Broken Frontier

During a signing at SDCC last July, a fan gave me a certain look. He wanted to know if it was all right to ask a question. I could already guess what it was. I told him sure, go ahead.

He asked me whether I follow ‘a more liberal version’ of Islam—one that allows me to write fantasy comics at a time when most people believe Islam is anti-comic, period. I gave him the shop answer: a long-winded oral essay about Islamic literature, citing the poets and storytellers whose imaginations were traditionally indulged. Once upon a time. Before the mess we’re in now. I talked about the Thousand and One Nights, which was too racy for the tight-lipped Victorians who first translated it.

Later, I wondered why I didn’t just tell him what I think: there are no ‘versions’ of the religion. There is only Islam, and 1.3 billion idiots doing their best to follow it. I’m one of them. I may not be the best example—there’s a reason not many saints start out as writers. When society is wounded, a saint comes running with a bucket of salve; a writer, equally fervent, comes with a bucket of salt.

A few weeks earlier, at a brunch in New York, an intellectual-activist Muslim colleague gave me the same look for the same reason. We talked about AIR, and he asked whether I’d gotten any push-back from conservatives. This is our polite way of saying threats from fundamentalists. I told him I’d heard a little grumbling, primarily about Blythe’s skirt. Her premarital relationship too, but mostly the skirt. It came as a surprise to me—here I thought I was starting a conversation about whether or not it’s acceptable to use pagan symbols to make a point about monotheism. Was anybody concerned by the giant winged serpent that shows up in almost every issue? Nope, just the skirt.

There’s a general belief that you can’t stop controversy from springing up around Muslims, yet I couldn’t start one. I was pretty excited about this—it hinted at something I’ve believed for a long time, namely, that there is more room for art among the orthodox than is commonly thought.

The success of THE 99 in the Arab world—a theme park is in the works—was the first encouraging sign that the relationship between Muslims and comics were thawing. Though billed as a comic attenuated to orthodox Islamic beliefs, THE 99 actually goes places I wouldn’t dare: it ascribes the qualities of God to human heroes.

I had a chance to chat with one of Teshkeel Media’s administrators a couple of years ago. She said some nice things about CAIRO, which had just come out, and mentioned pensively that THE 99 was read by a more conservative audience. I bit my lip to keep from asking, Are you sure?

All I do is mess around with the speculative and the fantastic, because I like a nice dose of unreality with my politics. But THE 99 treads on territory over which religion has a direct monopoly.

The fact that a Muslim audience is rooting for characters who represent a non-textual, non-traditional vision of Islam speaks volumes to me. It suggests that traditional Muslims can look at our faith through varied perspectives without feeling threatened. That’s good. That’s art—a skewed look at what we can see, through the lens of what we can’t.