Ramadan in Malabar: Marketing Ramadan through electronic media

Malappuram: Late night Islamic lectures were a very common feature of the Malabar region and now the trend has almost vanished. It will be an adjacent paddy field, beach or a playground that would have turned into a huge tent, stage and the whole village or even people from far away regions including the youth, old, women and kids would spare their sleep having a type of rice porridge named ‘Jeeraka Kanji’ just after Taraveeh and the lecture continues until the pre-dawn meal as they not only preaches the community Islam and its history; instead the lecture would soon turn an occasion for mass ‘Dua’, Zikr and Salawatunnabi [Salawat on Prophet Muhammed]. IUML leader and MP Abdul Samad Samadani and the jailed PDP chairman Abdul Nasar Madani were the two well renowned Islamic orators, who won the hearts of thousands in Malabar through those late night lecture sessions.

Now every Musalyar and Maulavi tend to market their speeches through CDs, DVDs and MP3s. They edit their videos to beautify the body language, cut short or edit their words and inserts video clips to suit the views of their sects [namely Sunni or Salafi]; not much different from how a cinema is edited before being sent to release centres. A materialistic nature has come into their speeches instead of the earlier spirituality as they tend to make their CD covers attractive by catchy titles and colourful covers.

The marketing method is to create curiosity and anxiety within the audience. The Islamic lecture halls, grounds from where these lectures are recorded go poorly attended by the youth as the very habit of collectively attending this lecture along with the family members has vanished due to the absence of the earlier late night lectures and the recent night shopping trends. The CDs aren’t quite capable of attracting the youth and only the elderly listen to these CDs as the youth and the kids tend to spend this time on video games or cinemas which they find rather attractive than a Islamic lecture in the drawing room of their house. So it was those nostalgic blessed nights of Ramadan, the feeling of comradeship among the community while attending those lectures that drove youth attention to these Islamic lectures but now they seem less interested to these CDs lacking spiritual feel and they brands these CDs as stuff for old people.

Just like the super stars – Mammooty and Mohan Lal of the Malayalam film industry — there are a few Musalyars and Maulavies having a minimum guarantee in the CD market and their CDs always win the table money. So for the well renowned ones like the AP faction’s Perod AbduRahman Saqafi, EK faction’s Rahmathullah Qasimi Muthedam and Abdul Samad Samadani, their CDs go viral within days of release and the young scholars find it difficult to market their speeches even if they are quite capable of attracting the attention because just like the film industry the well-established ones somehow prevent others from coming up. So Islamic lectures for these scholars are now all about marketing oneself to increase their minimum guarantee amount; we get a feel that every other moral, spiritual and religious factors are irrelevant.

A few regional Malayalam channels too are keen on telecasting Islamic programmes where a Musalyar/Maulavi would answer to queries sent as letter, would give lectures on selected topics, and was observed to have been making a good impact among the Muslim women of Malabar who are chiefly house wives. The astonishing fact is that the channel running the most successful among such Islamic programmes is under the Church ownership. The channel is run by top leaders of a Christian faction and they give prime importance to this show named ‘Almafaas’. They know that they are obliged to propagate Christianity rather than Islam, but they found an ideal market in the Malabar Muslim women.

Other such Islamic programmes intended specifically at the Muslim audience are Mappila Pattu programmes and other Islamic cultural programmes and they take care to bring in special guests and attempt to make it further colourful to entertain Muslim households during Ramadan nights.