https://vimeo.com/434735548

What is better than Mr. Spock on the Enterprise? It is of course Mr. Spock doing Bhangra and dancing to the beat of Punjabi songs in Pakistan – Balay! Balay! Balay! The text reads – Balay Balay Star Trek. This is part of the series that we posted last week. Be sure to buy the t-shirt or any of the other general merchandize related to this design at the following link and support the Islam and Science Fiction Project:

Buy Mr. Spock Bhangra

As promised on Twitter, here is more original content from Islam and Sci-Fi. Here is a design of the Starship Enterprise in the style of Truck Art from Pakistan. This is the result of my collaboration with B Ali. Truck Art is a traditional art form from South Asia (Pakistan and India) where folk artists adore their trucks in traditional motifs. These two pieces are specifically in the style of Pakistani Truck Art. Roddenberry once described Enterprise as the wagon train for the stars so it is only fitting to reimage the Enterprise as Pakistani Truck Art. Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section. You can also buy T-shirts and other designs like mugs, notebooks, phone cases etc.

Click to Buy Here

Click to Buy Here

Omar Gilani is an Pakistani artist who mixes sci-fi with Pakistani everyday life. He has a masters in Robotics and is now working was a full time Mechanical Engineer when he decided to quit his job and is now pursuing his real passion art on a full time basis. He has created artwork for The British Council and, United Nations Education Foundation, Save The Children etc.
Official Website: omargilani.com

While I believe this is a coincidence, given the significance of the number 40 in Islam, I was a little shaken that the planets are only 40 light years away.

The solar system will last longer than ours because of how slowly its star evolves. Scientists are reporting that organisms who develop on these planets may grow in darker and warmer climates. What do you imagine they would look like, think, feel, or pray?

One could not have easily guessed that there would be so many references to Muslims in tabletop role playing games. I certainly did not know about the extend of this phenomenon until I was enlightened by Jabir Lee a few years ago. Here is a list of such games, quoted here verbatim from brother Lee, and the Islamic/Muslim references in these games.

Image Source: Dazed Magazine

Dazed Magazine sits down with Fatima Al Qadiri and Sophia Al-Maria, Arab-Americans from teh Gulf, on their thoughts on Gulf Futurism. Here is a relevant excerpt:

The Gulf paradox – a headlong sprint into the future tempered by ultra-conservative Islamic codes – defines everyday life in the region, and continually re-emerges in the duo’s work. “It’s a very bizarre, liminal space,” Al Qadiri says, “always looking forwards but clinging desperately to the moral rules of the past.” Despite strictly conservative gender roles, forbidden subcultures flourish in the malls, such as groups of girls called “boyas” (the feminine conjugation of “boy”). “Gender-bending in the Gulf is really interesting,” Al-Maria says. “Boyas trickled down from a lifestyle to a fashion thing for young girls. They’ll wear a men’s Rolex, cologne and basketball shorts and cut their hair short underneath their abayas.” Boyas get sent to rehabilitation centres, “the same shit the Christian right does,” as Al Qadiri points out. Her art WaWa Series (again, with Al Gharaballi) uses the Gulf’s infantilised female pop-star imagery and the nonexistence of images of Arab lesbianism to create lesbian couple portraits in which Al Qadiri takes on the role of the misogynistic butch partner instead of the typically imagined female pop star.

For women, the Islamic cultural codes really come into play once they hit puberty. Protecting one’s “honour and dignity” becomes paramount, as girls don abayas and stop interacting with the opposite sex, resigned to a life at home or at the mall. The indoor life of the Gulf’s indoor life is partly an environmental necessity, due to the extreme heat; nevertheless, Al Qadiri says, matter-of-factly: “Girls are not walking the streets. Maybe I’ve seen it once in my lifetime. It’s just not safe.”

The extreme level of everyday sexual harassment in the Middle East was a strong influence on Al-Maria, who lives in Doha, Qatar. She went to university in Cairo, where “crazy shit like 10-year-old boys grabbing your crotch every day” was the norm. “When I saw the images of Tahrir (Square, during the 2011 Egyptian revolution), the first thing I thought was, ‘I’m worried about the women…’ It’s become a weird crusade.” Now she is preparing to direct her first feature film, a rape-vigilante thriller called Beretta that sees a mute lingerie-salesgirl going on “an apeshit killing spree, which is how a lot of us feel!”

In what Al Qadiri calls the Gulf’s “consumer-culture robot desert”, teenage life revolves around the mall, video games and satellite TV. Al-Maria remembers sneaking into the mejus, the men’s side of the house, once everyone was asleep, and spending long nights playing video games and watching global satellite TV. “That was a very unique Gulf experience, existing purely inside the television, the video game, then later my phone and the internet.”

Check out the full article here.

As always we start off with Irfan Rhydhan’s article, Star Wars: An Islamic Perspective. Moustafi Chamli has another take on the subject with Luke Skywalker: Jihadi Knight. Third up is the most popular post of the series – Princess Leia Hijab.

Just in case you wondering how you can replicate this hijab then you can use the following tutorial.

My favorite one is the following rendition of Star Wars in the style of Ottoman miniature paintings.

Just in case you missed it, Yoda is a secret Muslim – creeping shariah in Star Wars.

Remember the time when Darth Vader faked his own death to get married in Pakistan?

A poster for the original Star Wars movie in Arabic.

This is a Calligram in the style of a storm trooper and it repeatedly says Star Wars in Arabic.

Lastly an ad for Star Wars in an Iranian newspaper.

This could also be the title of a Muslim Steampunk novel but the ‘Allah’s Automata’ but it was the title of an Exhibition organized by Ayhan Aytes and George Saliba which explored the clockwork automata from the Golden Age of Islam. I met Ayhan a few years ago when he came to the University of Minnesota to deliver a lecture of Al-Jazarri’s clockwork elephant. It is great to see his work again.

The first Renaissance did not take place in Europe, but in Mesopotamia. Arabic-Islamic culture functioned – from a media-archaeological point of view – as a mediator between classical antiquity and the early Modern age in Europe. As part of the exhibiton Exo-Evolution and on the basis of outstanding examples, the exhibition explores the rich and fascinating world of the automata that were developed and built during the golden age of the Arabic-Islamic cultures, the period from the early 9^th to the 13^th century.

The machines to glorify God Almighty draw mainly on the traditions of Greek Alexandria and Byzantium. They introduced spectacular innovations, which did not emerge in Europe until the Modern era: permanent energy supply, universalism, and programmability. For the first time, four of the master manuscripts of automata construction from Baghdad, Northern Mesopotamia, and Andalusia are on show together: the al-Jāmi^c bayn al-^cilm wa-’l-^camal an-nāfi^c fī ṣinā^cat al-ḥiyal [Kompendium on the Theory and Practice of the Mechanical Arts] by Ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazarī (1206 CE), the Kitāb al-asrār fī natāʾij al-afkār [The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas] by the Andalusian engineer Aḥmad ibn Khalaf al-Murādī, the Kitāb al-ḥiyal [Book of Ingenious Devices] (about 830 CE) by the Banū Mūsā ibn Shākir and the treatise al-Āla allatī tuzammir bi-nafsihā [The Instrument Which Plays by Itself] (850 CE), a masterpiece of all modern programmable music automata.

Furthermore, the exhibition shows two reconstructions of legendary artifacts: Al-Jazarī’s masterpiece among his audiovisual automata, the so-called Elephant Clock – a spectacular object for hearing and seeing time –, and the programmable music automaton by the Banū Mūsā as a functioning mechatronic model.

Exhibition website: http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-allahs-automata

Book link: Arab Islamic Renaissance

Jinns that cause toothache! 18th century Ottoman Manuscript

The 72nd chapter of the Quran is also titled Surah Jinn

A Jinn from Shahnama from medieval Persia

The court of Solomon with Jinns, Angels, Animals and Birds (Mughal Miniature)

Mahan in the Wilderness of Ghouls-Jinns fighting dragons from Khamsa of Nizami

A Jinn drawn in the style of ‘Muhammad Siyah Qalam by Muhammad Taqi

Jinn by the Ottoman master Mehmed Siyah Kalem

Rustom fighting a Jinn from a medieval Islamic manuscript

Arghan Div Brings the Chest of Armor to Hamza from Dastan Amir Hamza

Jinns from a medieval Islamic manuscript Wonders of Creation

Another Illustration of Jinn Shaitan from the 14th century Book of Wonders

Depiction of two Jinns from Iran/Central Asia from the Timurid Period

Jinns by the Ottoman Artist Mehmet Siyah Kalem in the East Asian style

Illustration of the Jinn Shaitan from the 14th century Book of Wonders