Let me save you the trouble of reading more than 1,000 words regarding the removal of that offensive-to-Muslims song in LittleBigPlanet. It’s a thorough report, sure, but my goodness, this isn’t exactly affairs of state or anything.
• Using Koranic words is not forbidden in Islam
• The singer uses the words to “attract and inspire people toward Islam,” not to freak people out
That’s it. Now, if you’re in the mood to read an inordinate amount of hemming and hawing from Islam experts, be my guest. But the gist of it is, no, the song lyrics aren’t expressly forbidden by the religion and Sony was merely covering its ass lest it possibly offend a handful of people.
…a handful? This isn’t meant as a dig at an entire religion (far from it), but Sony – and everyone else – has seen what happens when you’re on the wrong side of the more extremist wing of the Islamic faith. And although they represent a fringe minority, numbers are growing and even the minorities have enough numbers to have people worried.
Its not worth doing this from a business perspective. Sony probably didn’t want to hear from retailers worried about carrying the game/worried about offending someone’s faith/worried about making a profit.
“Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither”. Sony was too quick to pull this out, and not quick enough to judge the complaint by its merits. The singer is a Sufi Muslim, it’s part of their practice to actually put words from the Qur’an to music. Catering to any whiff of offence when it comes to Islam seems to be an absolute no-no nowadays. Such a shame, but then nobody wants violence.
I don’t care if it’s muslim, christian, jewish, buddhist, hindu, or b’hai – I don’t want my video games attempting to “attract me to religion” full stop. Sony was right to remove it even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
I don’t know how ‘attractive’ the phrases could be, given they were reported to be the equivalent of “kill ‘em all and let Allah sort ‘em out”. Attractive for all the wrong reasons to all the wrong sort of psyche. And, how many people who understand spoken arabic aren’t Muslim already? The Muslima.com ad is still going strong, though.