Frank Herbert's Dune is often called one of the best science fiction books ever. It talks about power, the environment, and fighting against control in a detailed way. The story is set on a desert planet called Arrakis, where a special spice is important for their space travel society. This planet and its society are similar to places that depend on oil and have dry lands, especially in the Middle East.
Herbert's book has many cultural parts from the Middle East, like words from Arabic and ideas from Islamic beliefs, as well as political struggles. But the movie version by Denis Villeneuve has been criticized for not showing these connections well, making the story lose its special Middle Eastern and Islamic background.
So, what Middle Eastern and Islamic ideas inspired Dune? How do these influences impact the story? And does the absence of these influences in the adaptation affect the storytelling? Let's take a deep dive and find answers to all these questions.
Islamic and Middle Eastern themes have indeed influenced Dune
Herbert's Dune is steeped with Islamic and Middle Eastern influences. These influences were pivotal to the story's framework. Scholars and his son, Brian Herbert, have pointed out how Frank Herbert imbued his universe with "elided Arabic" to achieve linguistic and cultural authenticity.
For instance, the vocabulary borrowed by the Fremen language contains mainly Arabic words and key terms such as "Shai-Hulud" (the sandworms) and "Mahdi" (Paul's messianic title) and mirrors Islamic eschatology. Herbert drew from Islamic history and Bedouin culture in the creation of the Fremen-the desert-dwelling people of Arrakis.
Their survival strategies, including recycling water through still suits, rival the resourcefulness of desert tribes. The idea of jihad, therefore, is not simply some inherent simplistic definition of holy war but reflects anti-colonialist struggle as a form of resistance to imperialism and, hence, a part of the attack on imperialism.
But it was Suleiman Mousa's T.E. Lawrence: An Arab View that informed Herbert's viewpoint. Here, Mousa attacked the Western romanticization of Lawrence of Arabia's adventures in the Middle East, and Herbert reflected such strictures in his story. He presents Paul Atreides as a flawed White savior figure who exploits Fremen culture for personal and political advantage.
As Haris Durrani argued in The Washington Post, Dune engages with Middle Eastern traditions but challenges Western imperialist narratives.
Parallels between Arrakis and the Middle East’s oil economy, as seen in Dune
Herbert's interest in deserts was not just ecological but geopolitical. The spice melange, a substance vital to the world of Dune, is readily able to be seen as an allegory for oil. Like spice, oil is a resource found in arid regions essential to global power structures and a source of conflict.
The spice-rich desert planet Arrakis is analogous to Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, where oil is a source of both prosperity and conflict. Herbert's environmental scientist role also contributed to this allegory. He researched desert ecosystems very widely and recorded that scarcity created resilience.
These observations inspired not just the ecology of Arrakis but also its political and economic systems. As expressed in Vocal Media, Herbert penned a tale that reflects the behavior of countries that possess large amounts of oil resources, where colonial powers historically tried to seize resource control at the expense of the native population.
The 2021 Dune movie's departure from cultural specificity
Denis Villeneuve's 2021 adaptation of Dune has been praised for its visual splendor but criticized for the softened emphasis on the book's Islamic and Middle Eastern elements. The film employs generic religious symbols and features that are at least inconsistent if not devoid of cultural particularism.
For instance, whereas Herbert's novel uses a great deal of Arabic, the film reduces this to a single word and in doing so reduces the Fremen culture to a bland stereotype of "exoticism." Screenwriter Jon Spaihts's assertion that Islamic influences in the book were only "costumery" provoked an immediate backlash because it directly contradicted Herbert's intention.
Critics like Durrani contend that the adaptation fails to capture the novel's subversive commentary and instead offers an oversimplified narrative. The omitted scene of the critical banquet hosted by Herbert, where subtle imperialism is discussed, highlights this point even more.
The score for Dune by Hans Zimmer also reflects a departure from authenticity. Whereas the inspirations in the novel are based on Middle Eastern music and religion, the soundtrack uses abstract, otherworldly sounds that have no linkage to their cultural origins. Critics claim this is a failure to embrace and give new life to the Islamic and Middle Eastern elements of the book.
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Nevertheless, Dune, the movie has garnered a dedicated fanbase who love it despite the criticism. The 2021 movie can now be streamed on HBO Max.
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