Turkish-Saudi animosity spills over into cultural sphere
A new multimillion-dollar series on a Saudi TV channel broadcast across the Middle East depicts Ottomans as tyrants who ravaged the Arab world.
Relations between Ankara and Riyadh — already strained due to a number of factors, including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi — are set to take another turn for the worse over a television series that launched Nov. 17.
The 15-episode-long “Kingdoms of Fire” ("Mamlakaat Al-Nar"), which began airing on the Saudi-owned, United Arab Emirate-based MBC channel, is a $40 million production that vilifies Ottomans as “tyrannical occupiers who ravaged the Arab world for centuries.”
Peter Webber, whose films include the much-celebrated “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” directs the historical drama. Egyptian writer Mohamed Solaiman Abdul Malek wrote the screenplay, and its cast includes many well-known Arab actors. The series claims to provide a dramatic but factual rendition of the defeat of the Mamluks by the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim in 1517, and the advent of Ottoman rule.
Supporters of the series in the Arab press claim that it “puts historical facts in perspective” and reveals the true face of Ottoman rule over the Arabs.
