# The new Star Trek Series should have a Muslim character **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 26, 2016, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242 "2016-02-26T19:45:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/101 "2016-03-03T00:53:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Star Trek should have a cast selected from the best auditions, not some committee-designed politically correct collection of diversity just for its own sake. If you you think I am suggesting this because it’s “politically correct” (it isn’t) or for “diversity” you didn’t understand my point. There’s a reason that Star trek has been around for 50 years. it’s bigger than just a fun sci fi franchise. It could do something that literally almost no other entertainment could do. ---
**Author:** ![halfmut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@halfmut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/halfmut)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/102 "2016-03-03T01:47:10Z")
They could cast a mostly / all Muslim cast featuring Muslims of varying races and backgrounds. They could also write the show with the Trek crew coming to terms with the policies of Starfleet causing the culture of another planet to devolve into chaos. [A metaphor to explore the foreign policy of the US as it related to the Middle East and how America’s support for Osama over years inadvertently set the conditions which allowed for his organization to grow in reach and scope.] ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/103 "2016-03-03T02:39:37Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Jean-Lucky gets off some pretty contemptuous lines about religion in that ep; he implied that most educated people in the Federation view religion as mere superstition. It was an explicitly anti-theistic episode. > [@Voyager](#): > > I do remember the one where a con artist passing herself off as the goddess foretold in a prophecy comes looking for treasure, and Picard reproduces all her “miracles” with Enterprise technology. That was a good anti-theist one also. OK, but I was responding to **Sam Stone** ’s point that TNG “blatantly pandered to the styles and mores of the time” and was “thinly wrapped commentaries on some contemporary social issue”, which was apparently “common”. I would not agree that a couple episodes on general religion (not specifically abortion, say) is enough to say that. And I really hope that that isn’t what **Sam Stone** had in mind, since he contrasts it with TOS. As we’ve already discussed in this thread, there’s at least one episode where Kirk outs himself as a (mono-)theist. So that would be implying religious messages are fine in Trek, as long as they’re _positive_. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/104 "2016-03-03T03:57:05Z")
What, so that every thread on the series degenerates into the usual, you know. Not in your life. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/105 "2016-03-03T16:31:40Z")
> [@halfmut](#): > > They could cast a mostly / all Muslim cast featuring Muslims of varying races and backgrounds. They did! [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc3CfHfNmXg) ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/106 "2016-03-03T16:46:24Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > I wonder if that was influenced by Dune? Right time period. > > I’ll have to look at TAS again… > . Probably more by the OPEC crisis and the rise in Arab nationalism in 1974. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/107 "2016-03-03T20:14:53Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > OK, but I was responding to **Sam Stone** ’s point that TNG “blatantly pandered to the styles and mores of the time” and was “thinly wrapped commentaries on some contemporary social issue”, which was apparently “common”. > I would not agree that a couple episodes on general religion (not specifically abortion, say) is enough to say that. > > And I really hope that that isn’t what **Sam Stone** had in mind, since he contrasts it with TOS. As we’ve already discussed in this thread, there’s at least one episode where Kirk outs himself as a (mono-)theist. So that would be implying religious messages are fine in Trek, as long as they’re _positive_. I’ve read somewhere that the line in question was either inserted by the writer, who was a believer, or the studio. TOS didn’t have a writing staff the way TNG did, so the adherence to the bounds of the universe was not so great, especially in later shows when Roddenberry didn’t care as much. I don’t know if Sam was contrasting it to TOS - which did a lot more shows on issues of the time than TNG did. But back then doing those kinds of shows was a lot more daring than during TNG time. Not that ST invented this - Have Gun Will Travel, which Roddenberry wrote for, had a few really good social justice shows. And I certainly don’t agree they are dated. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/108 "2016-03-03T21:57:18Z")
> [@Arizona\_Mike](#): > > Probably more by the OPEC crisis and the rise in Arab nationalism in 1974. Yeah… '74, tho, was around the time that I, personally, found the desert planet. Probably coloring my perception. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/109 "2016-03-05T22:55:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Cultural diversity yes, but if Bashir was not totally secular it has escaped me so far. Bashir wasn’t there to represent any religion, he was daft but well educated Englishman to play against the more workman like but savvy Irishman Miles O’Brien. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/110 "2016-03-05T23:05:43Z")
Bashir and O’Brien barely interacted for the first several seasons. Bashir’s role at the beginning was the naive new kid, and his pairing with Garak in the first couple seasons was a good example of his playing that role. It was after the writers moved away from that for being too slashy that he (who had gotten less naive by that point) started hanging out with O’Brien. (When _that_ got a slash following, the writers just shrugged and went with it.) ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/111 "2016-03-05T23:22:27Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > (When _that_ got a slash following, the writers just shrugged and went with it.) The Trek Slash Universe is more wonderful than anything in the Trek Mirror Universe. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/112 "2016-09-03T21:45:27Z")
