Muslims Enter The World Of Video Games

It is about time that Muslims think seriously about entering the arena of video games to counteract the destructive influence of western video games.

QURAISH, is 3D real time strategy game about the origin of Islam. The concept of this game is build upon characters whom are eye witness to this new bloom, a Byzantine officer, a Persian monk and an old tribe chief, and each character will say his point of view about this new phenomena called Islam.

Set to be released in September, Quraish tells the story of the first 100 years of Islam's history from the viewpoint of four different nations — Bedouins, Arabs, Persians, and Romans.

"Al-Quraysh is going to help people in the West better understand the people who are living in the East," says Radwan Kasmiya, an avid gamer and the executive manager of Afkar Media. "We want to show that this civilization was a sort of practical and almost heavenly civilization." The game also holds lessons for Muslims, says Mr. Kasmiya.

"I get very embarrassed by the way we are showing our civilization," says Kasmiya. "There were rational laws that were governing Muslims at that time. This allowed this civilization to last for a long time and to accept the other civilizations that they came in touch with. It was not a conservative or sectarian civilization. But people have stopped taking the ideas behind the laws, and are taking the laws themselves. They do not understand the essence of the laws."



Afkar Media, producer of Quraish, has already produced two games, both dealing with the plight of the Palestinian people. One game released last year, Under Siege, was born out of frustration with the prevalance of Arabs and Muslims portrayed as terrorists in Western video games. The creators of the game say the story line counteracts the biases in some Western games by showing the Palestinian struggle from an Arab vantage point and creating Arab and Muslim characters who are fighting in self-defense.

Both Quraish and Under Siege, which cost roughly $100,000 to make, have been funded and released by Dar al-Fiqr, a publishing house that distributes a wide range of conservative to liberal voices on topics related to Islam. An estimated 100,000 copies of Under Siege have been distributed around the Arab world.

Read Also:
Quraish Game
Under Ash Video Game
Under Siege Video Game
Asad Alfaloja (Lion of Falofa) Video Game
Muslims craft their own video games (The Christian Science Monitor)