From the Christian Science Monitor: "Muslims craft their own video games"
Set to be released in September, "Al-Quraysh" is a strategy game that tells the story of the first 100 years of Islam's history from the viewpoint of four different nations - Bedouins, Arabs, Persians, and Romans.
One can choose to command any of the armies of the four nations or lead the army of the main character, Khaled Ibn Waleed, a Muslim warrior who defeated the Roman and Persian empires and never lost a battle. Or one can play the role of the Bedouin sheikh, who must earn the respect of his tribe. The player has the task of building and protecting trade routes and water sources, building armies, conducting battles, and freeing slaves.
It's just one of several new games produced in the Middle East with the idea that video games, like other media, play a role in shaping young minds and impacting self-esteem. The makers hope "Al-Quraysh," named after the prophet Muhammad's tribe, will help to correct the image of Islam, alleviate tensions with the West, and stoke pride among young Muslims.
Stoke pride? Maybe. But how is the glorification of armed jihad supposed to "correct the image of Islam" and "alleviate tensions?"
One might argue that there are also games that deal with actual American battles, focusing particularly on the Second World War. But these do not glorify incidents in our history in order to incite violence toward German or Japanese people in the present day, and indefinitely into the future. Nor are they attempts to rewrite history, and they're certainly not designed to raise American self-esteem or alleviate "tensions" among nations.
Here is the mission statement on Damascus-based Afkar Media's website:
To communicate with Mankind all over the world and let them breathe the peaceful truth and tolerance of our civilization, as a way to face up the negative stereotypes that have been pursuing us throughout the past decades.
To communicate with Moslems in a way that respects their colorful heritage and spiritual privacy as a way to get them out of the shell they were put in and enrich the civilization of the 21st century with a touch of justice, acceptance and love.
And the description of the game Quraish:
Quraish is the first Arabic real-time strategy game (RTS)... It is expected to become a hit in all Middle East markets. Quraish game tracks the origin of Islam in the desert of Arabia 590 B.C. through its evolution and growth until it builds a state (caliphate), which defeats the greatest empires of that day and age, Persians and Romans.
Was it "AL JIHAD" the holly [sic] war that makes them conquer? Was is [sic] the tolerance of this spiritual religion? Or is it the willingness of their gifted leaders? Well... you will have the chance to choose it by your self [sic]!
590 B.C., eh? Quite a plot twist.
And by the way, I'm just not feeling the "love." Pac-Man, anyone?
My betting is on the Jihad.
Anyway, as in most things, we Infidels do it better.
http://www.totalwar.com/?lang=en
Those horse archers and mamelukes are a pain in the arse though.
Ahhh nostalgia!!! That nonexistent time(for most of us) when everything went as planned and the heavens opened up in front of you!!
A real pity that the present west is just as divided and just as stupid as they were then and this time with a fifth column already in place.
Let them have their game. it may be as close as they get.
We can hope
QueeQueeg my son says that Rome Total War and its follow up is as good as you will get re strategic games. A real pity that the barabarian invasions do not offer an Islamic extension ( or do they I asked him and he said "no" but he doesn't have it)
Yes, with the community realism mods (Rome Total War was a historical mess - pharaonic Egypt at the same time as roman legions being the most egregious mistake) it's a superb game, without the much of the 'gamey' feel of other real time strategy games.
The original medieval total war features the Almohads, Egyptians and Turks as playable factions. You also get to boot their sorry arses out of Spain and resist the temptation to sack Constantinople, if that floats your boat :)
http://www.foehammer.net/2006/05/dhimmitude-for-american-kids-coming.html
It's the same strategy as is being used elsewhere, but by the same demographic.
Appeal and blind the youth of the West and you shall create more converts and witless allies, yes, go forth jihadists and create more propaganda with a bubblegum lure....
"The player has the task of building and protecting trade routes and water sources, building armies, conducting battles, and freeing slaves".
When did they "protect trade routes"
When did they "free slaves"
Obviously they think if they repeat a lie enough,
to a young enough audience then they can gloss over what their religion really is.
