International Artistic Outreach

We should come together to create, and ultimately make, a time piece film, using state of the art graphics and real Arabic voices, that is set in the intellectually vibrant period of Islamic history. (Arabic DVD sales are going through the roof: http://www.ameinfo.com/16693.html).

It must be an atmospheric film, completely immersive, focused on the feel of the times. It must show an ideal vision of that time, inspiring and gripping.

But above all, the film must be calibrated towards the audience, but interesting enough to draw modest earnings here at home.

As for Ibn Rushd, his story must also be carefully calibrated. No matter what we do, however, we should stay true to his philosophy (for one, if they ever get the ability to double-check, we don’t want to kill our message through factual dishonesty). We might even want to make his philosophy the hero, a hero which is ultimately vanquished by the forces of suppression. I think the important thing here is to use public square debate in an almost Socratic way to nudge the audience along through various consciousnesses and their interactions (perhaps the first scene). But buried within this framework (or fleshing it out, however you want to think about it), will be human stories and human archetypes to draw the audience in.

We should write the story with this in mind: 1) we want them to smile, 2) we want to fill them with wonder, 3) we want to make them think, and 4) we want to make them feel.

For these reasons, we first need to understand the audience as they are, in addition to how they were. We would need cultural, historical, philosophical, and religious experts (or just us) to put together a story that works for the audience. We need to know the soil if we are to cultivate a viable flower.

Theme:

There is more to Islam.

There is more to life.

There is more to the world.

There is more to the universe.

There is a better way.

Once you get that down thematically, I have some suggestions to get us to the next step.

One of the things I think we need to nail is Averroes’s curiosity. His access to libraries and information, the long days of reading and writing, the debates in the public square, the careful study of heavenly bodies will all be central plot devices.

Another thing we need to nail is Averroes’s love of life: his love and affinity for justice (the central Islamic virtue) and his devotion to his God, towards whom he feels unendingly grateful for the beauty of the world and his ability to be a part of it. Beauty will be a theme, its virtue and its rareness.

Women will obviously have to play an important role. I’m not talking about contemporary feminist traits. I’m talking about true and pure feminine Virtue. We should attempt to show the power women wield through their Virtue, in a time when man’s feelings of inadequacy did not lead them to cover it up. Women should be unleashed, if you will, to be truly feminine. We will focus on the challenging nature of this freedom (challenging for men), but also we should show the justice of this. We should have Averroes ask: because men are weak our women should be enslaved? I think not. A true Muslim would not enslave his women because of his own weaknesses. He would, instead, master his weaknesses.

Barbarians (Europeans) should play a role. Averroes should have discussions about them, maybe even visit a slave yard, and talk about how sad it is that they are so backwards. The subtle jab here will be that, in these discussions, Averroes will aver why they are backwards. When he tags the concept "backwardness" to familiar traits, it will create what can only be a beneficial impression on the audience. They will think, “Hey, we taught those damn Europeans how to behave. Why did we devolve so?” Of course, their thoughts will be less articulate. But the effect on their behavior should be the same. The barbaric traits Averroes condemns should resemble behaviors that so trouble Islam now (hyper-religiosity, sloth, uncuriousness, mistreatment of women).

We will have to show Averroes’s initiative, and his struggle with himself and with his contemporaries--‘individual initiative’ and ‘struggle’ being other central themes in this story. To pull this off we will need, at least, overbearing religious authorities as characters, scared of losing their turf and power, who in the end pervert or suppress Averroes’s writings so as to control the uneducated crowds. In the end they close down the schools, and start indoctrinating the youth to serve their own interests. “School” and “Education” being another theme.

The tension will flow from Averroes’s true faith, which is a celebration of life through personal discipline and structure, as he struggles against the cynical fundamentalism of the Ash'arite theologians (Mutakallimun), who only offer a perversion of life through a mechanism of control. The “structure” and ‘discipline’ here is the religious discipline of the self: a striving for enlightened happiness, through the exercise of mind, body, and soul. Our story will show how Islam gives one the strength of discipline and self-control through routine and focus. This allows the mind to be elevated, which in turn is used to better understand and appreciate the world Allah has blessed us with. [Insofar as it meshes with Islamic scripture and thought, we need to really focus on why Islam gives one strength, as a way of showing what things Islam should not be used for. In this way we will characterize Islam as way to control the baser urges, a way to gain true freedom by becoming a Man, who can be moral and happy, instead of a beast, in thrall to its passions. Once one becomes a Man, rising above the beast, one can appreciate the true beauty of the world.] Philosophy and Art will be therefore be the highest endeavors of Man.

The religious theme will focus on the raising up of individual virtuous man--preparing oneself against the trials of the world, strength against the wickedness of evil men--and the suppressing or minimizing of the intemperate and pitiful beast that lives inside him. It will show that external control is not true virtue, because it is always vulnerable to being manipulated by evil men. Only through self-control and personal morality can a society reach virtue. “Temperance” and “Serenity”.

And so on. We still need an intriguing story arc, intriguing characters, and a lot of historical information. The important thing is to make it realistic but magical (magical because we want to inspire ‘wow’, a cool factor, to suck in the kids, who are, if you think about it, the future of Islam), factual yet idealistic, tense but still thoughtful, emotional but also deep—happy in parts, sad in others, but above all moving and satisfying.