UFO Cults Are a Universal Language

UFO Cults Are a Universal Language Ian Campbell (bio) Jörg Matthias Determann. Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World. I.B. Tauris, 2021. 282 pp. $115 hc, $103.50 ebk. Jörg Matthias Determann, of Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, has given us a well-researched tour, remarkably broad in scope, of different manifestations of sf and extraterrestrial life in the Muslim world writ large, from Morocco all the way to Indonesia. I believe it will serve as a highly useful resource for scholars of sf from the Muslim world in particular and, more generally, of sf from the developing world, precisely because of its broad definitions of Islam, sf, and extraterrestrial life. Scholars searching for examples of these very different manifestations of sf tropes will be well served by Determann's extensive bibliography and the means by which he situates individual creators and works within larger discourses. After a brief preface, the book is divided into six chapters, each of which addresses a different manifestation of sf or extraterrestrial life in the Islamic world. The first, "Lord of the Worlds," takes the expression rabb al-3álimín, which is the second verse in the Qur'án, as its title and subject. Determann notes the grammatical peculiarity of the word 3álimín [worlds]: it is not the standard plural (3awálim) but rather a plural implying that these worlds have human characteristics. Arabic grammar treats thinking beings—traditionally, humans, angels, and djinn—as separate from nouns representing objects, ideas, or plants and animals. Thus, the notion of different worlds/planets, each with thinking beings of their own, and implicitly subject to the god and laws of the Qur'án, existed in traditional Islamic culture(s) and therefore provides a base from which sf's other worlds can be extrapolated. The text gives examples as diverse as Photoshop collages depicting the ongoing Syrian civil war as an alien invasion, the well-known Syrian sf writer Taleb Omran with his connections to the regime, and the modification for astronauts of Islamic practices such as facing Mecca. Near the end of the chapter, Determann gives an explanation for the breadth of his concept: To avoid excluding influential contributors to the debate about extraterrestrial life, I employ a broad view of science and its culture. I am thus using the term "scientific imagination" to refer to products as different as science fiction films, journal articles in astrobiology and books about UFOs. The "scientific imagination" was not confined to people who would have self-identified as "scientists." ... I am studying not just literary and film history, but also the history of science, and thus intellectual history in a broader sense. I am equally interested in products of scientific and journalistic research, whether mainstream or fringe, as I am in depictions that are explicitly fictional.... I do [End Page 167] not seek to judge the plausibility of their different imaginations. Instead, I am trying to understand the production of different theories and images within their historical contexts. (29-30) Taken on these terms, the subsequent chapters do indeed address the production of different theories and images within their historical contexts. I feel it is important to bring this perspective to the attention of potential readers, because this is what differentiates Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life from most other academic books about literature, broadly defined. Rather than undertaking close readings of a few texts (again, broadly defined) and using the close readings and extant theories to draw the texts into a central thesis, all of which is the work of judgment, Determann is explicitly giving us a broad perspective without such judgment. This enables him to do two things: to include far more texts than a normal book of this length would and to include fringe discourses as subjects of serious study. Moreover, each of the texts mentioned is carefully detailed, with references to both the source text and interviews, reviews, and scholarly sources, so what Determann provides is an excellent secondary source for scholars who wish to undertake closer readings of any of these works. The second chapter, "Missions and Mars," takes as its primary

Art · Astrobiology · Extraterrestrial life · Islam · Linguistics · Literature · Plural · Subject (documents) · Sumerian · Theology · Historical Astronomy and Related Studies · History · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life