Quraish game tracks the origin of Islam in the desert of Arabia 590 B.C. through its evolution and growth until it builds a state (caliphate), which defeats the greatest empires of that day and age, Persians and Romans
You know, I see a couple of real problems - or maybe benefits - here. Of course we all know that Islam had its origins not in 590 BC/BCE but about the same year AD/CE. Islam never once fought the Roman Legions. (The Roman Empire collapsed just before 500 AD/CE) That would have been the - um, JEWS. Masada. Bar Kochba. Even Christ himself. Documented over and over by historians of the time from many lands in a number of languages in works that still exist.
More to the point, however, are those Persians. If you recall your geography, these days we call Persia "Iran." Persia has had a very long and proud pre-Islamic history. They were the Parthians, Rome's bitterest enemy in Asia Minor. I suspect that making "Persia" the enemy is going to divide the Islamic world rather than unite it. Today's Persians have surely not forgotten their own history entirely - and I suspect will not be pleased at their subjugation in this game.
But back to those video games. One that has always bothered me is Final Fantasy VII, which clearly and unequivically labels the "heroes" terrorists (their own words).
BTW, you might recognize the name of the best known Roman Era Arab. Herod was a Roman collaborator who certainly did nothing whatever to overthrow the Romans that kept him in power.
From my distant reading the caliphate were the main source of both Mediterranean vandalism and piracy. They effectively ravaged ALL coasts from the time of the building of the first Muslim fleet at Alexndria in the 7th century until the RN and the USN finally destryoed them totally in the 19th century. They even invaded and sacked the Vatican in 800AD when it was full of treasures to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the birth of JC.
It is my impression that the ravages of the muslim fleets did much to hamper or destroy civilisation along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and so effectively that there was no really organised resistance in this area for some 700 years and that the west was so hamstrung by this constant naval bleeding of resources(people for slaves, gold and grain for loot and what they could not carry away they destroyed or killed) that unity was impossible as resources and communications were so vulnerable..
So I make the contention that the above depradations effectively reduced any chance of an organised western resistance to Islam anywhere in the Mediterranean and that it was an Islamic sea up until the 17 century and anyone foolish to sail south of Sicily took a large risk. This was not by accident but a function of the islamic jihad strategy and in action well before the crusades which is supposedly the first time we hear of jihad.
The fact that the first nonByzantine organised state to aggressively take up the sword vs islam: the Franks, was a northen European state is NO accident and nor was it that most of the crusades were fueled by northerners. The Muslims had made a very effective job of reducing the south to a series of defended enclaves almost impotent in their capacity to do more than just defend their cities and barely capable of defending their trading fleets in the open sea.
How wrong am I here? Any real historians out there?
Are we reaching just a little bit here? It's a video game guys. What's wrong with another culture putting out a video game from a default cultural perspective that isn't "us." I'd probably give the game a play. (I love me some Rome: Total War, alas if only I could take my Romano-Greek Army all the way to China...).
I think you give the game too much credit. While I don't believe in Huntington's Clash, we ARE involved in a war of memes. I suppose you could consider this game a battle in our memetic war, but in my opinion it only exists as such in your perception of it. It's a game targeting a demographic.
I'd like to see more of that sort of thing. I was really disappointed to find out that DnD players in China were using Greyhawk as a setting. I was hoping they'd use a fantasy-China backdrop or something.
Curious that rpg's don't sell well in Islamic countries...
Zathras, you are not too far off base, though the situation was much more fluid/sporadic I think. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed just before 500 AD/CE the cities in the heart of the empire were left to fend for themselves and those cities never again unified as a single country until the modern era. Unification remained in the Eastern/Byzantine portion of the old Roman Empire and arose quite early on in Northern Europe.
The Mediterranean - especially the part of the Mediterranean nearest to Gibraltar - was certainly controlled by the Caliphate in North Africa/Spain from the time of the Crusades (so about 1000 AD/CE) until 1492. Remember that year. We know it as the year that Columbus discovered America, but more importantly, that is the year that the combined forces of Ferdinand and Isabella forced the Moslem invaders of the Spanish peninsula back to North Africa.
Everyone educated in the West learns early on about the great European maritime explorers. Much less well known is the impetus behind that exploration. In 1453 the Moslems over-ran Constantinople and gained control of the Western end of the ancient trade routes from the East into Europe. They then immediately shut off trade between Asia and Europe - no spices, no silk, etc. That was THE impetus behind the European search for a sea route to Asia and ultimately the discovery and colonization of the New World.
