• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Fourteen

Submission:

Part I

This is a transcript of the original document that I took to Theo van Gogh, which he read and proposed that we make into a movie. It was first broadcast on Dutch television in August 2004. On November 2, 2004, Theo van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam.

Submission is about God and the individual. I did not write this script to provoke anyone. As I mentioned in the preface of this book, I wrote it to show the abolutism with which the individual Muslim woman is expected to totally submit herself to God’s will and God’s word as written in the Koran. I wanted to introduce a shift in the relationship between the individual and God, and I wanted this shift to move us from a relationship of total submission to one of dialogue. I chose the structure of the prayer because Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day. That’s why there are five different women praying in five different ways. The sense of the film is of these faithful women who have submitted themselves to God’s will and who are continuing to pray under terrible circumstances as they try to elicit a response from God. They are saying, Look, God, I’ve submitted completely to you, but everything is going wrong. Yet, you, God, remain silent.

This transcript is called Part I because I will write more parts. Again, I will not do this out of any desire to insult or provoke. But I feel that reasonable people and reasonable people of faith must confront Allah with the dilemmas He places us in and requires us to face on earth. Our dilemmas—the dilemmas that men and women face every day—arise directly out of His commands.

Part II will be about four men who have trouble following God’s commands and, like the women of Part I, confront God during prayer with their demands.

In Part III, God will answer.

1. INTRODUCTION

Amina is a dedicated Muslim woman who dutifully adheres to the rules of the Shari’a. She is surrounded by women who are treated cruelly in the name of Allah: they suffer abuse, marital rape, incest, and corporal punishment. These acts of cruelty are justified by verses from the Koran. Amina feels sorry for the victims and identifies with their fate. Every day she turns to Allah and prays fervently for an improvement in their circumstances, but Allah remains silent and the cruelties continue.

One day Amina does something surprising. She does not adhere to the fixed routine of the prayer ritual. After reading the compulsory opening chapter to the Koran she launches into a spontaneous “dialogue” with Allah, instead of subjecting herself to him.

Location: Islamistan [an imaginary country where the majority of the population is Muslim, and where the legal system is the Shari’a].

CAST

Amina:

main character (addressing Allah in prayer)

Aisha:

curled up in fetal position recovering from the pain caused by one hundred strokes of the cane

Safiya:

her experience of sexual intercourse with her husband is as rape

Zainab:

severely bruised, having been beaten up by her husband, who considers her disobedient

Fatima:

wearing a veil, a victim of incest

The five women take up their positions. Amina sits at the center, her head bowed. She gets up, walks over to a prayer rug in front of her, and unrolls it. The rug points in the direction of Mecca. Amina stands at the end of the rug; she faces Mecca. She raises her arms up into the air, with her palms exposed, and shouts “Allahu Akbar.” Then she folds her arms across her chest and places her right hand over her left. Finally she fixes her gaze on the opposite end of the prayer rug. She remains in this position until the Sura Fatiha [The Opening] has been read. When she hears “Aaaammiiin,” she merely lifts up her head and stares into the camera.

1. AISHA, WHO HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO ONE HUNDRED STROKES OF THE CANE.

Amina delivers the speech below, which tells the fate of a woman called Aisha. Meanwhile, the camera slowly moves