Creativity inspired by Islam is not typically associated with today’s Muslim world. Dr Naif Al-Mutawa is a pioneer in changing this conceptualization. His comic book creation, ‘THE 99’, is a superhero ensemble similar to Western-based comics such as X-Men, but is sourced from Islamic history and values. In a wide-ranging interview, we discuss with Dr Al-Mutawa his ideas and his opinions. What is revealed is a man with a deep compassion for humanity and Islam. In a time of much strife and turmoil associated with Islam, his creativity and commercial progress is a source of inspiration for potential Muslim entrepreneurs.
Please tell us a little bit about your background.
I was born and raised in Kuwait but undertook my higher education studies in the USA. I earned an undergraduate degree from Tufts University where I triple majored in Clinical Psychology, English Literature and History. I then completed an MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology at Long Island University, and an MA in Organizational Psychology. After that,
I trained as a clinical psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in New York, working with survivors of political torture. I then decided to take a break and undertook an MBA at Columbia University. It was around this time that I created ‘THE 99’
At first, it was just a comic book but is now also an animated series.
What is Teshkeel Media Group?
Teshkeel Media Group is a developer of comic books, magazines and other forms of children’s entertainment in print, film and television media. I am the CEO and we are based in Kuwait with offices in New York and Cairo. Originally Teshkeel Media Group was focused on more than ‘THE 99’. ‘THE 99’ is how we started but we also translated popular comics into Arabic including Marvel, DC and Archie, but there was no business there. Teshkeel also bought Cracked Magazine which was sold a few years after the acquisition. Now we focus just on ‘THE 99’ with funding concentrated solely on the project. Maybe we will expand in the future. Our core team is made up of 20 people but there are hundreds of people around the world working on the comics and the animated series. We have writers, voice actors, animators, artists and other staff. We have writers who understand the market and the psychology of the readers. The stories are written by the writers of Batman, Star Wars, Ben 10 and other popular television shows. We have also created a theme park based on ‘THE 99’. ‘THE 99’ Village was launched in Jahra, Kuwait four years ago. 300,000 visitors visit each year. It is not Disneyland but that is 10 percent of the Kuwaiti population. We partnered with United Entertainment & Tourism Company (UETC) and have plans to develop a chain of ‘THE 99’ Village theme parks throughout the GCC.
You travel extensively around the world. Where is home for you?
My children grow up in Kuwait and attend summer camp in New Hampshire, which is where I used to go as a child. We used to live in the USA but one reason for moving back to Kuwait was because of 9/11. I did not want my children to hear cruel comments children are notorious for dishing out. Children can be mean, they will pick on anything. Hence, my family resides in Kuwait; most of the time I am on a plane somewhere! I hate leaving my wife and kids but at the same time I need to do it. It is the irony of my work and one thing that I struggle with. I am out there trying to make the world a better place for children everywhere and yet I have to leave my kids to do it. I suppose that’s just the human condition.
At the Presidential Summit for Entrepreneurship in 2010, President Obama said “comic books have captured the imagination of so many young people with superheroes that embody the teachings and tolerance of Islam”. Tell us how it felt to be personally mentioned by the President?
When the President of the most powerful country in the world says that you are doing a good job, it’s a pretty cool thing. On top of that, I am somebody who plans every minute of every day. If you look at my schedule, the finer details are all mapped out. However, that was unscheduled. I could not protect against it. No one told me it was going to happen but it felt good because I was being recognized. It is like when you do well in school you get a smiley face; that was like getting five smiley faces!
Media, grassroots organizations and the religious right. These people pretty much get paid to propagate lies and drum up contempt for Islam. The fear is not deep-seated but the perceptions of certain people in American society have undoubtedly been affected. At the same time, it would be wrong to assume that this kind of fear-mongering is limited to the USA. Just look at the problems Christians are facing in Pakistan, or consider the Kuwaiti MP who has avowed to destroy all churches in Kuwait. This is all that I call chimpanzee politics. When chimpanzees fight, they fight over territory and they will systematically hold down and beat a member of the other group of chimpanzees in order to take over their land. We do that too, though our brain is more evolved so we do it on an intellectual level as well. It doesn’t mean we are less violent. Religious extremists use religion as a battering ram against those of a different religion, hitting them over the head bellowing that my religion is better than your religion.
What is ‘THE 99’?
‘THE 99’ is the first group of superheroes born of an Islamic archetype whose values are inspired by the Quran. I went back to the Quran for human messages that are reflected through superheroes. For over a hundred years Hollywood has used the Bible as a source for their storylines. Nobody has done that with the Quran. The Bible is known as the greatest story ever told because they are in sync with the way people like to think. The success has been repackaging these stories
to suit a new generation, so not only are they exciting and dynamic, they are very familiar. A billion people have gone to Sunday school and appreciate the Bible and know the stories.
If you look at well-known superheroes, they came out of North America and are based on Judeo-Christian archetypes. Like many of the Prophets, superheroes are missing parents. Superman’s parents die on Krypton. Batman’s parents die when he was a child. Spiderman is raised by his aunt and uncle. Most of them, like the prophets, had a message delivered to them from above by a messenger. The Prophets received the message from God through Gabriel. Peter Parker is taking photographs when a spider comes from above and gives his message through a bite. Superman is sent from another planet (or the heavens) by his parents to new parents in a spaceship-like Moses on the Nile. You also hear the voice of his father to Earth, “I have sent to you my only son.” It is similar to the voice of God in the Bible about Jesus.
But the superhero storylines are not religious. You know when Uncle Ben says to Spiderman “With great power comes great responsibility,” is that a Christian message? Is it a Jewish message or a Buddhist message or a Muslim message? It is all of the above as at its heart, it is a human message. I simply took religious values from the Quran and stories from Muslim history, secularized them and created positive stories for the whole world. For example, our main bad guy, Rughal, in the storyline represents a kind of dictatorial leadership. His name comes from the leader of the army of Abraha, the king of Ethiopia who in the Year of the Elephant-the year that the Prophet (pbuh) was born-came to destroy the Kaba. His name was Abu Rughal. According to the Quran, Allah sent an army of birds who pelted the elephants on their heads with stones, killing them. ‘THE 99’ gain their powers from stones which help them stop Rughal.
What is it about Islamic history and culture that inspires you?
When I was growing up, I was taught about the Dar al-Hikma library in Baghdad, the greatest library the world ever knew. It was an inspiring story, one that highlighted Islam’s intellectual heritage. What began to upset me was I was seeing today’s Muslims constantly looking back. It is now a case of what Islam was and not what Islam is. I want Islam is and not just have the past eulogized. In ‘THE 99’, I used the stories that were passed down from generation to generation as the source of the messages that I wished to convey. History tells us that in 1258 the Mongols invaded Baghdad. All the books in the Dar al-Hikma library were thrown into the Tigris River and the river turned black from the ink of the books. I rewrote that. In my version, the librarians knew of the oncoming Mongol hoard and wanted to protect the books. They create 99 stones and produce a chemical solution called Kings Water. The librarians escape, dip these stones into the river with the King’s Water and suck up all the information that they had thought was lost to civilization. The stones are then taken to Andalusia where they ornament the ceilings of a fortress called Husn al-Marifa. Unfortunately, due to the hubris of the bad guy, Rughal, the fortress is destroyed around the time Christopher Columbus set sail for America. The stones are collected from the wreckage and spread out across the world. They were too powerful to keep in one place.
The message here is that it is harmful for a minority to control the interpretation of Islam, but we do not explicitly state this. Also, all these stones have self-updating mechanisms in them. Rughal does not want the stones to update past the 13th century which is when they were made so when he convinces ‘THE 99’ that he is the good guy, he gives all of them the same uniform. They look identical. He controls them by controlling the knowledge they have. On the other hand, Dr. Ramzi, the paternal guiding figure, reveals to them that each of their stones actually have a blueprint for a uniform which is unique to them. The stones also update. Dr Ramzi is a leader not a ruler. He is not threatened by ‘THE 99’ being stronger than him or smarter than him. They have competing leaderships: one is rigid, narrow and determined according to the whims of a single individual. The other is democratic, expansive and flexible.
What other messages are you trying to convey through ’THE 99’? What is it about entertainment that makes it easier to convey these messages?