The Straights of Gibralter and environs remained a hazard for sea farers until shortly after the War of 1812 fought between the US and Britain. From the earliest days of the US the Barbary Pirates had demanded tribute payments from the US to "protect" our Mediterranean trade. In 1784 alone the US Congress authorized the payment of $60,000. As demands for tribute increased, American patience decreased. Finally in 1815 the American Navy and Marines defeated the Barbary Pirates at Tripoli. (That is where the line "to the shores of Tripoli" comes from in the Marine's Hymn). The US never again paid tribute, though EU nations continued to pay into the 1830s.
The Barbary Pirates, BTW, roamed far and wide, invading as far north as Greenland and Iceland.
More about the Barbary Pirates here
seevargr, I agree that this is not necessarily a huge cause for alarm. Virtually all of the historically based rpg (and I use the word historical rather lightly) are based only on the very thinnest veneer of fact. And truth be told, I am not so sure that this game might not cause more divisions within the Moslem world rather than lead to further anti-western unification.
There is a segment of the population virtually anywhere that becomes so immersed in some rpgs that life almost stops. Witness "Evercrack" as it is commonly termed. One of my children tells the story of an acquaintance who became so involved in the game that she literally forgot to eat, often for more than a day at a time. When confronted by friends, she claimed that she had just eaten. In reality her Everquest character had just been fed.
Well I'll take Resident Evil series anyday. It is fun to walk the dark streets, and fun walking in dark corridors, the weapons are fine, especially when playing in Rookie mode (unlimited ammo), and the enemy is what we face in our real lives.
We have some real good RPG material here. Possibly an extension for Rainbow Six
-link to Jihadwatch.org
-coupon for the "Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam"
Rescue/counter terrorism missions:
-expel/eliminate the jihadis from the tropical islands, free the villagers
-free the "infidel" slaves from the petty-caliph slave camps
-jihadis trying to stone an 8 year old girl
-jihadis trying to hang a woman for defending herself against gang-rapists
-Sky Marshal shoots jihadis trying to hijack a plane
-INS agents root out and expel, seditious professors, malfeasant politicians, demographic welfare-fraud jihadis.
-fight and win the propaganda/information war
-"abort the petty-caliphate"
Q: "How is the glorification of armed jihad supposed to "correct the image of Islam" and "alleviate tensions?"
A: To show Muslims and the rest of us, that they aren't the all time losers that all the evidence shows they are.
gallopinggranny...thank you but my point may have lost in my prolixity.
It was that the Muslim naval depredations in the Mediterranean(I know that they went elsewhere) were directly responsible for the failure of any really organised resistance from those christian states who had Mediterranean coastline and that this was SO effective that any real resistnace had to wait until those northern European states were both strong enough and organised enough to finally be capable of striking back: a process which took some 400 years.
By organised resistance I do NOT mean simple defensive actions as the Byzantines had been doing this for 500 years with no real chance of regaining lost ground. I mean an organised resistance which was CAPABLE of regaining those former christian states invaded and occupied by Islam. ie like the crusades.
The failure of the crusades to keep (their gains and logistically it was not surprising without a really constant and strong naval presence) and the subsequent dropping of the crusade "hot potatoe" led directly to the fall of Constantinople and the invasion of SE Europe. The only reason Spain was successfully liberated was because Islam had problems elsewhere and once thrown across the straits of Gibraltar they never again had the strength to recross and anyway their direction now was into the "soft underbelly of Europe"(apologies to WC).
However from Gibraltar to Alexandria it was an Islamic lake and heaven help anyone foolish to think that because they lived in a seaside town in southern France or Greece or even Italy that they were safe from islamic pirates. Only highly defended seaside towns were safe and any craft not capable of defending itself was fair game.
This effectively stopped any state in Europe with a large mediterranean border from becoming strong enough to clear the seas as trade was virtually impossible. If I remember Venice with its very good position at the top of teh Adriatic sea the first but it took some 500 years before it could even keep the Adriatic clear of pirates.
This creation of an islamic Sea is in total keeping with islamic attitudes towards infidels and the continuation of war by any means and was what stopped Christian retaliation until the crusades and for a long time after they ceased.
