Since the first quarter of the 20th century, the history of religion has been an intriguing subject of Arab film and TV drama, but such ambitions have often been frustrated by Al-Azhar’s fatwa prohibiting the portrayal of all the prophets, the Prophet Mohamed’s family and the ten Companions promised paradise (Abu Bakr Al-Seddik, Omar ibn Al-Khattab, Othman ibn Affan, Ali ibn Abi-Talib, Talha ibn Obaidullah, Zubair ibn Al-Awwam, Abdul-Rahman ibn Auf, Saad ibn Abi-Waqqas, Said ibn Zayd, and Abu-Ubaida ibn Al-Jarrah).
In 1926, Youssef Wahbi was offered the role of the Prophet Mohamed in a German-Turkish production but declined when Al-Azhar declared it impermissible to visually depict the Prophet. Criticism of Wahbi in the press was very harsh. Politically, King Fouad seemed to be inheriting the status of the head of the biggest Sunni state in the region after the Ottoman caliphate, which made him side with Al-Azhar.
Since the 1960s, Egyptian TV has produced Ramadan series based on episodes of Islamic history or the history of religion according to Islam. It became an annual habit for the audience to see these series during the holy month. Most found dramatic or artistic ways to avoid Al-Azhar’s restrictions, replacing a prophet’s character with narration, for example, or creating a scene that reflects on action involving a prophet rather than directly depicting it. This did not always work. In 1988 Egyptian television stopped the series Abu-Ubaida ibn Al-Jarrah, directed by Ahmed Khedr and starring Ezzat Al-Alayli, after the audience saw three episodes. In this context, many have appreciated the Egyptian Censorship Authority approving screening foreign films that portray prophets like Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004 and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah in 2014.
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One Ramadan drama this year, Moawiya, has generated huge controversy on social media, mainly between Sunnis and Shias. The Council of Senior Scholars of Al-Azhar not only prohibited the series but declared watching it religiously prohibited, and the Commission of Media & Communications (CMC) in Iraq banned MBC Iraq from broadcasting it, citing its controversial historical content and how it might incite sectarian strife in the country.
The series was written by Khaled Salah, Bashar Abbas, Hosni Al-Ahmad, Ghmar Mahmoud, Mohamad Al-Yasari and Ghassan Zakaria. It is produced by MBC studios, a Saudi company. Something not entirely unlike the Ataturk government in the 1920s, when it sought to break traditional Ottoman taboos by — among other ways — allowing a portrayal of the Prophet, may now be happening in Saudi Arabia, the owner of the relevant production company. The country has been witnessing a new era under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and the Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority Turki Al-Sheikh. By producing an artistic work that ignores restrictions on depicting the Companions, Saudi Arabia is breaking with the fundamentalist, Salafi thought that had dominated religion there for decades.
The series was not broadcast on any Egyptian TV channels or platforms, only on MBC and Shahed. It was known that the director of Moawiya is Tarek Al-Erian, but his name was not in the credits of any episode. Instead, Ahmed Medhat is credited with “artistic vision”.
The high cost of the production, approximately $100 million, can be seen in the first episode, not only in the costumes and the sets, but also in the battles which seemed to be inspired by the battles of the famous American fantasy drama Game of Thrones. The series depicts the life of Moawiya (Lujain Ismail), the son of Abi Sufian (Fadi Sobeih), the leader of Quraysh, the biggest tribe in Mecca during the Muhammad Mission. Moawiya is the founder of the Umayyad Caliphate or the Umayyad Empire which ruled from 661 to 750 with its borders stretching from Central Asia in the East and North Africa in the west.
It seems one of the reasons behind the row before and during the broadcast of the series is that it delves into what is known historically as the First Fitna, a period of intense civil strife within the early Islamic Caliphate that started with the assassination of Omar ibn Al-Khattab in 644. The key characters of these incidents were Othman ibn Affan, Moawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib.
Othman ibn Affan, the third caliph, was related to Moawiya ibn Abi Sufyan through their shared lineage in the powerful Umayyad clan; they were descendants of Abd-Shams, the twin brother of Hashem, Mohamed’s great grandfather. This close kinship did not prevent the peak of the Fitna after the assassination of Othman in 656 from triggering a series of events that plunged the Muslim community into chaos. Ali often voiced his concerns about some of Othman’s policies and appointments, which he believed were contributing to growing unrest within the caliphate before the assassination itself. When Ali became the fourth caliph, Moawiya refused to pledge allegiance to him on the premise that Ali had failed to bring Othman’s killers to justice, while Ali’s main priority was to restore stability to the Islamic state.
