The sublime and ridiculous
James Delmgpole
In a craven age of cultural relativism when our children spend more time learning about Ramadan (and Diwali and Yom Kippur and Beltane) than they do about Lent, it strikes me as pushing it to claim that Islam is a much-misunderstood religion which has been unfairly maligned by the ignorant West. Yet such was the bizarre case made by John Casey in the Telegraph the other day; and such, presumably, was the thinking behind BBC 2's decision to stage an Islam UK season this week.
Tragically, I never got to see boxer Prince Naseem's Guide to Islam, nor the programme interviewing seven different Muslims called Ahmed, nor the exclusive trip inside a Birmingham mosque, presented by the Northern lass from the beer advert. But that's OK because the one I did see trumped the lot: Home Front: Islam Special (BBC 2, Wednesday).
The idea — to decorate the north London home of a rather humourless Muslim couple in an Islamic style — was so deliciously contrived and crass that even the traditionally shameless Laurence LlewellynBowen got cold feet. He sussed that the assignment was about as vague as trying to decorate a vicar's home in a Christian style; that the research trip to Morocco was an irrelevance staged purely to get a few pretty location shots; and that his brief had rather less to do with the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed than it did with the desire of a pair of greedy ingrates to get their revolting 1930s hovel tatted up at the BBC's expense so as to rub their neighbours' noses in their good fortune.
Co-presenter Diarmuid Gavin, however, went completely the other way and took everything far, far too seriously. Especially himself. At one point I actually heard him use the phrase: It works on so many different levels.' At another, he bullshitted so extravagantly and at such pompous length that Laurence turned away and said, 'This is all too deep for me.' What he was really saying, of course, in his polite English way, was, 'Oh for fuck's sake, belt up, will you, you pretentious twat. You're a TV gardener, not Bertrand Russell.' And I agree. He's a talented designer, Diarmuid — miles better than Laurence — but if he carries on with these fancy new ways I fear he may have to be sent off for a spell in the peat mines to remind him of his place. Needless to say, the end result (Laurence's interior, anyway) was quite, quite hideous.
Tell you what was good, though: the three-part documentary series, narrated by Ben Kingsley, called Islam: Empire Of Faith (BBC 2. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). Besides being ravishingly shot (gorgeous locations from the Alhambra to the Dome of the Rock; sword-wielding Bedouins galloping through the dust, etc.) it told you grippingly, clearly, intelligently and not (though it must have had hefty Muslim finance) too gushingly everything you needed to know about Islamic history but had been afraid to ask.
I didn't know, for example, that qaaba was Arabic for 'cube' and that, before it became Islam's holiest site, it was the place where the people in Mohammed's tribe kept their disparate graven images. Nor did I know that the chequebook was an Islamic invention.
As for the stuff I did know, well, it was good to be reminded. The fact that the teaching of the Greeks was kept alive during the Dark Ages only thanks to scholars in places like Baghdad's House of Wisdom; that while Christian Europe was plunged in stygian gloom, Muslim Cordova had streetlighting and hot and cold running water; that Muslim doctors were removing cataracts with hollow needles a millennium before the trick was rediscovered in the West; that when Saladin recaptured Jerusalem he refused to follow the example of the unsavoury Crusaders and ordered that the inhabitants should be spared.
By the end you were left in no doubt that Islam is a sublime religion that has inspired many of civilisation's greatest achievements. But I think — pace John Casey — most of us were aware of this anyway. It's not Islam that's the problem. It's the loonies and extremists among those who practise it.
No doubt the same could be said of Christianity. Sadly, Alpha — Will It Change Their Lives? (ITV, Sunday) wasn't on this week, but I would urge connoisseurs of the truly awful to catch it whenever they can. There's just so much over which to writhe in exquisite agony: the cheesy incidental music; David Frost's hamfisted presentation: the fact that it's a commercial pretending to be an objective documentary; the congregation's glazed eyes and sycophantic laughter as the Alpha cult leader, Revd Nicky Gumbel, cracks another lame joke: the ineffable Gumbel himself, with his horrid crinkly hair and horrid white
teeth and his unctuous bonhomie and his glib management-speak masquerading as religious manifesto. Truly this is one of the most fantastically dreadful programmes I have ever had the privilege to see. In its noisome way, it's a masterpiece to be treasured with The Simpsons and The Sopranos. Well done David and Nicky!
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