more geared about the occult, philosophy and politics, and I haven't gotten that far into it, so maybe it touches more on Islam than it first appears... Anyways, just a rec, if someone wants more fiction in such worlds.
posted by symbioid at 1:19 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also - ask someone in, I dunno, 1900 Tsarist Russia, if in 30 years time, the Bolsheviks would have won their Civil War

Apples and oranges. Politics change, religions are more hard-wired. The Bolsheviks won their war, but despite decades of totalitarian control, they utterly failed in their goal to install atheism as a state religion.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:22 PM on March 23, 2015


I just saw Saladin Ahmed retweet a video they posted of him, so I have no personal knowledge about them, but I'm willing to bet that Islam & Science Fiction will have a bunch of good Muslim Sci-fi authours. Doesn't seem to be super-active, but we takes what we cans gets.
posted by Lemurrhea at 6:44 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


« Older Oh, Lord, won't you buy me..?   |   The Seinfeld Situation Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments