Ramadan television in the Arab world is a showcase for “family values” as production companies and advertisers make huge efforts to attract millions of viewers gathered for the post-Iftar time slots. Inevitably, controversies arise. Complaints come from both producers and viewers, either condemning the broadcast of glitzy vaudeville programs starring …

“If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to a zero.” -- Mahatma Gandhi When twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad were published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005, few foresaw the violent backlash that transpired as a result of their …

Soad Saleh, one of the world’s leading female scholars of Islam, fields requests for religious advice each week from callers across the Arab world. Seated at a gilded table on the set of her Egyptian satellite TV show, Women’s Fatwa, Saleh provides religious rulings on a wide range of subjects. How …

A number of war-themed reality shows have become enormous hits in Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime and the subsequent proliferation of satellite channels throughout the country. State-run Al Iraqiya has a hit on its hands with the controversial Terror in the Hands of Justicein which captive insurgents confess …

The media landscape in Iraq has undergone a radical transformation since state-run Iraqi television abruptly went off air following the US-led invasion in March 2003. With no state television and the ownership of satellite dishes banned by the Baathist regime, Iraqis were, quite literally, starved for information. As a result, …

Every Ramadan is more or less the same. People are tired, traffic is bad. Every day at dusk, thankful families gather at home to break their day-long fast. And afterwards, they indulge in another holiday tradition: Ramadan soap operas. This year saw the usual glut of such entertainment, produced in …

Arabic language satellite television has over the past three years broadcast a number of excellent historical dramas set in late antiquity or in early Islamic periods.(1) These programs usually are first shown as part of the Ramadan line up, guaranteeing a large viewing audience.(2) One of the new aspects of …

The Road Not Traveled One of the most intriguing Arabic-language television dramas in recent years was The Road to Kabul (2004), which told the story of the Arab and Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Or rather tried to tell, since The Road to Kabul never made it past episode eight. The state of Qatar, …

An elderly man lays bedridden in his lower middle-class home in Shoubra, a largely Christian neighborhood near the heart of Cairo. Paralyzed for some 14 years following an injury to his spine, the man rarely leaves his home, as doing so has become an unbearable hassle. Until recently, this misfortunate …

“Any work that I do depends on the will of the audience.” (Ibrahim Nasr, Akhbar al-Nuguum, 433, 1/20/2001) Introduction Over the past few years, a growing trend in television is the seeming willingness to push the envelope of so-called “good taste.” While this is not a new phenomenon, we are …