Up until the 19th century western shipping was still being attacked by either islamic pirates or pirates under the protectio of Islamic countries and many thousands were taken in slavery even in the 19th century when islam was supposedly ebbing.
I agree with you on many points Zathras. Where we differ is that you seem to be saying that it was Moslem sea power that prevented Mediterranean European cities and states from resisting. You may be partly correct. On the other hand, it was the divisions and disunity between the European cities/states themselves that allowed Moslem sea power to arise in the first place.
Look at the ultimate fall of Constantinople - a battle that would never have been lost had Western Europe heeded the call for reinforcements.
From the very beginning, the Moslem strength has been their ability to present a united front "for the good of the umah (sp?)" to accomplish their goal of world domination.
And from the very beginning our Achilles Heel is our ability to allow ourselves to be divided over peripherals - which Pope shall rule, whose interpretation of the Bible is best, politics, French "honor," who insulted who the most recently ad nauseum, right down through the centuries to this very day.
Grand Theft Ottoman.
Quraish game tracks the origin of Islam in the desert of Arabia 590 B.C. through its evolution and growth until it builds a state (caliphate)
Ah just think of the possibilities, you can deliberately quash Islam before it even starts, and kill Mohammed on every level.
GG....I agree totally that it was our constant disunity and the egotistical myopia of whoever was the local tyrant that undermined us compared with the Muslims.
However what I am trying to say(and very badly I am afraid) is that until the 7th century all of the west was dependent upon the Mediterranean shipping trade and the whole success of the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans etc was based upon their control of the Mediterranean shipping. This is why all of the great western civilsations up until the 7th century were there.
However after the 7th century the islamic pirates turned "our sea" into a sterile lake and ALL states who depended upon this trade withered and either died or were severely weakended. When you add this to the constant razza attacks upon almost ALL Mediterrnaean coastal communities from Spain to Asia minor and the subsequent depletion of both human and trade resources by this made the development of a strong organised states impossible in that region.
Thus it was only when those northern european states who were out of the range of the razzas and who had been just primitive backwaters in the late empire became large enough to be capable of some strong resisiatnce to islam that western civilisation could rekindle the embers into a flame once again. ie the islamic depredations forced western civilisation to migrate to the north to survive, re-organise and eventually flourish and it was this burgeoning power from the north that spread back to the south and enabled the freeing of calabria and sicily etc.
To put it in a nutshell...Islamic pirates closed the mediterranean and forced western civilastion to move north to survive and thrive and that this trade castration of the southern states was what caused a virtual dark age in Europe until the light of intellect could be relit in the north and this took 500 years. So NO crusade was possible at all until this occurred.
I do believe that this was no accident as it was a direct military attempt to successfully weaken and undermine all nonIslamic mediterranean powers and it worked. The crusades when they di occur were a real shock as the Muslims had expected that their strategy would work indefinitely and it did not as the power in western Europe spread to the north and stayed there out of reach until the invasion of SE Europe by the turks.
Must get to bed
good night!!
Actually Zathras, I don't think you're saying anything badly, just coming from a different perspective.
Re Mediterranean Europe & the Fall of Rome, we should remember that Rome fell almost entirely because of it's "welfare state." Taxes in the Roman Empire became so burdensome that the economy literally collapsed. The roads could no longer be repaired, the armies could no longer be paid, the starving people no longer supported their government. The closer one was to Rome itself, the deeper the rot. With the collapse of Rome itself came the collapse of the entire concept of nationhood. Every man, city, state for itself.
Seems to me that the EU might do well to remember that these days.
"Grand Theft Ottoman."
-Television at June 8, 2006 12:33 PM
What, you get points running around stealing footstools?
That is one very witty headline, "Grand Theft Civilization" lol
There is so much truth in that, condifering Islams "conquest" by the sword
I used to be an avid player of the game Civ, which had upto 7 tribes battling to be the #1 civilization of the world. Civ II had several scenarios, including one called Jihad, where Mohammed takes on the Byzantines, the Persians, the Visgoths, the Franks and the Indians. There was also one of Mongols, where the Mongols take on the Turks, the Egyptians, and a bunch of other tribes.