In the world of ‘THE 99,’ it doesn’t matter what religion you are; it doesn’t matter what country you are from; it doesn’t matter if you are a boy or girl; if you are a girl it doesn’t matter if you are covered or not; what matters is what you have to contribute to the society today. So they are from 99 countries and have different cultural backgrounds. They have 99 different powers. In each episode, the characters have to negotiate and combine their powers to solve a problem. They have to navigate their differences to achieve this. For example, in Issue 10, Jabbar, the Saudi character, gets upset with Widad, the Filipino character; not because he is presumably Muslim or she is presumably Christian; not because he is a boy and she is a girl; not because he is Saudi and she is Filipino, but because he wants to use his power of muscles to solve the problem and she wants to use her power of love. And he gets upset. So we navigate differences, multiculturalism and diversity in an indirect way and I think entertainment allows you to do that. It’s not real so you get people in a very neutral setting learning new things vicariously.
The story behind the creation of ‘THE 99’ is an interesting one. Please take us through it.
The idea came to me in a taxi cab going towards Harrods in London in the summer of 2003. I have always been a keen writer. When I was 9 years old, I told my parents I wanted to be a writer and they said it is a great hobby but not a profession. I always wrote on the side. But at the age of 32, I sat in a cab in London with a number of degrees to my name and without a clear understanding of what I really wanted do in my life. My sister wanted me to go back to writing for kids. I dismissed her. For me to undertake such a task, it would have to have the potential of Pokeman otherwise it would not make any sense. That wasn’t me saying I could create a Pokeman-type story; that was me just trying to shut her up! And she shut up. But as the taxi drove down the narrow streets of London to Harrods, I started to ponder and a series of connected thoughts rushed through my mind. It started with Pokeman. I recalled a fatwa against Pokeman. My next thought was my God what has happened to Islam and who is making these random decisions for my children. I could not help but think how disappointed Allah must be. Then I began thinking about Allah. Allah has 99 attributes and by the time I arrived at Harrods, I had completed a full circle in thinking, returning to Pokeman and their 1000 attributes. I am sure that was not the intent of the fatwa!.
I then wrote the business plan, did the financials, wrote the first few stories and I went out to pitch the idea to investors. I started the comic book. We then launched the animated series globally. There is a documentary that came out in America on PBS and directed by Isaac Solotaroff called ‘WHAM! BAM! ISLAM!’ which is the story about the making of ‘THE 99’.
What challenges and obstacles have you faced in producing ‘THE 99’ and garnering interest?
The first obstacle was me. I was worried that if I started this, I would fail and then I would be known as the crazy guy who tried. People love calling psychologists crazy; it makes them feel better about themselves! When I raised the money, I didn’t precisely know what to do next. I had a business plan but the field was new to me. People were very skeptical about Islamic-inspired superheroes, especially as it was 18 months after 9/11. So to start off, we bought the magazine ‘Cracked’, a comedy magazine, as a first step. It was a very famous magazine in the USA and I felt that it could act as bait to attract the kind of talent we needed to create ‘THE 99’. We brought it out of bankruptcy and hired a team to run it which comprised of the former publisher, head of marketing and editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. They got to know me and saw that I didn’t have a religious objective in terms of what I wanted to do with ‘THE 99’. An Islamic bank, Unicorn Investment Bank (now known as Bank Al Khair) then came to us to be an investor in ‘THE 99’. Even though we were valued higher by other institutions, I made the decision to go with them as I wanted to get into the Saudi market. Unicorn loved our ideas for ‘THE 99’ but told us to get rid of ‘Cracked’ as it was considered non-Shari’a compliant. We sold the magazine but the team remained. The next challenge was breaking into America. Interestingly, the extreme fringe on the right wing in both America and ‘Islamica’, if I can call it that, have not agreed on anything except banning ‘THE 99’. Since Unicorn, we have had other investors including Dubai-based Abraaj Capital and Kuwaiti, Bayan Investment Company. We also have the support of a few HNWIs.
Where has the animated series been launched?
The series has been launched throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Right now, the animated series of ‘THE 99’ is on MBC, the largest Saudi satellite TV station in the world. It is also shown through Yahoo! Maktoob. ‘THE 99’ is shown in Turkey, throughout Asia through Cartoon Network and in Australia through ABC. We sold it to broadcasters in South Africa, South America and Ireland. It has not been sold to Britain, which is surprising as Endemol, who are based in the UK, is a producer of the show. They have been unable to gain any traction from UK broadcasters, nor from any country within mainland Europe.
What is the popularity of 99? Where is the most interest?
