Christopher Marlowe's 'Tamburlaine the Great' censored to avoid offending muslims

A play written back in the 1500s by Christopher Marlowe, who some see as a rival to Shakespeare, has been censored during performances in London because it may offend muslims.

timesonline.co.uk

Simon Reade, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, said that if they had not altered the original it “would have unnecessarily raised the hackles of a significant proportion of one of the world’s great religions”.

The burning of the Koran was “smoothed over”, he said, so that it became just the destruction of “a load of books” relating to any culture or religion. That made it more powerful, they claimed.

Members of the audience also reported that key references to Muhammad had been dropped, particularly in the passage where Tamburlaine says that he is “not worthy to be worshipped”. In the original Marlowe writes that Muhammad “remains in hell”.

I agree that the lines are offensive but the play should not be changed.
The play is about a man who defeats the Emporer of Turkey so how can they remove the anti-Turkish and anti-muslim aspects of the play?
It should be performed as it was originally written.

Can someone explain what HAPPENS TO Moslems when they are "offended" which seems all too easy to do.
Christians are mocked, ridiculed and insulted, EVEN to the point of OUR SAVIOUR getting a large dose of it specificly, yet it inspires us to just tell the truth of our faith with more oppotunities to do so.
Is their faith so weak that the best they can do when it's challanged is say, "SHUT UP, OR ELSE!"? I'm sure for many if not most it isn't the case so where does this constant call to not "offend" them come from? Are they just being used as an excuse to water down the Christian message and rile those pesky 'fundamentalists'?

Good catch and good post, Ace.

Alas, literature and history are being "sanitized" as we speak by the revisionist political correctness crowd. Did you hear that all references to Mount Rushmore were being removed from American history textbooks. Yes, it seems because only one race is represented by the mountain sculpture, children can no longer learn about it - even though the people represented were key to founding this country.


Textbook Changes Draw Charges of Political Correctness

LOS ANGELES — A textbook review process taking place in states across the country has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers to hot dogs, leaving many to charge educators with distorting history in the name of political correctness.

The review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what’s happening has a lot of people wondering – quite literally – "Where’s the beef?"

That’s because many textbooks will no longer feature pictures of hot dogs, sodas, cakes, butter and other kinds of food that are not considered nutritious. Nor will the books contain any phrases judged to be sexist or politically insensitive.

The Founding Fathers, for instance, are now referred to as "The Framers," in an apparent effort to make them sound less male-dominant. And there will be no more reading about Mount Rushmore, where the faces of four U.S. presidents are carved into stone, because it appears to offend some American-Indian groups.

The changes, which reflect a wide range of political correctness, have been brought about by pressure groups on both sides of the political aisle, as both Democratic and Republican legislators have been lobbied.



[edit on 11/29/2005 by centurion1211]

Originally posted by centurion1211

Alas, literature and history are being "sanitized" as we speak by the revisionist political correctness crowd. Did you hear that all references to Mount Rushmore were being removed from American history textbooks.

I hadn't heard of that one before.
It's ridiculous that we are so ashamed of our history that we want to alter it to avoid offending others.
Meanwhile, we continue to sugarcoat the history of others, overstating their accomplishments while downplaying our own.