Although it was shown outside the distinguished season of television drama in the month of Ramadan, the historical series "Kingdoms of Fire" attracted a large segment of viewers in various Arab countries.

The largest production series in 2019 during only 14 episodes deals with the last years of the Mamluks state in Egypt, the Ottoman sultan Selim I's invasion of the Arab region in 1516 and 1517, and Sultan Toman Bey's resilience until his defeat and hanging at Bab Zuweila in Cairo.

The author of the Egyptian series, Mohamed Suleiman Abdel Malek, said: “I expected from the beginning, even before the series, that controversy will arise around it on multiple levels, including the point of accuracy and accuracy of historical facts, but what I assure him is that historical drama is not documenting history as much as it is motivating Thinking, researching and re-reading the events.

He added, "I see the research case that was launched on the Internet and in the books about the characters of the series and its facts is a very positive case. Historical drama does not record history because this is the work of historians, and the role of the dramatic writer is to read history and understand between the lines and transfer this reading and vision to the audience through his work."

Criticism

The author continued, "Perhaps also from the positives of the series, that it has dispelled many auras that have been placed around specific personalities or events in history, and over the years it has become an incontrovertible reality. (The Kingdoms of Fire) dispelled many of these auras, especially with regard to the Ottoman Empire, and this act was painful for some, so they were only attacking the work. ”

Despite his belief that the work itself is enough to respond to criticism, whether by politicization and keeping pace with some regional conflicts or even making historical mistakes, the author was keen to clarify the sources of documentation of the series in general.

He explained, "We investigated the complete accuracy with regard to the narration of events, and all the episodes were presented to a specialized historical reviewer, Dr. Muhammad Sabri Al-Dali, and therefore I claim that the historical accuracy in (kingdoms of fire) exceeds one hundred percent."

He continued, “We relied on two main references in writing, the book (Bada'i al-Zuhur in Waqa’at al-Dahur) by the historian Ibn Iyas and (the incident of Sultan al-Ghuri with Salim al-Othmani) by the historian Ibn Zanbal al-Rimal, who were written during the Ottoman occupation of Egypt, and their authors were eyewitnesses to the events, in addition to references Turkish, English and Arabic ».

Making

During his career, Muhammad Suleiman Abdel Malek has so far presented three films, about 10 TV series and six radio series, but "Kingdoms of Fire" is his first historical work.

He said, "I have a great passion for history, and for this particular historical stage, but the presentation of such works has always been stalled due to production difficulties." "This passion coincided with the desire of the Emirati production company (Genomedia), which was looking to present its first drama, and was looking to make a huge, influential and different work from the mainstream," he added.

"The producer, Yasser Hareb, trusted me, and his decision was to rely on me, because he saw that using a previous work author with such kind of series would lead to the same result and produce a job similar to the previous works."

Abdel-Malek indicated that the series, from preparation and preparation, through writing and photography to the stage of technical preparation and editing, took a year and a half.

The series includes a large group of actors from different Arab nationalities, most notably the Egyptian Khaled Al-Nabawi, who played the role of Sultan Tuman Bay, the Syrian Rashid Assaf, who played the role of Sultan Qansuh Al-Ghuri, and his citizen Mahmoud Nasr, who played the role of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I.

Abdel-Malik said, "This diversification was intended because the series targets viewers in the Arab region in general, so that the language we used in the dialogue is simple formal to match the historical era and is also smooth for all viewers."

An oppressed era

Abdel-Malek considered that the "kingdoms of fire" provided a breakthrough in the field of historical series, but it remains a stage that needs to be built upon and completed to provide a personal vision of the history of the region, which is narrated by the tongue of its people through a drama whose impact exceeds borders and time. He said, "The series has highlighted an era of history that has been oppressed and silenced. What happened in (Kingdoms of Fire) is that for the first time we narrate the history of the region from our point of view as Arabs, but in the end it is a project that I hope will be followed by many other projects in this direction. He added, "It turns out that the impact of TV drama is very large, more than we expected, and the evidence is the size of the viewing and the controversy that has been raised about the work."

A second part? .. perhaps

On the possibility of writing or producing a second part of the series "Kingdoms of Fire", Mohammed Suleiman Abdel Malek said that "the coming days may be the one that will settle the matter after the completion of the episodes, and the evaluation of the reaction and the opinion of the audience."