Dune by Frank Herbert is widely regarded as the best science fiction novel ever written. The recent film adaption of the first half of the novel, directed by Denis Villeneuve, won six Academy Awards. This post will look at the religious themes and influences in Dune and what many people get wrong about the story.
Dune is set 24368 years in the future (Willis E. McNally, The Dune Encyclopedia, Berkley Books, New York, 1984, pp.7-8). The human race has spread out across the universe, which is ruled by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. Below the Emperor is the Landsraad, the nobility or Great Houses which included House Atreides and their rivals House Harkonnen. The Emperor has assigned Duke Leto Atreides to replace the Harkonnens as the managers of the planet Arrakis or Dune which is the only source for Melange or Spice, a substance which prolongs life, expands consciousness, and enables navigation through hyperspace. This makes Arrakis the most important planet in the universe. Leto relocates to Arrakis, accompanied by his concubine Lady Jessica and their son Paul who has been having dreams about the future. Jessica is a Bene Gesserit, a female order which is seeking to breed a superhuman, the Kwisatz Haderach, which means “shortening of the way” or “the one who can be in many places at once”. The plan had been for Jessica to have a daughter who marry a Harkonnen and produce the Kwisatz Haderach, but she chose to have a son instead.
Frank Herbert has said the inspiration for the Bene Gesserit was his Catholic aunts who tried to convert him to Catholicism. “Gesserit” is derived from Jesuit (Brian Herbert, Dreamer of Dune, 2003, ebook edition, pp. 165, 169). Perhaps, Paul’s resentment at the Bene Gesserit’s attempts to manipulate him is also based on Herbert’s Catholic aunts.
The inhabitants of Arrakis are the Fremen, desert tribes, which were originally known as the Zensunni Wanderers. Their religion is based on Zen Buddhism and Islam (Dreamer of Dune, p. 172, The Dune Encyclopedia, pp. 697-698). Their language is derived from Arabic (The Dune Encyclopedia, pp. 323-324). A glossary of the Arabic terms in Dune can be found at Arabic and Islamic themes in Frank Herbert’s Dune. “Kwisatz haderach” is not Arabic, but appears to be derived from the Hebrew “kefitzat haderech” which refers to Jewish legends about people who appeared to teleport, travel at impossible speed, or be in two places at once (Bob Rickard, “The Shortening of the Way”, Fortean Times, November 2021, pp. 34-41). The Fremen are waiting for the coming of the Mahdi, who will deliver them from their oppressors. In Islam, the Mahdi is their equivalent of the Messiah. This belief was planted in the Fremen culture by Bene Gesserit missionaries centuries earlier. When the Atreides arrive on Arrakis, Paul is hailed by the Fremen as the Mahdi (Frank Herbert, Dune, Gollanz, London, 2007, pp. 107-118).
However, in the words of a certain Dune rip-off, “It’s a trap!” The Emperor has planned to betray the Atreides. He sends his troops to help the Harkonnens to attack Arrakis. Leto is killed. Jessica and Paul escape into the desert. They join the Fremen. Paul gets a Fremen girlfriend Chani. He rides one of Arrakis’ giant sandworms and takes the Fremen name, Muad’Dib, which is the name of a desert mouse and one of Arrakis’ moons. It also sounds like “Mahdi”. He takes the Water of Life, concentrated Melange, and believes he is the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul Muad’Dib unites the Fremen tribes and leads them in a jihad to defeat the Emperor and the Harknonnens. Paul now controls the Spice. He marries the Emperor’s daughter, Princess Irulan, and becomes the new ruler of the universe.
I saw the 1984 David Lynch movie before I read the book, so it coloured my perception of the novel. At the end, the hero Paul is triumphant, he has defeated his enemies, the good guys have won, it starts raining, and they all lived happily ever after. As I will explain, Frank Herbert’s intended themes and message have been lost.
Reading the sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, after the David Lynch movie felt like something of a letdown, a case of the sequels being inferior to the original. In Dune Messiah Paul is the ruler of the universe. A new religion has grown up around him. The Fremen have gone on a jihad and killed billions. Paul thinks he is the greatest mass murderer in history. The Fremen are free of the Harkonnens but their traditional way of life has been destroyed. Fremen society and religion have become commercialized and corrupted. Paul is blinded in an attack. he abdicated and wanders off into the desert. Chani dies in childbirth, giving birth to twins.
In Children of Dune Paul has become a wandering prophet condemning the religious and political system built in his name. One of science fiction’s greatest characters ends up being killed somewhat ignominiously by one of his own priests in a riot. His son Leto II merges with the sandworms and becomes the God Emperor who rules for 3500 years.
The influence on the Star Wars prequels is obvious. Like Paul, Anakin Skywalker is believed to be the chosen one. Instead, he establishes the evil empire. His wife dies in childbirth giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl. His son grows up to be the real chosen one.
