My Name is Khan – A Muslim Viewpoint

It was last year during our BEE tution classes when Wadgaonkar Sir, as he does with every batch, decided to show us a movie. We knew that before hand and so we were’nt surprised, but chosing which film to watch was a tough job for sir. Finally it was decided that the students may decide among themselves which movie they would like to watch, and Sir would unhesitantly provide us the tickets.

I along with my couple other friends decided we would watch ‘My Name is Khan’. Being a muslim, it was not a very tough decision to make to watch a film, which was supposed to be clearing the name of Islam in it. Although the movie did its job to a certain extent, but there were also some disappointments.

In the last few years, there have been quite a few movies which are made trying to tackle the issue of terrorism and removing the stereotype about muslims. But they miserably fail to do that.

According to me, ‘My Name is Khan’ is not a perfect film. Yes, it could have been better. Not that it hasn’t given a message. It has. Infact, the film owes a debt to the muslims. But a muslim might think that there are parts in the movie which could have been otherwise.

The point is that the terrorist base their justification on the twisted interpretation of the Islamic teachings, and that leads the critics to conclude that the motivation of these terrorist are the basic Islamic  teachings. The main problem I thought with the movie was, that the message it wanted to give was “Every Muslim is not a terrorist” instead of “Islam is against terrorism”. You might not have any problem with this conclusion of mine, because it’ll rather seem true to you also. Yes, there are instances in the movie where the name of Islam was also tried to be cleared, but I thought that this should have been the primary motive of the movie rather than showing that all people with the name “Khan” (or any other muslim name) is not a terrorist or negatively fundamentalist.

The only place in the entire movie where Qur’an is being mentioned was at that time, when Shahrukh quotes Surah 5 Ayat 32 (chapter 5 verse 32) of the Qur’an. But sadly, he makes a completely different translation of the verse. He said, and I am quoting in English

“The Quran says in surah 5 aayat 32, that when an innocent dies, the entire humanity dies with him.”

This is not the correct translation of that verse. Infact, this translation doesn’t make sense at all, does it? There are so many innocent people dying everyday, but is the entire humanity dying with him? And why should the entire humanity die just when an innocent dies? Makes no sense. That’s because the correct translation says something else, and very different, and also gives a very important message-

“whoever kills a human being, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind;”

and the verse doesn’t stop here, but goes on to say-

“and whoever saves the life of one person, is as if he had saved the life of all mankind”.

Does the bell ring in your mind? It’s not about an innocent person dying, it’s about an innocent person being ‘killed’. This verse infact condemns all the innocent killings, very different to the message given by the false translation of Mr. Khan.

There are other scenes on which I and some other muslim friends of mine share a common opinion. It’s regarding the Masjid scene where a doctor was provocating and misguiding muslims by making wrong interpretation of the Islamic teachings. Mr. Khan, who was present there explains them the right meaning and then stones the doctor in anger. This scene might lead some non muslims to think that this is what usually happens in the Masjids. No, not the stoning thing, but the provocation thing. I read one view of a non muslim who feels that this might be the reason why muslims become terrorists. This scene can create a negative image of the activities that happen in masjids.

The other area of concern for us was the attack done on Mr. Khan at the end of the movie, where the attacker calls him a kaafir, and then tries to kill him. What message are you trying to convey by this? As I said earlier, these kind of scenes makes it clear that the motive of the movie was just to clear the name of muslims, rather than that of Islam as a whole.

Anyways, the movie was quite good and helped in clearing quite a few things for the general mass, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. However, we thank Karan Johar for his sincere efforts. I hope that in future if such movies are made, they try to cover the gaps that are still left open.

The above are just my personal views and others can have different views on this.