Documentary

Christian Lange

in Five Senses

Character

Christian Lange

Director

Aiman Hassani

Country

Morocco / The Netherlands

Duration

18 min

Year

2025

Many people, including Muslims, have a uniform, static image of Islam. However, there is enormous diversity in how Islam is experienced across different regions and periods.

In Five Senses, Islamic scholar and Arabist Christian Lange takes us on a journey through the multifaceted nature of Islam. He does so based on his research into the five senses: the windows through which we listen, see, hear, smell and feel the world. Strolling through the fragrant streets of Fez, Morocco, Lange shares his personal motivation for this unique, long-term project and his mission as a non-Muslim to bring East and West closer together. What is it like to step into another person’s world?

About Christian Lange

Christian Lange (1975) researches Islam in all its historical diversity and complexity. He is a pioneer in digital humanities, combining the study of Islamic texts with the latest insights from sociology, religious studies, philosophy, and anthropology.

Lange considers the human embodied and imaginative experience of Islam as the most important way to understand it. His research topics include Islamic views on Sharia law, the afterlife and the five senses. Lange goes beyond the arabocentric perspective by also studying the religious experience of Muslims in South-East Asian, Persian and Turkish territories. This approach reveals a colorful, dynamic and multifaceted picture, challenging the one-dimensional view of Islam that sometimes dominates public debate.