The drama doesn’t spend too much time on the early days of the protagonist: after the first scene of Hind bint Utbah (Soheir bin Emmara) giving birth to him, the first episode shows a few important details in his early biography leading up to his conversion to Islam at the time of the Prophet Mohamed’s army entering Mecca in 630. There is the moment when he finds out that his elder sister Ramla, whom he loves very deeply, has converted to Islam and migrated to Yathreb, then after a few years is married to Mohamed himself.
In another scene, he is in Damascus with his father on a usual trade trip when, while meeting with the governor, they are asked about Mohamed whom he knows to be a relative of Abu Sufyan’s. This situation is also another factor that plays a role in Moawiya’s mind when his father answers the governor’s questions praising Mohamed while he is the enemy of his father. In yet another scene, a blind woman refuses his help, revealing that she too is a believer. After converting to Islam he leaves Mecca to become a companion of Mohamed and a scribe of Quranic revelation, then he becomes one of the knights of the Islamic army that conquers the north of the Arabian Peninsula.
In many instances the script tries to improve the image of the main character. In a scene the series shows Moawiya receiving Omar ibn Al-Khattab (Samer Al-Masri) in Damascus, and the latter is a little angry at the luxurious lifestyle that Moawiya as a governor possess while he as a caliph is known for living a humble life in Al-Madina. Moawiya tells him that this is the majestic appearance of the government in Syria and giving it up might result in the people disdaining the new authority. Although it seemed a very shallow explanation, Omar is convinced.
In another scene, the series provides personal and emotional details about the main character, sometimes creating sympathy with Moawiya. He is talking to his sister Jowairia (Maysoun Abou Assad) after the death of his wife Fakheta (Asmaa Galal), and he tells her while almost in tears: “Every time I win, I lose? Moawiya the leader prevails while Moawiya the father, the son and the husband loses. During the victory at the Battle of Al-Yarmouk I lost my mother. After conquering Caesarea, I lost my first son Abdel-Rahman. After building the Islamic fleet I lost my father and divorced my wife Maysoon [Aicha ben Ahmed] who left with my son Yazid, and I lost Fakheta after invading Cyprus.” This scene gives the audience an insight into Moawiya’s contradictions and the sacrifices he makes for the glory of Islam.
After the introductory episodes the drama begins to develop along two lines: what is happening in Al-Madina and what is happening in Damascus, after Moawiya becomes the governor of Syria during the reign of the second Caliph Omar ibn Al-Khattab. The situation in Al-Madina is already unstable after the assassination of Omar but it is deteriorating fast now under Othman, with anger against his policy of appointing Umayyad governors and officials. In Egypt Mohamed ibn Abi-Bakr (Ayman Toumah), the son of the second caliph, is one of the rebels leading the revolution against Othman while in Kufa there is Malek Al-Ashtar (Saad Minah). The script portrays these characters as if they are the villains. Ali ibn Abi-Taleb (Eyad Nassar) fails to convince them rebels to obey the caliph and accept the changes that Othman has introduced in Kufa and Egypt, where the rebellion is brewing.
The script suggests the two sides of the conflict are forced to fight each other despite their good intentions. Ali wanted to make the Islamic state stable and to eliminate the seeds of discord and strife, while Moawiya not only refused Ali’s order to appoint another governor of Syria but also rejected him as caliph. The script asserts more than once that Moawiya feels the conflict and bloodshed among Muslims in Kufa or Siffin should not be happening. However, far from the TV Series, it is historically far more likely that Moawiya’s true intentions were to assert his own power and establish the Umayyad Caliphate, the first monarchic empire in the history of Islam. Many Egyptians sympathise with Ali despite being Sunnis, because he is the one who was manipulated by both Moawiya and Amr ibn Al-As (Wael Sharaf).
There are many negative features in the series aside from invoking the Fitna: missing or inaccurate historical events, costumes from later eras. But such flaws seem inevitable and acceptable. And indeed Moawiya has huge benefits: it drives the audience to revisit Islamic history, and undermines the un-Islamic aura sanctity that surrounds the Companions. Indeed they fought one another in 656, at the Battle of the Camel, when Ali fought Talha ibn Ubaidullah and Zubair ibn Al-Awwam who were together with the Prophet’s wife Aisha, while in 657 Ali fought Moawiya at the Battle of Siffin...
* A version of this article appears in print in the 20 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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