Spiritual Star Wars!

Hi friends,

"When we ordered the angels: “prostrate before Adam in respect,” they all prostrated except Iblees (Shaitan) who refused in his arrogance and became a disbeliever. To Adam we said: “Dwell with your wife in Paradise and eat anything you want from its bountiful food from wherever you wish, but do not approached this tree, or you shall both become transgressors.”

But Shaitan tempted them with the tree to disobey Allah’s commandment and caused them to slop therefrom (paradise), and get them expelled from where they were. We said: “Get down from here, some of you being enemies to others, and there is for you in the earth an abode and provisions for a specified period.”"

Quran, 2:34-36

Why am I quoting this verse from the Quran? It is because it was the one thing running through my head as I watched Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. The Bible has a similar story as well, of Adam and Eve’s temptation from Satan, which causes their exile from Eden to earth.

In the movie, I am reminded me heavily of Adam in Eden when he is tempted by Satan. Adam, knowing that he is forbidden to eat the apple from the Tree, eats it anyway because he is thinking selfishly. He does not take God’s warning seriously, and so both Adam and Eve are tempted and sin against God. In the same way, Anakin Skywalker (Adam) does not take the warning from his ‘father’ Obi Wan Kenobi (God), and sins by falling into the temptation of the chancellor Palpatine (Satan). The whole set up could not have been more obvious.

Sometimes it makes me wonder if the entire Star Wars series are based on religious themes and scriptures, since it is all about a battle between the ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’, symbolic of God and Satan! I think there is something deeper in this movie, deeper than the special effects and weird alien characters, which draw people to the theatres. There are loads of other movies that could be seen as spiritual even if the filmmakers did not have any intention to do so. Some of these include The Shawshank Redemption, Braveheart, The Sixth Sense, Finding Nemo, The Lord of the Rings and so on. Religious scriptures.

Mansur