Music, Perceptions of Muslims and the Little Big Planet Delay
by Guest Contributor Shawna, originally published at Islam On My Side
Recently, the Little Big Planet PS3 release was delayed. This peeved many, including my husband, who had pre-ordered it and eagerly anticipated its arrival. The next day, it came out that the delay was due to the presence of Qur’an verses within one of the songs in the game. The song was written by an Emmy winning Muslim musician who explains that it’s normal in his home country (Mali) to include Qur’an or words of the Prophet (pbuh) in music in order to show the inspiration of Islam. Sony decided to strip the song from the game instead of risking offense. They’ve been through this before with the Catholic church. No need to reenter the arena.
What surprised many was the response by the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. On their behalf, M. Zuhdi Jaffer, M.D. released the following in a statement:
“Muslims cannot benefit from freedom of expression and religion and then turn around and ask that anytime their sensibilities are offended that the freedom of others be restricted. The free market allows for expression of disfavor by simply not purchasing a game that may be offensive. But to demand that it be withdrawn is predicated on a society which gives theocrats who wish to control speech far more value than the central principle of freedom of expression upon which the very practice and freedom of religion is based.
“…We [the AIFD] do not endorse any restriction whatsoever on the release of this videogame but would only ask those with concerns to simply choose not to buy it. We would hope that the producer?s decision not be made in any way out of fear but rather simply based upon freedom of expression and the free market.”
The creators of Little Big Planet stated that they made the decision to remove the song because the game is meant to be for everyone, and if the song’s presence will disenfranchise as many people as it seems might be offended by it’s presence, it should go. From the message boards:
LittleBigPlanet will be remastered in order to remove a track from the game that contained two expressions found in the Qur’an. Whilst shorter expressions from the Qur’an are sometimes used in nasheeds, we are aware that the mixing of musical instruments with recognisable extracts from the Qur’an is offensive to Muslims. Therefore, we have taken immediate action to rectify this. We will confirm a new launch date shortly.
By far, the most interesting aspect of this issue is the glimpse you can get into the world of gaming by reading through the message thread started by the gamer who first brought the Qur’anic quotation to Sony’s attention. Non-Muslim readers are confused as to why the inclusion is considered offensive. There is an attempt to explain, but mostly there is a push to keep from discussing religion within the thread. Commenters mostly express the hope that the game won’t be delayed.
This is not what I’m used to seeing on message boards. Here, for the most part, is a very respectful conversation. One person observed:
I also don’t understand what is so offensive about it. At the end of the day it must be only extremist/hardcore religeous people who could get offended by lyrics in songs of this nature.
Surely extremists from any religion will always find something to complain about in video games, whether it’s violent content, sexual content, swearing etc, etc, etc. There is no point in pandering to them because once you start changing games for little things like this we will all be left just playing pacman, even then there will probably be some obscure Religion that will complain about that! As long as a game is not trying to be deliberately offensive to a Religion, like have you running around headbutting baby Jesus or something, then I don’t see what the problem is
Like any game, surely the answer is simple, if you don’t like it, don’t play it, but stop trying to be spoil sports and going off on missions to prevent other people from playing games just because they don’t fit into your view of life or religious preferences. This is not aimed at the op, just a general observation that whether it’s Religous groups, Politicians, Lawyers, Parental groups etc, there is always someone whinging on about games!
Interestingly, the end concerns of this debate are that 1) players angered over the delay will just create anti-Muslim levels; and 2) the divide between Muslims and non-Muslims will become more pronounced over this issue. So, ultimately, gamers are concerned for the way the reception of the song combined with the delay of the game will affect Muslim-non-Muslim relations.
I think this is a great study of the counter-fear culture that has arisen in response to the last seven years of Islamophobia. It also gives a more well-rounded view of Muslims–there are those that care, those that don’t, and those that ride the line. As for non-Muslims, there are those that are suppotive, those that hate Islam, and those who ride the line.
The game has since been released. I think it’s as fun as people hoped. I know my husband is enjoying it, as are other Muslims around the world.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Mammith wrote:
As an avid gamer who loves LittleBigPlanet, I’ve seen many threads about this whole affair on numerous message forums.
I noted that many of the people who said they were Muslim were either of the opinion it was a lot of fuss over nothing or that the song in question could be fixed using a post-game patch, rather then delaying it.
Gaming culture tends to be almost completely focused on straight, white, male and Christian (though not exclusively as a lot of non-gamers believe), dissenting opinion is usually not heard. Though to be honest I saw a lot less people being idiots then I expected.
