Ramadan TV Series Ignites Debate Over Muslim General’s Origins

Directed by the Kuwaiti Mohamed Al Anzi, the series has been broadcast since the beginning of Ramadan on television channels in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Morocco. The series traces the history of the Muslim general Tariq Ibn Ziad, an Umayyad governor. From the first episode of the series, Tariq is presented as a man from a region of present-day Morocco. "Unfortunately, after watching the first episode, we note that Tarik’s Algerian origin has been obscured, whereas all the sources present him as having Algerian origins," regrets the Algerian researcher Smail Benyoub in an interview with TSA.

The series has revived the disputes between Moroccans and Algerians about the origins of this Muslim general. A controversy quickly set in. For Algeria, Tariq is an Algerian from the Berber tribe of the Zenata. Faced with the controversy, the director Mohamed Al Anzi defended himself: "It is useless to try to reduce Muslim leaders of the stature of Tariq Ibn Ziad to territories drawn by the Sykes-Picot agreements. Tariq and the others of our leaders are a legacy of the 1.5 billion Muslim nation and not of a state or territory." However, he acknowledged that the series is "far from the red lines".