Religious Studies of the Media

Religious Studies of the Media

A Historical-Critical Analysis of the Television Series Muawiya in Light of Islamic Historical Sources

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
roohallah shafie 1
esmaeil changizi ardehali 2
masoumeh abangah azgomi 3
1 Assistant Professor, Department of History, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Quran and Hadith Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/jmrs.2026.573257.1243
Abstract
Objective: Audiovisual media play a fundamental role in shaping societies’ historical memory and religious perceptions. It is therefore essential to assess the accuracy of media representations by reference to reliable primary sources. The Saudi-produced historical television series Muawiya (2025), which addresses the first Islamic century, is among the most widely viewed dramatic productions in the Arab world. This study critically examines the series by assessing the extent to which its content corresponds with well-known historical, hadith, and biographical sources and by analyzing its discursive functions.
Methodology: Unlike previous studies, this research simultaneously critiques the series’ visual and semiotic layers and its textual narratives from the perspective of well-known Sunni sources. It also examines these elements in relation to the ideological objectives underlying the reproduction of power in the contemporary Arab world. Drawing on media representation theory and employing a historical-critical method, the study analyzes the series’ narrative, visual, and semiotic structures along four dimensions: civilizational components, historical iconography, distortion of events, and historical omissions.
Findings: The findings indicate that the series creates a marked disjunction from the lifeworld of early Islam through its use of material and architectural elements belonging to later centuries, its disregard for the geographical context of the Hijaz, its appealing and sanitized portrayal of Umayyad figures, and its passive representation of revered religious figures.
Discussion and Conclusion: The alteration of sensitive events, together with the deliberate omission of key episodes, produces an engineered narrative that legitimizes the Umayyad caliphate. The predominance of dramatic considerations over historical fidelity and the series’ movement beyond the bounds of artistic representation are among its most salient features. The series thus appears to constitute an ideological attempt to legitimize contemporary power-centered models in the Arab world—an attempt that approaches the systematic distortion of history.
Keywords
Muawiya
historical television series
historical distortion
iconography
Umayyads
early Islam
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Religious Studies of the Media
Volume 7, Issue 28
Winter 2026
Pages 130-162