Resurrecting this thread because I was at a Star Trek Mission New York panel on Discovery with Nicholas Meyer and Kirsten Beyer and they all but confirmed this is happening. There was a question from the audience who outright asked if there would be a Muslim character using similar reasoning as my OP. They did not confirm but hemmed and hawed in a way that seemed affirmative. Someone in the audience even yelled out, “That’s a yes!” and the crowd cheered. So not definite but I am 99% sure it’s happening. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/113 "2016-09-03T22:16:54Z")
In the Journey’s end episode it’s made clear that they felt they had to leave earth, to preserve their cultural identity. It seems clear what they’re really saying is that the tolerant federation, particularly earth, has no place for those with religious beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/114 "2016-09-03T23:35:26Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Can’t think of the title, but there was an episode where the Enterprise was assisting anthropologists who were observing a pre-industrial Vulcanoid people, and one of them gets accidentally transported to the ship, where he’s healed of some injuries, and returned to his people. Whereupon he promptly relates to them his encounter with the great god Picard. Eventually, Cap’n Baldy has to go to their village and allow himself to be shot by an arrow to prove that he’s not divine. Jean-Lucky gets off some pretty contemptuous lines about religion in that ep; he implied that most educated people in the Federation view religion as mere superstition. It was an explicitly anti-theistic episode. “Who Watches the Watchers?” > **[Who Watches The Watchers (episode)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Who_Watches_The_Watchers_(episode))** > > The Enterprise must undo the damage when a primitive civilization discovers a Federation observation team and concludes that the Starfleet personnel are gods. "Captain's log, Stardate 43173.5. We are en route to Mintaka III where a three-man... ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/115 "2016-09-04T04:21:13Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > In the Journey’s end episode it’s made clear that they felt they had to leave earth, to preserve their cultural identity. It seems clear what they’re really saying is that the tolerant federation, particularly earth, has no place for those with religious beliefs. And yet…everyone that runs into an American Indian…ish…is suddenly FASCINATED by the spirituality. And I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but even _I_ find the idea of Bashir and O’Brien-In the middle of a WAR-running off with Worf on a crazy mission to get Jadzia into Stovokor to be noxious. It was Dax who had the most Klingon connections. I would think Jadzia wouldn’t really appreciate Klingon heaven. And that’s taking everything at face value!! ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/116 "2016-09-04T05:34:15Z")
Eh, I’m not sure what a “Muslim” character even is in a Star Trek context. Would you show him praying sometimes? Or turning down pork? In any case, religions evolve, even the “conservative” ones. Rather than having a “Muslim” character, whatever that means, have a Maghrebi character, or an Arabian character, or something. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/117 "2016-09-04T07:12:22Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > If the religion is gone, how long would the headscarf remain as a cultural norm? As mentioned above, southwest Asian ideas of modesty antedate Mohammed and are not exclusive to his tradition. (Nor are they even universal. Clothing in “Islamic” cultures is varied and changing.) > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I find ST:TNG horribly dated now, and that’s probably because they so blatantly pandered to the styles and mores of the time. I think this is exactly wrong. TNG’s apparent scorn for religious conservatism was the opposite of pandering, by the time it came on. It was in some ways a holdout of the Swinging Seventies, but it offended because it was determinedly, offensively itself, determined to do the opposite of pander. I would have been a lot less offended if Picard _had_ pandered to my theism in “Who Watches the Watchers?” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/118 "2016-09-04T14:52:09Z")
As I understand it, the new Star Trek: Discovery (what an unfortunate set of initials for the fan boards) takes place 10 years pre-TOS and is planned to take place in the Prime Timeline. Of course, the various series have made a dog’s breakfast of any sort of in-universe sociocultural historic continuity, even disregarding the current film reboot, so who knows what this one will reflect. As mentioned they’d be taking a risk in introducing a character of \*whatever \*ethnicity or religion in order to make the point that it need not interfere with coexistence and fundamental humanism, while at the same time trying to avoid making THAT the whole sole point of a cardboard character. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > TNG’s apparent scorn for religious conservatism was the opposite of pandering, by the time it came on. It was in some ways a holdout of the Swinging Seventies, but it offended because it was determinedly, offensively itself, determined to do the opposite of pander. Well, one could say some parts of TNG, especially in the early more strictly Roddenberryist phase, did pander to a culture… Southern Californian Liberal culture 😉 But they’d tell you that was a feature, not a bug. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/119 "2016-09-04T18:34:21Z")
Well hopefully he or she gets cast with same subtlety and nuance given Chakotay. Meaning a non-Muslim taking the role and every episode featuring this person ham-fistedly shoehorning in ridiculous stereotypes…I know!!! A time travel episode where he has a chance to stop 9/11!!! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242/120 "2016-09-04T21:08:52Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Star Trek changed the world of technology, everyone knows how it inspired a generation of engineers, but it also inspired a generation of minorities and it can do so again. What do you think? That it’s time to retire the Star Trek franchise. Though a starship captained by Ned Flanders and dedicated to distributing Bibles throughout remote galaxies has a certain bizarre appeal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-star-trek-series-should-have-a-muslim-character/747242.md?page=7)