14 DAY TRIAL // It's hard to please everyone and sometimes it doesn't even take violent gameplay to upset some potential players; a couple of words in the upcoming Wii game Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros Treasure from Capcom have managed to get the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) react swiftly.
The words in question are Allahu Akbar which can be translated into "God is the greatest" and for some strange reason they appear in the E3 trailer of the aforementioned title. I'm not saying this takbir should or shouldn't have been placed in the game as it's not my job to judge such a decision. After the reaction of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Capcom has removed all references to Allahu Akbar phrase from every trailer and the final product. Following this quick response, CAIR issued a statement: "We appreciated Capcom's willingness to address Muslim concerns and applaud the company's swift and appropriate actions."
My curiosity went a little further so I started to read the comments from Youtube hoping to get other Muslim reactions and I found two or three that were most interesting. One is saying "I cannot believe that they said Allahu Akbar in this... Good thing they're removing it", which it's not surprise, but another stated: "Don't know why there was a need to get the takbir removed... I didn't find it offensive either".
Just as any other community, the Muslims have different opinions regarding this matter and I believe it shouldn't have been treated like something of great importance. It's their right to ask for the removal of the phrase, but I fail to see why this was offensive in any way. We have to keep in mind that the target audience especially for this game are kids and the Christian ones won't understand. The Muslim kids will probably raise an eyebrow but will not ask why there is a takbir in a Japanese game, but the obvious question which has eluded the grownups and which can be also found in the Youtube comments: "why is there Muslim ewoks?"