Documentary on Muhammad

Submitted by Carmen Pai Daschke (United States), Dec 26, 2002 at 12:21

Dear Mr. Pipes,

Just a short note to comment on your review of the PBS Documentary on Muhammad ). I wonder if you saw the documentary that aired just prior to this one, concerning the Three Wise Men. As an academic in the study of religion, I found it amazing that this particular documentary relied on astronomical and astrological findings to prove the exact time, place, and date of the journey of the Three Wise Men, without much theological or academic religious commentary on the subject. Also, there were many details left out, such as the relationship between the religion of Zaurathrustra (or Zoroaster, the Greek pronunciation of his name) and modern faiths such as Judaism and Hindus. In fact, the modern followers of the faith live mostly in India and are known as Parsis. However, I digress. The point is, once again PBS was funding a show about religion that sought to prove a point to the believers and non- believers about the veracity of its claims. ...

Now, to the subject of Islam. The scholars used in the documentary were some of the finest in America in the subject of religious studies. I was surprised by how few of their credentials were mentioned. Karen Armstrong is not just the author of Muhammad, but she is the author of many books on Islam, having done years of study on the subject. She is not a Muslim, but she is respected by the Islamic community for her work on the history of Islam and the Prophet.

As to your comments as follows:

"But no commentator is so impolite as to note that however admirable this was in the 7th century, Muslim women today suffer widely from genital mutilation, forced marriages, purdah, illiteracy, sexual apartheid, polygamy and honor killings,"

I would just say this; it is important for Muslims and non-Muslims alike to distinguish between religion and culture. The above mentioned attrocities are the result of cultural and historical evils being interwoven with the religion of Islam. There is nothing in the Qur'an that supports any of these things, except polygyny, and even then only under very specific circumstances. ... As Armstrong put it in her book, "Islam, a Short History", it is often the case that patriarchical notions, some of which are pre-Islamic, some of which are introduced by foreign cultures, come in and distort the teachings of Islam...

No documentary is perfect. There were some flaws in the presentation of "Muhammad", but to deny that it was a valuable source of information for anyone who is trying to gain some understanding of the religion of Islam, or its rapid growth in America and the world is to show your own personal prejudices against the faith. But ignorance never wins a battle. ... And even those who do not embrace Islam will be better off for having some understanding of it.

... I am an American, born and raised, and I have a constitutional (not to mention religious) right to be educated and informed. And we all have the option to raise our remotes and change our channels if we don't like what we see.

Sincerely,
Carmen Pai Daschke
Ph.D. Student, University of Chicago Divinity Schoo.
History of Religions

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