The international media has definitely been supportive. We have been on the cover of Newsweek and the cover of Forbes and there have been countless articles written on us. The irony is that we did it without a cent being spent. We have done more to promote a more positive image of Islam than most governments have done with million-dollar budgets. We have licenses to publish ‘THE 99’ in various languages and countries including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, France, Turkey and throughout the Arab world. That’s not us putting up the money, that’s somebody buying the rights from us. A bank in Kuwait recently bought the rights of ‘THE 99’ to create themed bank accounts and emblazoned ATM cards. The TV series has also been sold to global television broadcasters. However, in answer to your question, I cannot provide a definitive answer in terms of quantifiable information. But with anecdotal evidence, a lot can be said. There is a cute picture that was sent to me via email. It was of a classroom of hijabi girls from South Asia holding ‘THE 99’ comic with an approving, bearded headmaster. The good news was that they were all smiling; the bad news was that the comics were photocopies; there was zero revenue for us!
Do you agree with the assessment that a lot of your work is driven by a desire to reconcile the West with the East?
I believe my work is primarily about reconciling the East with itself. It has repercussions on the West but without getting our own house in order, it will be difficult to move forward. I do not think that the East can be friends with anybody until it is at peace with itself. I worry that every time something terrible happens in the name of Islam, the media manipulates and projects a certain image of the religion and its people. Media does not just reflect reality, the media can create reality. The media that is out there shows that being Muslim means blowing things up and it gets confusing, especially for the new generation of Muslim children. Is Islam a religion of peace or a religion of war? A polarization occurs. I am a father of five young sons and I do not want Islam to be represented to them as a politicized, militarised thing. My thesis is this. I can go back to the root from which the bad guys are basing their rhetoric and challenge them through cartoons, theme parks and animation. The Quran can inspire both peaceful accommodation and violent polarization. Clearly, then the Quran is not the problem; it’s the person who is interpreting.
I once gave a talk in Vancouver to 9000 educators and I asked the audience the question as to how many of them had read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger. Many people put their hands up. I then asked how many of them were killed in the name of that book. No one put their hand up –thank God! – and they laughed. When the laughter subsided, I said the question may appear stupid but in 1980, Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon with a copy of that book in his hand. He told police that it was the book that drove him to kill. So I ask: is it the book or the person that leads people to commit heinous acts?
Could you explain your point that the media does not just reflect reality, it can also create reality?
If you repeatedly tell a child that he or she is stupid, they will start to believe they are stupid. Likewise, if the media portrays people as terrorists, some are going to accept this. The portrayal of African Americans on American television is a great case study for this phenomenon. In the 1970s, when Sesame Street introduced a normal black couple, the reaction was quick in Mississippi. They banned the show and it took a year of naming and shaming by the media for them to reverse their decision. In the 1980s, the Cosby Show was a milestone for US television and global television. You had an African-American family but race was never discussed. The father was a doctor, the mother was a lawyer. Prior to the Cosby Show, most depictions of black families on TV had been with the father holding a menial job and the mother staying at home. They may not have been married either. The Cosby Show turned this perception on its head. They were married and had 4 children, one of whom was in college showing what good parenting could lead to. Not only did the programme change how white America saw black America but it also changed how black America saw itself.
Now think about this. In the show 24, it had two bad white presidents, one of whom looked and acted like Richard Nixon during Watergate. The show had two good black presidents who were brothers and young, strong and ethical; generally, people you admired. In 2008 America elected its first-ever African American president. Now, did 24 put Obama in power? No. But did the positive portrayal help? Absolutely. So I think the media is a very powerful tool. If we keep reinforcing the negatives of a small percentage of the Muslim population, it will be counterproductive. But if you start reflecting positives, people will gravitate towards that.
There is an ongoing debate regarding a clash between western values and Islamic values. As a person who was born and raised in the Islamic world and lived in the West, define the difference in values, if there are any, and whether these values can be reconciled?
There are no differences in values. The bottom line is simply to be good to yourself and to those you interact with. ‘THE 99’ is based around the 99 attributes of Allah mentioned in the Quran but those are basic human values: generosity, wisdom, foresight, and mercy. Obviously only Allah has it at an absolute level. Human beings have it at a relative level. They are human attributes of decency. Even atheists don’t tell their kids make sure you lie three times a day.
