LittleBigPlanet Delayed Due to Qur’an Misuse
by Patrick Steen on October 17, 2008 at 11:16 am
In the past few hours there have been rampant reports of a LittleBigPlanet delay in Europe. Retailers have emailed customers who pre-ordered the game, telling them that the title won’t meet its 24th October release. Sony has now confirmed a worldwide delay, citing an almost unbelievable reason.
LittleBigPlanet has been delayed due to Qur’an references in one of the game’s tracks. The song, Tapha Niang, appears in the Swinging Safari level, showing the strength of LittleBigPlanet’s soundtrack as you climb the necks of giraffes in an African inspired level.
The album the track is from, Boulevard De L’independance, was released in 2006 by Mali artist Toumani Diabate and revered as a modern African classic. Diabate’s talent for Kora playing (a 21-string harp-like instrument) was described as “a magical ability to improvise scintillating runs out of thin air” by UK Newspaper The Observer and Tapha Niang itself, which you can listen to after this link or at his MySpace page, is a modern adaptation of a traditional piece.
The Qur’an references were brought to the attention of Sony by a PlayStation 3 owner who had early access to the game. The included quotations, which are currently unconfirmed, are said to include;
‘kollo nafsin tha’iqatol mawt’, or ‘Every soul shall have the taste of death’
‘kollo man alaiha fan’, or ‘All that is on earth will perish’
The forum poster, whose identity will remain unknown, continued to state;
We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Qur’an deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online patch, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it.
We hope you act immediately to avoid any confusion and unnecessary controversy, and we thank you for making such an amazing game.
Considering Diabate is a devout Muslim, as reported by the Taipei Times, the complaint is even more puzzling. Whether all Muslims find Qur’an quotations in music offensive is not a question I can personally answer, but there was a similar controversy in the 1980’s when Brian Eno and David Byrne removed a track titled Qur’an from their album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
It’s debatable as to whether Sony should have made the decision to delay the game subsequent to including a two year old song by an African Muslim artist. However, after the controversy over Danish comics including the Prophet Muhammad this could have been a PR disaster for LittleBigPlanet. SCEE released this statement;
During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an,” admitted the company in a statement.
We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.
Media Molecule have already created a day 1 patch for the game, but in a strange turn of events, Sony have decided to replace all current discs so as to support those without internet access. This will be especially costly, since many US retailers have already broken the game’s release date. Media Molecule writes;
We learnt yesterday that there is a lyric in one of the licensed tracks which some people may find offensive, and which slipped through the usual screening processes. Obviously MM and Sony together took this very seriously. LBP should be enjoyable by all. So within 12 hours of hearing about this issue involving a lyric (in Somalian, I believe!), we prepared an automatic day 0 patch and had a new disk image ready; however a decision was made within Sony that the right thing to do for quality and support of people with no on-line was to replace existing disks. They assure us that they are doing everything in their power to get things straightened out as fast as possible, and will announce dates soon.
Some retailers estimate a delay until November 14th, but GamesIndustry.biz understands that LittleBigPlanet might not be pushed back quite so far. We’ll keep you informed.
[UPDATE] – Sony will begin to ship LittleBigPlanet copies to retailers in the US on October 27th. There have been no announcements concerning Europe as of yet. Source: PlayStation Blog
[UPDATE 2] – LittleBigPlanet should be released on October 31st in the UK and presumably the rest of Europe.
[UPDATE 3] – Sony has confirmed that LittleBigPlanet will release in Europe week commencing November 3rd, and more specifically, November 5th in the UK. MCVUK
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- LittleBigPlanet Controversy Makes BBC News
- New Next-Gen Sonic Unleashed Shamar Stage Trailer, Plus Spagonia and Apatos for the Wii
- Super Street Fighter II HD Delayed for UK PSN
- LittleBigPlanet to Hit Stores in October
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21 Comments » |
on October 17, 2008 11:30 am
Interesting. You know, I went to go see that Adam Sandler movie, “Don’t Mess with the Zohan”, and being Middle Eastern myself, I was deeply offended by their use of hummus as toothpaste.
I think I will write them an anonymous letter and ask that they remove all hummus use from the film.
on October 17, 2008 6:08 pm
Obviously not too offended since you’re using the wrong word.
on October 17, 2008 6:11 pm
Oh, and I also wanted to say that people getting offended by stupid shit like this is why the world is as messed up as it is. In fact, I heard the stock market crashed because some important turkey sandwiches weren’t kosher.
on October 17, 2008 6:18 pm
The world is messed up because people are scared by the people who got offended. All the fault lies with Sony here.
on October 17, 2008 7:13 pm
Who gives a crap other than religious whackos. Just release the damn game and let the crazies complain.
on October 17, 2008 10:52 pm
I just think it is interesting that there was no complaint when the song was released, but only when it is put into a video game.
Hmm.
on October 17, 2008 10:58 pm
It’s cool that SONY is dealing with this seeing as alot of Muslims would flip out and protests would erupt and that’d be just a huge uneccesary mess for SONY to deal with. Hell SONY even got some shit for using a Cathedral look alike in England for Resistance. I’m part Middle Eastern (not Muslim but my ancestors were) and I think Muslims take these things out of proportion when I’m sure SONY means no disrespect by using these lyrics and Muslims need to see that, I understand the Qur’an is to be respected and all but not so much that it ruins fun for others when it’s nothing that’s going to destroy the world. It’s usually the older generation of Muslims who get erked by this stuff.
Anyways to long of a post, sorry folks x[
on October 18, 2008 4:01 am
I had Faith that videogames would eventually overcome barriers between people,but if you keep giving credit to people that thinks that they are the only right in the world,the bearers of the secret words Eki patang and mooooo-shi,we’ll never really Play Create & Share.