The above game looks similar, but in the interests of Islamic correctness, get rid of the Alpha Centauri mode where building a spaceship and launching it ahead of the others makes one the winner. Make it a deathmatch, and while at it, why restrict it to Bedouins, Arabs, Persians, and Romans? Have all the Islamic empires that existed in history, so that one can choose - Mamluks, Arabs, Turks, Safavids, Moghuls, Afghans, Moors, et al. In fact, make it a pure game by not having Infidels in it at all, and just have Muslims fighting other Muslims.
One of the things about some simulation games is that it preps one for real life battles. While this isn't true about Civ, once Muslims get used to the idea of fighting each other, we can hopefully see wars across the Islamic world. Imaging Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbegistan and Kyrghiztan going to war with the Arab league, or Iran & Tajikistan going to war with Pakistan/Afghanistan.
"nor was it that most of the crusades were fueled by northerners."
Oh were they? It took Spain almost 800 years to kick the Moors out. Felipe II of Spain (and the Venetians, let us not forget them) was also the main contributor to the victory of Lepanto.
Portugal spent the first 100 years as an independent country fighting the Moors in her own land, and when she achieved that goal she spent the next 500 years fighting the Muslims in North Africa, East Africa and in India. For the record, we only left North Africa in the XVIII (!)century, and we were the first Europeans to conquer a North African city since the Byzantines.
Venice kept on fighting the Turks all the way to the XVII century.
Shall I mention Greece? How about the Albanian hero "Skanderberg" Kastrioti?
Northerners fueled the Crusades? Give me a break! For your people it was tourism, for mine it was a way of life for hundreds of years.
Television. YES!
seevargr said
It's kind of a one-sided "war", wouldn't you say? There are movies or tv shows that hint at the existence of Islamic jihad (see "The Siege" with Denzel Washington, or "Flight Plan" with Jodi Foster, or "24" with Keifer Sutherland), but in each case it turns out that the real villain, if you'll just be open-minded enough to look past the Islamic characters, is the evil white caucasian males, the ones you thought you could trust.
Are there any games out there by non-Islamic groups that portray the battle against Islamic jihadists? Would that be an acceptable meme in today's society?
But of course, there is no problem with an Islamic group making a game glorifying Arab imperialism.
Personally, I like my video games to have as little to do with reality, past or present, as possible. But what would be fitting tribute to the 7th-century backwardness enshrined in the mujahid mindset would be making Quraish as an '80s-style side-scroller:
Super Mohammedan Bros.
"nor was it that most of the crusades were fueled by northerners."
Oh were they? It took Spain almost 800 years to kick the Moors out. Felipe II of Spain (and the Venetians, let us not forget them) was also the main contributor to the victory of Lepanto.
Ah, cruzado, one of the things I most dislike about the net is that it can be so hard to communicate without seeing the people you are "speaking" to.
Zathras certainly did not intend to detract from the history of the brave Spanish and Portuguese. His point was that the territory that had been siezed by the Moors and the area bordering the Mediterranean was so under siege from the North African pirates that they had their hands full simply defending themselves and trying to recover their own territory, that no concerted attempt to retake the Holy Lands occurred until those in areas more removed - the French, the Germans, the English - became involved.
Greece was still fighting the Turks within my lifetime :) Actually, as I recall they may still technically be at war over Cypress.
Cruzado as gg said I was not trying to denigrate anyone else or assume a nordic/anglosaxon superiority thing about those civilisations in the north which provided the main thrust for the crusades.
I am well aware that the Spanish had their hands full in regaining their own territory and that the Byzantines struggled to control their own immediate area and that the greeks and venetians did likewise BUT none had the strength in either gold, arms or men to start the huge and necessarily expensive push to regain conquered lands until the northerners joined in.
This destruction of nonIslamic mediterranean trade by the Muslims IMHO was NO accident but part of standard jihadic strategy to cripple opposing states and it WORKED
To myself it is PROOF that the jihadic concept was in action well before the crusades as it means in fact that even though no state of war existed between islamic nations and these states ("oh they are pirates..not our fault" :)) the nonislamic states were effectively crippled and made incapable of resisting with NO cost to islam and in fact with considrable gain in loot and slaves. This is TYPICAL jihadic deceit and quiet cunning in its conception.
It also means that at NO time in history has any nonMuslim state been capable of trusting any islamic state as even when they are not at war it is still being waged as per the koran.