Herbert probably used ‘jihad’ to generate a certain element of exoticism while being clear about the Islamic roots of Fremen culture (hence reference to Zensunni origins). The shift to ‘crusade’ is a bit twee but ‘jihad’ also has very different resonances now than it did in 1965.
A friend has pointed out that quite a lot of the language and patterns of the Fremen comes from Chechen language and culture, so Herbert seems to have taken from several sources.
Moving to anthropology, the bedouin culture of the Arabian peninsula has regularly been wracked by religious strife. This pattern pre-dates Islam but continues after it. Muhammad’s Prophetic claims were bitterly contested in his lifetime. But claims of religious legitimacy continued to be bitterly, even violently, contested down to the present day (e.g. the Houthis). See, for instance, the career of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Sulaymān al-Tamīmī (1703–1792).
Herbert argued (one suspects correctly: “woke” is very religious in its patterns) that human religious fervour would continue even in the midst of a highly technological culture. But there is no reason to think it would not be influenced by such. I found Chani’s scepticism much less anthropologically surprising than you do. Especially when you consider whose daughter she is (Liet Kynes, planetary ecologist).
Thanks for your comment. Opposition to Paul as the Lisan-al-Gaib on any basis is not the problem, but instead the angle it took in the movie. Perhaps I should've been clearer that the Fremen's religious mode of being is not solely vested in the prophecy itself. I don't object to any questioning of the prophecy in their society, but an attitude that flippantly and unplausibly dismisses magico-religious thinking.
Chani is not alone, either, Dune 2 gives a whole swathe of Arrakeen society that same modern, secular outlook. Chani's attitudes aren't explained in light of her being Liet Kynes's daughter at all in the film, in fact Stilgar "from the South" is the one who stands out at first. If the film starts calling half of the Fremen "fundamentalists", then we're dealing with something quite different - an anthropological mismatch and a complete spanner in the works of the worldbuilding.
Herbert is absolutely right that religious fervour does not go away. Mircea Eliade speaks about this, the "pseudomorphs" that succeed human religion in the secular age. Our religious impulses are still there, only mapping on to other phenomena.
I invite you to read the rest of Frank Herbert's Dune series, unfinished as it may be. Messiah is difficult, Children is easier, while God-emperor is the capstone of the series, where he brings out his most substantial ideas. After that, Heretics and Chapterhouse veer off in strange directions -- clearly he was going somewhere with that, but he didn't live to finish the series, and the alleged Dune 7 outline & notes have never been published.
Relevant to this, Frank Herbert actually handled this attitude of subversion and deconstruction very well within his own work. I'm referring to the Museum Fremen, who we meet in God-emperor (spoiler warning). They are the distant descendants of the Fremen, kept around to preserve the old rites & rituals, living on a terraformed Arrakis which is now mostly verdant. And they come to a shock to the reader, because they are an inversion of all that the Fremen represented -- instead of rugged survivalists, zealots and warriors, they are soft, decadent, cynical LARPers! There are scenes where they put on the sacred rituals for paying tourists, and sell a plastic copy of a crysknife, acts which would've been unthinkable to the original Fremen. It's striking to me how the disenchanted, ironic, modern attitude, and its terrible human costs, are expressed perfectly by the Museum Fremen.
This is another example of Frank Herbert's brilliance: he basically saw this debacle coming, almost with the prescience of Muad'dib.
Herbert probably used ‘jihad’ to generate a certain element of exoticism while being clear about the Islamic roots of Fremen culture (hence reference to Zensunni origins). The shift to ‘crusade’ is a bit twee but ‘jihad’ also has very different resonances now than it did in 1965.
A friend has pointed out that quite a lot of the language and patterns of the Fremen comes from Chechen language and culture, so Herbert seems to have taken from several sources.
Moving to anthropology, the bedouin culture of the Arabian peninsula has regularly been wracked by religious strife. This pattern pre-dates Islam but continues after it. Muhammad’s Prophetic claims were bitterly contested in his lifetime. But claims of religious legitimacy continued to be bitterly, even violently, contested down to the present day (e.g. the Houthis). See, for instance, the career of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Sulaymān al-Tamīmī (1703–1792).
Herbert argued (one suspects correctly: “woke” is very religious in its patterns) that human religious fervour would continue even in the midst of a highly technological culture. But there is no reason to think it would not be influenced by such. I found Chani’s scepticism much less anthropologically surprising than you do. Especially when you consider whose daughter she is (Liet Kynes, planetary ecologist).
Thanks for your comment. Opposition to Paul as the Lisan-al-Gaib on any basis is not the problem, but instead the angle it took in the movie. Perhaps I should've been clearer that the Fremen's religious mode of being is not solely vested in the prophecy itself. I don't object to any questioning of the prophecy in their society, but an attitude that flippantly and unplausibly dismisses magico-religious thinking.
Chani is not alone, either, Dune 2 gives a whole swathe of Arrakeen society that same modern, secular outlook. Chani's attitudes aren't explained in light of her being Liet Kynes's daughter at all in the film, in fact Stilgar "from the South" is the one who stands out at first. If the film starts calling half of the Fremen "fundamentalists", then we're dealing with something quite different - an anthropological mismatch and a complete spanner in the works of the worldbuilding.
Herbert is absolutely right that religious fervour does not go away. Mircea Eliade speaks about this, the "pseudomorphs" that succeed human religion in the secular age. Our religious impulses are still there, only mapping on to other phenomena.
I invite you to read the rest of Frank Herbert's Dune series, unfinished as it may be. Messiah is difficult, Children is easier, while God-emperor is the capstone of the series, where he brings out his most substantial ideas. After that, Heretics and Chapterhouse veer off in strange directions -- clearly he was going somewhere with that, but he didn't live to finish the series, and the alleged Dune 7 outline & notes have never been published.
Relevant to this, Frank Herbert actually handled this attitude of subversion and deconstruction very well within his own work. I'm referring to the Museum Fremen, who we meet in God-emperor (spoiler warning). They are the distant descendants of the Fremen, kept around to preserve the old rites & rituals, living on a terraformed Arrakis which is now mostly verdant. And they come to a shock to the reader, because they are an inversion of all that the Fremen represented -- instead of rugged survivalists, zealots and warriors, they are soft, decadent, cynical LARPers! There are scenes where they put on the sacred rituals for paying tourists, and sell a plastic copy of a crysknife, acts which would've been unthinkable to the original Fremen. It's striking to me how the disenchanted, ironic, modern attitude, and its terrible human costs, are expressed perfectly by the Museum Fremen.
This is another example of Frank Herbert's brilliance: he basically saw this debacle coming, almost with the prescience of Muad'dib.