As you can see,you got a very negative response from the fans by doing something For Not Getting a Negative Response of the Fans.
By the way,Did I miss something or in fact,all religious text include a vast amount of expressions and words we use everyday? How Come people I don’t Know decided to randomly take away some time from me?
And How come we agnostics don’t steal time or censor behaviours of our religious counterparts like they are doing?
MM,Think of your message,and think what you’ve done.
on October 18, 2008 2:29 pm
Wow to read you guys comments saddens me its not the fact that he is offended its the fact that you all are so ignorant that you cant understand no matter the reason, he feels offended and thatin itself makes it valid your insensitivity is appalling. It’s a games you retards you all get up in arms for every little thing have a life if it comes out a couple weeks later h well there is no fault here sony put in a great renouned cu;tura; track and ddi what they thought was a good thing it turns out that though many people like the track its offensive to some case closed so stop bitching you bunch of bitches
on October 18, 2008 2:58 pm
Wow so much bullshit amongst people
on October 18, 2008 4:00 pm
@Megulito,
Nice to see that someone who is defending an offended individual is running around making offensive comments.
on October 18, 2008 4:17 pm
Thanks for the comment Meg, and I certainly respect your opinion. But neither art nor entertainment should be censored for faith reasons, that is unless something is said which incites hatred. Not all Muslims find the combination of music and the Qur’an offensive, indeed there’s a whole genre of music doing just that.
The fact that the artist is Muslim is enough to illustrate that one forum poster saying they are offended by the use of words in a song which in no way attacks another human being, is not enough to justify the censoring of art or entertainment.
If it offends you, don’t play the game. Or note that it offends you, and simply ignore it. Or even better, do some research to discover the artist and his values, don’t project your values on that artist and understand that noone is trying to cause harm.
on October 18, 2008 10:26 pm
Way to be mature Megulito.
on October 18, 2008 10:59 pm
I think we should lock further comments on this thread. *wink
on October 19, 2008 11:31 am
@ retards i got no problem offending the offensive you cant respect his views i dont see any reasons for me to respect yours cuz u prob wont respect now so dont get all emotional n sensitive now
@ patrick
hey thanks for responding yeah i definatly know what you mean i dont think art should be censored either im not muslim im christian but i know that people that feel offended are offended its sounds stupid but it like his feeling is valid for only the sake of having it i am not offended by this but i respect the fact that sony took thee time to change it because of the possibilty of offending hhim and possibly many others i do not feel like they had to but the thing that annoys me is how people respond to this person (or these people)taking offense and offese doesnt always have to do with being attacked something these people hold sacred they feel is being exploited and or misuses or spoken in a public light that isnt reverent so just because he is muslim doesnt mean its ok like people in diff religions do things that make not be kosher i am not very sure about what ur post means tone wise but im not projecting my views and just as you suggest someone to keep it to themselves how they feel you are also welcome to do the same
on October 19, 2008 5:04 pm
Meg: To respect a view is very different to agreeing to be ruled by their views yourself. Often atheists respect the views of the religious (and seldom have similar respect in return) but that does not mean they should change their way of life or entertainment to appease the religious. So I can respect that this fellow finds it offensive, but he should have no power to censor entertainment. At most, he should ask only for the ability to choose the song at the begining of the level.
He should also realise that the musicion is a fellow Muslim and not project his interpretations of Islamic faith on that individual. This is one of religions great “evils,” presuming that your religion is the right one, and further that your interpretaion of your religion is the right one. That an old book has a precedence of the languages created by human beings to enjoy is another “sin” in my book.
There are a host of Muslims that believe music in general is neither worthwhile and a work of evil. That is a belief they can abide by. To project that belief on others would be very wrong. If you don’t agree with this Muslim muscian’s use of the Qur’an, you must question your interpretation of your religion.
The man who was offended was right to express his questions and it is wrong to attack him for it – but to say “we Muslims are offended” is quite a big and inaccurate presumption. Sony weren’t worried about offending an individual, they were worried about a percieved backlash that paints all Muslims as orthodox and easily offended. This interpretation is both inaccurate and a stereotype. If anything, the majority of Muslims will be offended that a big company is pandering to them after presuming they’d make a steam about a great song referencing their holy book.
on October 19, 2008 11:44 pm
Yeah good point there Pat. I mean if everyone (big company) were to take one person’s offended nature and make it effect millions of peoples’ enjoyment then I think ALL games would be delayed or banned from places. I honestly think this Qu’ran issue has been taken out of proportion, and as I’ve mentioned before I mean no disrespect to the Muslim people.
on October 20, 2008 9:24 pm
@Julie: You’re kidding right?
on October 21, 2008 10:11 pm
Man people are willing to pay $120 for LBP. Man what the heck, I mean I understand it’s like a “rare” game now supposedly but I just buy a game to play it and for entertainment not for value.
:/
on October 22, 2008 9:09 am
Imaptience. People just want to play it. It’s a shame the servers aren’t yet turned on.
on March 21, 2009 3:38 am
why is everyone criticizing muslims because their offended> of course we are offended! you people didnt even try to undertans why we were! it is hated in islam to listen to music though many muslims listen to it anyway and mixing the quran which is the main symbol of islam with music is terrible! i am muslim i listen to music im not proud of it but i do and i also read the quran regularly whenever music and the quran are mixed thats where i cross the line its a horrible line to cross believe me! and even though the artist of the song himself is muslim doesnt make it ok to use quran in music it is still haram in islam (sinful) he is wrong! and just because some muslims believe its ok to incorporate quran with music it doesnt make it ok in islam its still wrong and offending to all others so the fact that they removed the song from the game is greatly appreciated and if they left it they probably wouldve caused themesleves a lot of trouble