IMAGES OF POLITICAL ISLAM IN THE DUNE NOVELS: IMAGINATION AND INVENTION OF JIHAD AS A POLITICAL PROTEST

Abstract

Background. The author analyzes the texts of the Dune cycle in contexts of contemporary historiography, which proposed universal methods that allow analyzing “oriental” images in literature through the prism of constructing and deconstructing the narratives that form the image of Islam.
 Purpose. The purpose of the article is an “orientalist” reinterpretation of Islamic images in the novels belonging to the Dune cycle, including the texts of the original cycle and prequels presented by Dune, Dune Messiah, Dune. Butlerian Jihad and Dune. Paul.
 Materials and methods. The author uses the methodological tools offered in intellectual history and studies of nationalism, including the concept of the invention of traditions, which allows us to analyze the images of Islam in science fiction as one of the invented traditions of American mass literature using the texts of the Dune cycle as sources corpus. Orientalism as a method is used to analyze Muslim motifs in the prose of F. Herbert, B. Herbert and K. Anderson, which, as the author believes, were inspired by political, ideological and religious stimuli. The author believes that the orientalist approach is an effective interpretative model for an interdisciplinary analysis of American science fiction as a space for the development of Islamic images.
 Results. It is shown that the novels through the prism of images of Islam actualize and promote a unique ideological discourse and political message. The features and forms of political protest under religious Muslim slogans are analyzed. It is studied how the mobilization potential of political Islam is perceived as a form of legitimization of social and economic protest. An expanded understanding of jihad as both a religious war and a social class conflict is analyzed. It is shown that 1) the actualization of Muslim images in American science fiction was the result of the political activation of the East, 2) the authors of the texts actualized the anti-authoritarian and emancipatory potential of Islam.