Me personally? The game was delayed for two weeks at most, I think some people overreacted.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 10:11 am ¶
Sobia wrote:
Is this a catch-22 situation? In trying not to offend Muslims they’ve lumped us all together as one.
“we are aware that the mixing of musical instruments with recognisable extracts from the Qur’an is offensive to Muslims”
Not to all. In fact, I’ve heard this in songs in Pakistan (especially qawallis). For many Muslims this is not an issue. Mixing Qur’anic verses with music happens all the time. Many Muslims do not believe that music is forbidden.
What could be offensive though is the mixing of Qur’anic verses with violence in the video game. Considering Muslims and Islam already are bashed enough, pairing verses from the Qur’an with violence could easily be seen as a message on violence in Islam.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 11:55 am ¶
Some Guy wrote:
I choose to focus on the positive, that (1.) Muslim references were initially included with respectful intent, (2.) at least some of the game designers considered the risk of offending adherents of the faith, and (3.) at least some of the latter said it wouldn’t be a problem. These are good things. I am pleased.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 12:17 pm ¶
Billy wrote:
Not to worry about violence. This is one of the most non-violent games out there. You can slap another player, but it is really more of a play slap than a fight slap. Otherwise, it is all about teamwork, fun, physics and creativity.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 12:21 pm ¶
Billy wrote:
What would be really interesting, beyond the song lyrics bit, would be to look at representations of race and gender in user-generated costumes for sackboy and sackgirl.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 12:23 pm ¶
RJG wrote:
The reason this didn’t shock me was that stuff like this has never been a real new thing. The fact that it was about Muslims this time around is just the new way this happens.
I remember forever-ever ago when a ton of NES/SNES games had to have certain parts reworked when being released in the US because of references to Christianity (be it a phrase or a graphic of a cross or whatever).
The old Final Fantasy games had to do things like have the word “Holy” just removed from a lot of spell names (replaced with White or Pearl or whatever), Churches were renamed Clinics, all references to prayer were usually taken out… etc.
That said, there are things like this going on beyond Muslim faith even now. Fallout 3 was canceled in India due to the fact that it could likely offend people (the assumption I’ve seen circulating is that having two headed radioactive cows that you can decide to kill could come off as pretty offensive).
It’s also not really just religious. Some portions of the game are going to be tweaked/removed in the Japanese market. The game has this nuclear-bomb bazooka called Fat Man, which will be renamed, and I think a mission where you can choose to set off a nuclear bomb and kill a city of people is being outright removed.
This doesn’t even scratch the surface of what the Christian market generally still frowns upon. People just tend to care a little less about offending extreme-end Christians these days, as the focus swayed to the extreme-ends of other religions.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 1:46 pm ¶
Ike wrote:
This is unnecessary. I guess I see where Sony’s coming from. They’ve got muslim buyers around the world, but still… they’re trying to be too “PC.” I wasn’t really surprised by the American Islamic Forum for Democracy’s response. American muslims are more moderate than the muslims you find abroad (in the middle east)… most times.
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 3:41 pm ¶
Muhammad wrote:
I am a Muslim and the Qur’an is sacred to me – I am glad people are respecting that. Someone commented that they’ve heard Qur’anic verses with music before, and it happens all the time; that doesn’t make it OK. I resent the comments made about Sony trying to be ‘too PC’, it’s never too PC to care about other peoples feelings. Lastly, I hope everyone enjoys the game!
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 10:08 pm ¶
cm wrote:
are you kidding me… they pulled a TOUMANI DIABETE song! what about offending him? what about offending those muslims for whom music is an integral part of their expression of faith??? are they not worthy of sony’s respect and consideration?
Posted 01 Dec 2008 at 10:39 pm ¶
Sobia wrote:
@ Muhammad:
“that doesn’t make it OK”
No it doesn’t. But it also means that many Muslims don’t believe its wrong either. Its tough when companies try to be PC. That’s why I said earlier it’s almost a catch-22. In trying to be PC and not offensive they actually sent the message that all Muslims are the same.
@Billy:
Thanks for the information.
Posted 02 Dec 2008 at 12:10 am ¶
rufustfyrfly wrote:
I’m still confused about why this is portrayed solely as Sony ‘caving to extremist Muslims’ or somesuch. There are plenty of right-wing Christians in the US who would probably get bent out of shape about it, too (albeit for different reasons).
Posted 02 Dec 2008 at 3:14 am ¶
Fatemeh wrote:
Co-sign with Sobia!
Posted 02 Dec 2008 at 12:58 pm ¶