Dune‘s motifs of hordes of black-clad Fremen, being led by the prophesied Mahdi, coming out of the desert, to wage jihad and destruction on their oppressors who wanted the resource which their civilization depends on, is clearly reminiscent of the Middle East and its oil reserves, with Muslim fundamentalists resentful of Western interference and expecting the coming of the Mahdi. The two movies of Dune (1984 and 2021) and the 2000 miniseries have toned down the Islamic reference and substituted “crusade” for “jihad”.
Another Middle Eastern influence on Dune was the First World War’s Lawrence of Arabia, Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, an outsider with something of a Messiah complex who came in and united the desert tribes and led them in the fight against the Ottoman Empire which had subjugated them.
However, Dune should not be interpreted as Islamic fundamentalist propaganda with Paul as the Mahdi hero. The point, which Frank Herbert was trying to make, was that heroes are not necessarily a good thing. He has said,
“I conceived of a long novel, the whole trilogy as one book about the messianic convulsions that periodically overtake us. Demagogues, fanatics, con-game artists, the innocent and not-so-innocent bystanders – all were to play a part in the drama. This grows from my theory that superheroes are disastrous for humankind, that even if we find a real hero (whatever that may be), eventually fallible mortals take over the power structure that always comes into being around such a leader. What better way to destroy a civilization, a society or a race than to set people into the wild oscillations which follow their turning over their judgement and decision-making faculties to a superhero?” (Tim O’Reilly, The Maker of Dune, Berkley Books, New York, 1987, p. 97)
“It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are sufficiently imbalanced they could be called insane. That was the beginning: heroes are painful, superheroes involve too many of us in disaster” (The Maker of Dune, p. 98)
Paul’s story arc is an example of the theory of the Hero’s Journey. Brian Herbert writes,
“Paul is the hero prince on a quest, as described by Carl Gustave Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Lord Raglan. One of the books my father studied, Raglan’s The Hero (published in 1936) outlined twenty-two steps followed by classic heroes. These included (all of which closely approximate the life of Paul Muad’Dib): (a) the hero’s father is a king (a duke in Paul’s case); (b) the circumstances of his conception are unusual; (c) he is reputed to be the son of a god (Paul is reputed to be a returning god, a messiah); (d) an attempt is made to kill him at birth (in Paul’s case, the attempt occurred in his youth); (e) after a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast, he (f) marries a princess (Irulan, his wife in name only, is the daughter of Emperor Shaddam Corrino. The mother of his Paul’s children, Chani, is the daughter of a kinglike figure to the Fremen, Liet-Kynes) and (g) becomes a king.” (Dreamer of Dune, pp. 160-161)
Paul’s fall from power in the sequels can also be understood as part of the Hero’s Journey.
The theory of the Hero’s Journey is largely derived from the Greek myth of Oedipus, King of Thebes. When Oedipus was born, it was prophesied that he would kill his father and marry his mother. His father, hoping to avert the prophecy, gave his baby son to a shepherd and inadvertently set in motion the events which would lead to the prophecy’s fulfillment. Oedipus grew up and not knowing his identity, killed his father, became king, and married his mother. When the truth was revealed, Oedipus blinded himself, abdicated, and became a wandering exile, which is reminiscent of the blind Paul going into the desert at the end of Dune Messiah.
LIke Odepius, Paul is ultimately a tragic figure. He has power, but he is trapped. He knows from his prescience that if he avenges his House and defeats his enemies, he will set in motion events that will lead to the deaths of billions and he will be seen as an evil tyrant, but he still has to do it.
The myth of Oedipus was also the basis for the somewhat dubious theory of the Oedipus Complex developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) who proposed that boys want to kill their father and marry their mother. There are hints of the Oedipus Complex in Dune. It is only after Paul’s father is killed that he comes into his own and his rise to power begins, and well, Paul’s relationship with his mother Jessica strikes me as a little odd.
In the novels, Princess Irulan becomes Paul’s official biographer, writing about how great he was. I have come to the conclusion that the 1984 movie is basically an adaption of Irulan’s biography, rather than Frank Herbert’s novel. Herbert’s themes about the dangers of heroes and power have been lost and replaced with official propaganda about the glory of Muad’Dib.
A lot of people focus on the first book and think Frank Herbert should have stopped there because the sequels do not measure up to the original. I have felt this way. However, this is like stopping at Fellowship of the Ring. Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are not ill-conceived afterthoughts. The story of Dune was always meant to be a trilogy (The Maker of Dune, pp. 95, 97). Herbert wrote parts of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune before he had finished Dune (The Maker of Dune, p. 105). To focus on Paul’s victory in Dune but ignore the consequences of his victory and his decline and fall in the sequels misses the point Herbert wanted to make about the dangers of heroes.
So, is Paul the Muslim Mahdi? Sort of, but Dune is neither anti- nor pro-Islam. Rather, Herbert used the concept of the Mahdi, a hero/messiah figure to portray the dangers of power, religion, and heroes. He could have just as easily made the same point in a novel about exiled Catholics in the distant future waiting for the return of the Pope to restore them.
Malcolm Nicholson 