Is It Permissible to Use Fictional Characters as Metaphors for Pharaoh or the Nafs?

Answered by Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat

Question

May one write intense violence in fiction where the point is to condemn it rather than glorify it?

And may one create characters that function as metaphors or antitypes for figures and themes from Islamic history — a character standing for Pharaoh or the Dajjal, or for the soul, or for the lower self?

Answer

Thank you for asking with this much precision. Both of your questions are answered in the affirmative.

Writing about violence and about other impermissible matters is permissible so long as it is done to make a broader point about their immorality and impermissibility. The subject of a story is not the same as its endorsement.

A narrative that depicts cruelty in order to expose it is doing something the Quran itself does when it recounts the conduct of tyrants.

Writing fiction with the approach and the purpose you have described is likewise permissible. A character who serves as an antitype for Pharaoh or the Dajjal, or who stands for the soul or for the lower self, is a figure of speech extended into narrative. Metaphor is not misrepresentation.

What Actually Decides the Matter

The governing consideration is not the subject but the effect. Our archive’s answer on writing fiction draws the distinction plainly: between literature that is wholesome and read for good purposes, and literature that is the contrary.

So the test to keep returning to as you write is a simple one — what does this leave in the reader? If the violence sickens the reader of violence, you have done your work. If it thrills, something has gone wrong in the telling, whatever the intention was going in.

Write, then, and keep that question in front of you. It is the kind of care that turns a permissible craft into a good one.

And Allah knows best.

[Shaykh] Abdul-Rahim Reasat
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Related SeekersGuidance Answers

Is It Islamically Permissible to Write Fiction? — SeekersGuidance Answers Service, checked by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani — Establishes the general permissibility, and sets the wholesome-versus-contrary distinction that governs it.

Is It Permissible To Engage with Fictional Media Containing Imagery or False Beliefs? — Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat — On fiction that carries false beliefs: permissible where one inwardly rejects them and the work carries real benefit.

Films with Religious Content — Ustadh Farid Dingle, checked by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani — Religious subject matter in film, and the prohibition on visually depicting the prophets and Companions.

Movies on the Lives of the Companions — Shaykh Jamir Meah, checked by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani — Why dramatising the Companions lowers their noble station, and what to do instead.

Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat began studying Arabic Grammar and Morphology whilst studying for a degree in English and History. After graduating, He traveled to Damascus and studied Arabic, Hanafi Fiqh, Usul al-Fiqh, Theology, and Logic with Shaykh Adnan Darwish, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman Arjan al-Binsawi, Shaykh Husayn Darwish, Shaykh Muhammad Darwish, the late Shaykh Rashad Shams, and others. He then moved to Amman to continue his studies in those fields, as well as in Tafsir, Quranic Sciences, Hadith Methodology and Commentary, Prophetic Biography, Prophetic Perfections and Traits, Rhetoric, Arabic Literature, and Tajwid. His teachers include Shaykh Ali Hani, Dr. Hamza al-Bakri, Dr Salah Abu al-Hajj, Dr Mansur Abu Zina, Shaykh Ahmad Hasanat, Shaykh Ahmad Jammal, and others.