Islam and Science Fiction is a website on all things related to Islam, Muslims and Science Fiction and everything in between.The exploration of Islam and Science Fiction is from a cultural and social perspective, from a cultural and civilizational sense. A more appropriate term would be Marshall Hodgson's Islamicate. Thus this site is a compendium of novels, short stories, novellas, movies etc which either has Islamic themes or have Muslim characters.
You can contact the editor at maahmad@uw.edu
Edward Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire wrote a famous passage on the Battle of Tours (732), what if the Muslims had won in that battle, which is sort of an alternative history. A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousandContinue Reading
Orson Scott Card’s Pastwatch: The Redepmtion of Christopher Columbus: This is a story about alternative history/ time travel which has a few Muslim characters. Here is a review from Publishers Weekly. Playing with the time stream isn’t new to science fiction, but Card (Ender’s Game), who’s won both a HugoContinue Reading
What Might Have Been? has a story Roncesvalles by Judith Tarr where upon hearing of Roland’s death and Ganelon’s treachery, Charlemagne converts to Islam. The author does not follow up on what might have happened thereafter. This leaves something to be desired.
A Novel of Slavery and Freedom in an Alternate America [From the Publisher] “The year is 1294 – to Christians, 1877. Egypt’s Pharaoh threatens war against Ethiopia’s Empress and plans to embroil the New World in his cause. While the Northern colonists are subjects of the Pharaoh, Southern revolutionaries areContinue Reading
Lion’s Blood: A Novel of Slavery and Freedom in an Alternate America The story is set in an alternative North America which was colonized by Vikings in the North and Africans of Muslim extraction in the south. The Vikings supply white slaves to the Muslim south, or Bilalistan. The storyContinue Reading
Alternate History is NOT one of those genres where alternate theories about history are entertained or discussed. It might be better to describe it as speculative history or rather an intellectual exercise in the ‘what ifs’ of history. This section contains alternative history stories and novels where the setting isContinue Reading
The 99 is a comic book series aimed at a Muslim audience. The idea is that there are 99 Muslim superheros each of whose superpowers reflect the attributes of God. Here is an article from the New York Times that describes the comic. Comics to Battle for Truth, Justice andContinue Reading
Dust is a mutant from Afghanistan in the X-men universe. As the name implies her superpower is that she can turn into dust. She was kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery but was later rescued by Wolverine. She is a Muslim woman and wears the Burka all theContinue Reading
Josiah X is an African American Muslim superhero in the Marvel universe. He is also the son of Isaiah Bradley, the black Captain America. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The emergence of science fiction in Arabic literature Snir, Reuven, Der Islam, vol. 77, no. ii, pp. 263-285, 2000 Fantascienza in Mauritania. La storia di un uomo nato nel 1034 emorto nel 2055: Madinat al-riyahdi Musa Wuld Ibnu Camera d’Afflitto, I., Oriente Moderno, no. 16, pp. 331-340, 1998 Remembering theContinue Reading