Those who are insecure in their religion need to see their religion mirrored in everybody for them to validate their own self. Those who cannot control themselves need to control the environment they are in to help control themselves. So it does not surprise me when vociferous, irate conservatives are exposed for their hypocrisy. It doesn’t surprise me when the Republican senator, who was for family values and against homosexuality, gets caught for soliciting sexual relations from a man in a toilet. The more you are against something the more likely it is something in yourself that you are trying to get rid of. So religious figures who continually forbid this or that action, they are speaking to themselves. They need the environment to reflect themselves because they are insecure in their faith.
In ‘THE 99’ we never mentioned anyone’s religion. We don’t talk about religion at all. It is all about values. Non-Muslims are then surprised when they read the comics. They don’t see the ‘Islam’ in the comics as they believe in these values too. I respond to them by saying that is the point of the ‘THE 99’. These values are universal.
What do you think needs to be done to change the current condition of the Islamic world?
Europe woke up when we went to sleep. One of the main reasons they woke up, I believe, is because finally the language they spoke in matched the language they thought in matched the language they wrote in. It was when Latin’s hold on Catholicism was broken that Europe witnessed a reformation. Translations allowed a broader interpretation of the holy text. There was a separation of church and state. Religion still remained an important part of people’s lives but it was not used to domineering over them. I think there needs to be harmony between language and thoughts. 80 percent of Muslims pray in a language they do not understand. In such a situation, impressionable kids can be easily manipulated to do reprehensible acts. The popes of medieval Europe knew it best. They used to sell spots in heaven in exchange for cash. In the Arab world, we are still taught classical ’fusha’ Arabic in our schools. It is not the language that we speak at home creating a big disconnection. It kills creativity. Children at school have to write a creative writing piece, but in classical Arabic. It then becomes a memorization exercise and not a creative writing exercise. One of my sons came home with 5 words that he had to put into sentences. I didn’t know a single word and I am fluent in Arabic. I called my mother who taught philosophy in Arabic for 30 years and she knew 2 of the 5 words. If you kill the language, you kill the culture because if people begin to feel insecure in the language they are being taught in, and it is not being reinforced in their day-to-day lives, they will gravitate to other languages. Every Prophet came with a miracle. The Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) miracle was the language that the Quran came in because he came from a tribe that appreciated prose and poetry. But if our miracle is the language in which the Quran came in, and languages evolve, what do we do? Unfortunately what we did was to come up with rules to keep the language from evolving with society. That doesn’t work. I am not saying ‘fusha’ classical Arabic needs to be discarded. We need people to understand and teach the language otherwise a limited number of people will have control over its interpretation but we do need to re-think the role of language in religion and I think that’s where the Muslims have to start in order to improve their condition. The reformation in Europe really took off in the 15th Century AD. Today, Muslims are in their 15th Century Hijri.
In the Middle East, is creativity and Muslim entrepreneurship increasing or does much more need to be done?
I don’t think you have shortage of creativity in the Middle East; you have a shortage of ecosystems to support the creativity. It is not valued as highly as other professions such as doctors or lawyers. It is similar to sports. For instance, football in Kuwait is not really invested in, whereas in Europe it is, and that is why Europe has better football teams. The value you place on a certain activity determines the importance it will have in society. In the Middle East, sweat equity – the effort put into starting up a business- is not valued. So for example, I get to keep most of this company without putting in a dime because it was my idea. This is a very western concept: support and finance the ideas of your entrepreneurs. One needs to value the idea holder more than the cash. Once you start doing that, and once the idea holders can end up owning more of the equity in the organization they create, you will see more organizations created. Most people in the Arab world would prefer to do a 9 to 5 job and make a salary than take a huge risk in starting something new. I was lucky enough to have done an MBA in the West and benefit financially from my ideas but most people are not that fortunate. People have come to me for advice in regards to keeping more of the equity of the company their ideas helped create. Since they don’t have the finances, they do not have enough of equity. To ensure this occurs, there needs to be a shift in thinking in the Middle East about how we value our idea holders.
Finally, what is your opinion about the global Islamic finance industry?
Some of it is unique; some of it is very much a case of different name, same outcome (as conventional finance). The packaging is very smart making the overall business quite lucrative. It is growing and it is popular around Kuwait but it needs to change some of its conceptualizations and structures. Crucially, if Islamic finance wants to breed entrepreneurs it needs to make room for different classes of shares and sweat equity.
