Despite my being non-religious, the story of Muhammad interests me. The history of Islam is, in my view, a fascinating one. However, there's a second reason why I occasionally return to the Prophet's life. It is common for Westerners harboring condescending/racist views toward Middle Eastern culture to level their arguments against Muhammad. The reasoning goes something like this:
- Muhammad did or was [insert something negative].
- Because Muhammad was morally corrupt, at its core Islam is also corrupt.
- Because Islam is corrupt, so is Arab/Middle Eastern culture.
- Because of the culture's depravity, the region is inherently unstable.
- Therefore, Western-US involvement in the region has been morally negligible.
Put another way, in looking to "prove" why the Middle East is and always will be a place of violence and conflict, the person goes to the perceived source. In this case, the Prophet Muhammad is held to represent the region's cultural DNA, and therefore the Middle East that exists on the news can be traced and reduced to Muhammad's character.
A contention often used in the mechanism above is the following: because Muhammad married a very young girl, he was therefore predatory and deviant. While his marriage to Aisha is historically verified, context is required.
The 53-year-old prophet took the 9-year-old girl as his wife in a political arrangement binding him to Aisha's father, Muhammad's closest friend and lieutenant, Abu Bakr. Such arrangements were not uncommon for the time period and do not necessarily point toward perversion. Moreover, according to accounts - some by Aisha herself - her childhood was presumably a content one. Upon moving into one of Muhammad's homes, the girl spent time playing with her toys, with the Prophet reportedly joining her in playing and games. According to standard English sources on the Prophet's life, the early years of the marriage more resembled a father-daughter relationship. Aisha would then go on to become one of Muhammad's closest wives, a leader within the Muslim community, and a revered figure - especially for women - in Islamic history.
Regardless of how one wishes to read this history, the motive in finding fault with the Prophet is generally to locate the genesis of all that is wrong with the Middle East. Moreover, in the numerous instances of this I have observed, it is done with a sense of haughtiness and triumph. Behavior such as this is the byproduct of ideological thinking, for which education is the only corrective.
It's doubtful an Iranian film is going to work miracles in improving Western-American attitudes; but as discussed in my Dec. 30 blog post, art can be effective in occasioning new perspectives.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2013/dec/27/muhammads-youth-in-upcoming-iranian-film
