Page 227 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

where, during Ramadan, at that time, there appeared to be greater sensitivity to
juxtaposing religious discourse with the highly commoditized post-iftar dis-
course. Such sensitivities have been observed in other contexts. In an article on
the political economy of religious commodities Gregory Starrett (Starrett 1995,
53) notes:

As religious commodities are to be understood as material things, they have two
networks of signi¤cation in which they can act as markers of difference: ¤rst, with
regard to other objects de¤ned as religious, and second with regard to the ¤eld of
commodities as a whole.
Consequently, according to Starrett, religious objects are often placed in spaces
of high visibility, but protected from disturbance (ibid., 53). Something similar
occurred with this call to prayer. The adhan was not a religious commodity,
bought and sold like an amulet, calendar, or clock inscribed with religious for-
mulas. Nonetheless on television, and particularly in a programming structure
that juxtaposed one of the most commoditized television events of the year—
the Fawazir Ramadan—with religious discourse, surely programmers ran a risk
of making too close an association between objects that should remain apart. 19
The “¤eld of commodities as a whole,” as Starrett calls it, must be taken into
account, particularly if the televisual “®ow” has the effect Williams suggests it
has, namely, of causing the viewer to implicitly mix images, thereby insinuating
overt commercial content with narrative programming. Hence the need to pro-
vide a “protected space” for religious discourse during Ramadan programming.
The call to prayer in this case was long (during normal time it was as brief
as a window inserted in one corner of the screen showing ¤rst a clock and then
the subtitle adhan al-maghrib, adhan al-"isha#, etc.). Visuals broadcast with the
adhan included scenes of pilgrims circumambulating the Ka"ba (amplifying the
previous image of a Su¤ order circling the tomb of Husayn) and the recitation
20
of an appropriate hadith. After the call to prayer a family planning advertise-
ment featuring an authoritative white-jacketed female doctor-¤gure provided a
further step from religious to commercial content. This transition continued
with an advertisement for Bank Faysal al-Islami, which was one of the few ads
speci¤cally tailored to Ramadan. It extolled the bank’s charity work and gave
holiday greetings to the audience. After Bank Faysal al-Islami came an adver-
tisement for wedding dresses by "Abudi. There was still a connection between
the product (wedding dresses) and the season (Ramadan). Weddings do not oc-
cur during Ramadan, as it would be impossible for newlyweds to engage in in-
tercourse during fasting hours. Typically, just after the completion of the month
of fasting, there is a spate of weddings, and hence the sale of wedding dresses
can be seen as still connected to Ramadan. "Abudi is followed by a quick spot
for Tafsir al-Qurtubi—a Quran commentary by a thirteenth-century Islamic
scholar.
From al-Qurtubi to the end of the advertising segment, all the ads were com-
pletely secular and materialistic. Chicken bouillon, al-Ahram locks, Toshiba
VCRs, Riri baby formula, the Fil¤la restaurant (long a favorite of tourists but

216 Walter Armbrust