Throughout history, the persona of the pulpit preacher has been a significant religious and social symbol, bearing the responsibility of guiding the community and raising awareness about religious and worldly matters. The pulpit is considered the platform where the preacher or religious speaker stands to deliver the message of Islam to the people and explain its rules and teachings.
Since the emergence of the first pulpit in Islam—the pulpit of our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)—the pulpit has not been confined to religious and devotional guidance alone. It has also been a symbol of authority and leadership, a center for knowledge and learning, and a guide for people during critical times.
In artistic works, especially cinema and drama, this character has been widely utilized by those controlling cultural institutions and media organizations, most of whom are secularists in their relentless efforts to fight religion by distorting its symbols, turning them into objects of ridicule and mockery.
Those controlling the production of artistic works aim to distort the image of the preacher so that he appears to the public as a negative figure, untrustworthy, or a laughingstock, or a bad example concerned only with pursuing pleasures and indulgences. This opens the door wide for attacking religious individuals with insinuations and ridicule.
The first appearance of the pulpit in cinematic works was in the film “Sheikh Hassan,” an Egyptian film produced in 1952, starring Hussein Sidqi. The film tells the story of an interfaith love affair. Despite some criticisms of the film, it succeeded significantly in positively portraying the pulpit and the religious figure who stands upon it.
Sidqi embodied the character of a highly positive and influential Azharite sheikh, who enjoins good and forbids evil, preaches to the congregation, and discusses some marriage rulings in Islam. He highlighted the hidden beauties of the religion, emphasizing values of equality and justice in marital relationships, citing Quranic ayahs and prophetic hadiths. He invited his Christian wife to Islam by showcasing its beauties and intrinsic values aligned with human nature, correcting many misconceptions about Islam, and bringing the correct concepts closer to the general public. He endeared the estranged segment to the Arabic language and wisely addressed societal issues, fighting against innovations like wailing over the dead, rebuking weed smokers, and establishing the principle that a virgin should not be married off without her consent, contrary to the prevailing custom at the time where a man could force his daughter, virgin or previously married, into marriage.
When the film “They Made Me a Criminal” was released, the image of the pulpit was not as strong as in “Sheikh Hassan.” However, the genius shot of Farid Shawqi embracing the pulpit conveyed a powerful and direct message about the role of the pulpit and the mosque in a Muslim's life, alongside the symbolism reflected in the scene concerning the concept of sin and repentance in Islam.
There are very few examples in Arab cinema and drama, especially Egyptian, that positively portray the pulpit and those who ascend it. Among the most notable are “Sheikh Hassan,” “They Made Me a Criminal,” and “Something from Fear,” where the religious figure represented the living conscience and true awareness of religious values confronting injustice and tyranny.
The beauty of this particular film lies in its emphasis on the importance of the Friday prayer as a regular meeting point to discuss the affairs of Muslims, educating them about what benefits and harms them. It also highlights the issue of forced marriage, considering it not just an individual problem but a threat to the safety of society as a whole.
Offensive Works
Apart from the aforementioned works and a few others, the pulpit has been portrayed negatively in most Arab dramatic and cinematic works. For instance, in “Nasser 56” writer Mahfouz Abdel Rahman and director Mohamed Fadel depicted the film's protagonist, who plays the role of Abdel Nasser, delivering a speech from the pulpit, turning it into a politicized tool serving the leader.
Producers have distorted the image of the pulpit preacher in many of their films. In “El Qarmouti in the Land of Fire,” the preacher is shown as a ridiculous, contradictory character, inviting ridicule and mockery.
In “Matab Sena'y,” the Friday preacher speaks in colloquial dialect, interrupts the sermon to chat with the congregation, and, even if his content is correct, the film director deliberately portrays him in a way that repels people from preachers and religious speakers, diverting them from contemplating the importance of the Friday sermon and its essential messages, focusing instead on trivial matters like “mobile phone ringtones.”
In “The President's Chef,” the preacher is shown as a hypocrite who talks about the need for the ruler to apply justice among the people, just like Umar ibn al-Khattab did, but flatters the ruler when he finds him among the worshipers. The film aims to highlight the preachers as cowards and hypocrites.
In “The Terrorist,” Lenin El-Ramly deliberately distorts the image of the religious person in general, especially preachers and speakers. The preacher is depicted as a gloomy, evil-spirited, and repulsive character. This is evident not only in the visual scenes of the film “The Terrorist” but also in the sermon that the film's civilized protagonists listen to on a cassette tape, where the preacher sternly warns and threatens, invoking laughter and ridicule.
The preacher and speaker are depicted as reckless, not considering the consequences when he ventures alone to the outlaws in the mountains without protection. He is also shown as naïve in another scene and manipulative in a third, as portrayed by the creators of “The Clever Understands.” He is the coward and laughingstock in “The Ant's Scream” because he enthusiastically climbs the pulpit to deliver a sermon to a single worshiper, and the content of the sermon is praying for the security officers standing at the mosque doors. He is the bohemian weed smoker in “El-Kit Kat,” the ignorant thug in the series “Ghamam's Island,” and the preacher exploiting religion for fame as in “Mawlana.”
Arab Drama
The distortion of the pulpit and its preacher is not confined to Egyptian drama and artistic works. In Sudan, the character of “Sheikh Rifai,” the imam of the mosque in the Sudanese series “Wad Al-Malik,” is shown as a deviant, suggesting that people will not learn anything beneficial from a Friday preacher obsessed with women and driven by his desires.
In one of the most famous Syrian drama series, “Bab Al-Hara 12,” instead of depicting the preacher and religious speaker as a central figure in society and a role model, he is shown flirting with a woman, reinforcing the idea that religious men suffer from sexual obsessions, concerned only with their personal interests, desires, and whims, posing a real threat to the society they live in, making it necessary to avoid them.
In conclusion, the persona of the pulpit preacher in Arab artistic works has suffered much deliberate distortion and harm, in response to the wave of insinuation and denigration of Allah's religion, the distortion of Sharia, and the undermining of preachers and speakers in the eyes of the public. Therefore, collective efforts are required from everyone, starting from preachers and speakers, writers and intellectuals, to Islamic organizations, to highlight the significance of the pulpit and its orators as a means of the Ummah’s renaissance, a tool for raising awareness among Muslims, guiding people's minds, nurturing their hearts, the voice that brings people back to their Creator, and a constant reminder of their mission.
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