Islam and the God Emperor of Mankind

[Yinko]

Pop quiz, what fandom most inspired 40k?

DUNE!

What is the 4th novel in the Dune series? God Emperor of Dune

What is the strongest cultural influence in Dune? Islam.

The parallels are pretty direct, the create crusade is pretty damn similar to the great jihad that the Atreides family launches.

This gets more interesting though. The Atreides are villain protagonists. They deserved their punishment and betrayal since they were in deed plotting the usurpation of the imperial throne prior to their placement on Arrakis. Worse, they were brain-washing their own citizenry with sound to create super-soldiers. The whole series of books is a Classical Tragedy, requiring both the tale of the rise and the tale of the collapse. Tradgedies work almost exclusively when the characters deserve their fate.

This all actually makes the parallels with The God Emperor of Mankind even more dramatic. He also created super-soldiers without regard to their lives or desires, he also sought galactic conquest, he also had psychic powers, he also was worshiped as a god. He also deserved his fate for his hubris.

I find it kind of funny that one of the strongest pop-cultural forces pushing favor of the crusades was almost directly inspired by Islam.

 

[Syzygy]

Except it isn't. Islam as inspiration applies in only the loosest sense of the term; it is a tenuous connection at best to the Imperium of Man as a concept which draws far more from Catholicism and popular depictions of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The path from Islam to Imperium is about as indirect as can be. That Warhammer 40K pulls much of its ideas from Dune as a whole is certainly blatant, but the details it casually lifts from Herbert's novels lean far more into his science fiction elements and techno-medieval designs. Super-soldiers, conquest, psychic powers, and a cult of personality are an explicit reflection of Leto II and the Golden Path, not the Fremen. Just about the only Fremen element that carried over from Dune to 40K is the Officio Assassinorum, and that was wholly divided of any cultural aspects. In short, there is nothing in 40K that explicitly points to Islam as inspiration, because there is little in Dune that does so either.

As to why is detailed by the books; the Fremen are an instrument employed to secure Arrakis and spice, which have far greater impact on the setting than the Fremen's jihad. That they carried out a holy war on behalf of Paul after placing him on the imperial throne, but their sphere of influence hardly expands beyond a footnote once Leto II begins orchestrating the Golden Path. Even then, the jihad receives the majority of its impetus through the Bene Gesserit who systematically installed religious doctrine across multiple cultures to ensure the service of adherents, and it was they who intended to usurp the imperial throne, not the Atreides. That is why Gaius Helen Mohaim is so royally irked by Jessica's inability to carry out their prophecy which denied them their Kwisatz Haderach and imperial ambitions in one fell swoop. The Atreides aren't villain protagonists, though they go on to commit terrible deeds, they are tragic heroes caught in a focal point of history and swept along regardless of their desires, hence Paul's constant lamentation of the jihad's inevitability; every other path is doomed to failure. The Golden Path dictates Leto II rise to power and inevitable fall as a means of ensuring humanity's survival as a species. He does not want the responsibility of imperial office or shepherding the galaxy no more the Alia wants the genetic memories of her ancestors, and in the end it kills them to the last. The distinguishing detail regarding their arcs is their selfless nature; everything is done to benefit the galaxy not themselves, and that is what secures them as heroes, not villains.