Nurflix and Alchemiya: Shariah Compliant Online Streaming Services Seek to Redefine Entertainment

Imams and Preachers Supervise These Online Entertainment Productions Main Points: 1. During the last two years, online streaming services catering to the Muslims have come up. 2. Malaysia's Nurflix was launched from a mosque. 3. UK's Alchemiya was co-founded by Ajmal Masroor Akhtar, a London based Imam. 4. Nurflix produces Shariah compliant drama, religious instruction programmes, programmes for children and women and Islamic music. ----- By New Age Islam Staff Writer 31 March 2022 Nurflix/Facebook ----- For a long time, Muslims were worried about the corruptive influence of immoral content on the internet and on online streaming services. These video-on-demand services offer films that are based on love, sex, violence and promote immorality and perversion in the society. Since internet and media platforms have become a quintessential part of everyday life, the Muslims cannot keep away from it. Therefore, some people from the Muslim community started thinking of using the internet and media platforms to present what they called Islamic entertainment. The term Islamic entertainment seems self-contradictory as Islam does not encourage vain entertainment to pass time. Quran terms vain entertainment as Lahw -al-Hadith and asks Muslims to abstain from it. But in the modern social milieu, entertainment provided on internet or other media platforms cannot be avoided. So some Muslim ideologues who had been in the media or entertainment industry for some time decided to produce entertainment based on Islamic values so that Muslims could be kept away from the corruptive influence of the 'non-Islamic' entertainment. Hence the term Islamic entertainment. Therefore, to produce 'Islamic entertainment', Navid Akhtar and Ajmal Masroor Akhtar who had worked with the BBC, founded Alchemiya, an online streaming service in 2015 keeping Muslim audience in mind. Interestingly, Ajmal Masroor Akhtar is an imam in a London mosque. Alchemiya streams most of the content in the English language ----- Alchemiya offers movies, dramas and documentaries which are based on Islamic values. All its content is in English and it has achieved a multi -country subscriber base. It was called the Muslim Netflix. Inspired by its success, a streaming company iflix was established in Malaysia in 2018. It was not based on Islamic values and was established on commercial basis. But it was Malaysia's first indigenous streaming company. Its first drama Nur went on air in 2018 and had 11 million views. The story of Nur was based on the forbidden love between a religious preacher Adam and a prostitute named Nur. The success of Nur prompted the producers to make its sequel Nur 2 in 2019. In February 2020, Nurflix, a video-on-demand or online streaming service company was founded in Malaysia. The purpose of the company was to provide 'Islamic' entertainment to the Muslim masses. The company's stress was on ethics and it wanted to teach the Muslims morals through comedies and dramas. Nurflix's first production was a drama titled Khadijas that was written by the famous Malaysian writer Hazwani Helmi. It went on air on 22 January 2021. The show was so successful that the producers claim that the moment it went on air, its server was jammed. The management of Nurflix claim that it is a fully Aqeedah and Shariah compliant media platform. It has a supervisory committee which is headed by an Islamic scholar Ustad Raza Ahmad Mukhlis and its advisor is the popular Malaysian preacher Habib Ali Zainal Abedin al Hamid. The fact that may make eye brows raised is that Nurflix's launch was broadcast live on its Facebook page Nurflix. TV from a mosque in Shah Alam, Selanger and the event was officiated by preacher Habib Ali Zainal Abedin al Hamid. Nurflix offers programmes on various categories like general, women, children etc. Earlier they had a category on religious preachers but (wisely) dropped it. Currently Nurflix has 26000 followers on Instagram and 16000 followers on Facebook. It has 16000 subscribers. The CEO of Nurflix is Syah Rizal Mohammad and its Chairman is Syed Tahir Ali who was formerly associated with the petroleum firm Petronas and the carmakers Proton and Perodua. One of its members is Brader Shah who was one of the members of a famous musical group of Malaysia. Nurflix plans to produce 1000 items of content on education, spirituality, motivational and mainstream categories. It plans to make 12000 episodes of programmes in the next five years. However, given the sectarian divide among the Muslims, it has to be seen how these streaming companies deal with sectarian issues. Will Nurflix remain neutral or become a mouthpiece of a particular sect or ideological school? For example, in September 2021, Nurflix invited a famous Malaysian singer, Aliff Azizi, who had recently joined the Tablighi Jamaat for a chat session. During the conversation, Azizi said that joining the Tablighi Jamaat was a good decision for him. Alchemiya of the UK and Nurflix of Malaysia are, therefore, are an attempt to define entertainment in the modern global perspective where Muslims cannot avoid media and internet. But whether it is imperative to have imams and preachers to supervise its contents and launch a streaming platform from a mosque, is a topic of discussion. Preachers have their sectarian affiliations and many of them have extremist views on veil, girls' education, blasphemy, dress and relations with non-Muslims. Therefore, association of religious preachers with these media platforms may create problems in the long run. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-culture/nurflix-alchemiya-shariah-entertainment/d/126694 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism