Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Lingui is a welcome depiction of Islamic womanhood that isn’t about submission

Best known for films such as Abouna (2002) and Daratt (2006), veteran director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s latest offering is Lingui, the Sacred Bonds. It centres on the relationship in a modest, single-parent household between Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane) and her adolescent daughter Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio), whose mood swings are the result of more than just usual teen angst. Set in his home country of Chad, a Muslim-majority, landlocked nation consisting largely of desert, Lingui builds on Haroun’s continual exploration of the human condition and morality at the family level. 

When we are first introduced to Amina, she’s covered in beads of sweat and is forcefully carving a knife through a discarded tyre. She’s trying to obtain wire, which she deftly weaves together – a delicate activity, with the threat of injury. When the final product is shown, Amina is no longer in her courtyard. In contrast to her sweaty, fleshy appearance when making her wares outside, her body is draped in a roomy saffron cloth. Her head is also covered by a sculpture-like tower of wire baskets, their shadow casting a veil across her face, which she sells for petty change. 

Her transformed, public-facing appearance introduces the religious undertones of the film, as a call to prayer crescendos, its circadian interjection a constant in the film. Lingui continues to deal with the expectations, as well as restrictions, placed on women’s bodies in this context, but carefully sidesteps the common narrative of Islam as an oppressive entity.

The following scene is the first of many to take place at the local mosque. At dusk, a communal prayer sequence unfolds, as a group of men perform synchronised movements, their muted pastel robes fluttering to the sound of melodic prayer verses. As the camera pans out from the congregation of men inside the mosque to its exterior, we see Amina alone, bent over her prayer mat laid on the shifting sand. In Islam, scripture encourages men to pray together in the mosque, unlike women. But while the fact that she is the only woman present indicates her piety, the imam (Saleh Sambo) is quick to reproach her for having not attended morning prayer.

The overbearing and didactic imam, like her suitor Brahim (Youssouf Djaoro), uses piety as a facade to manipulate Amina. The threshold of the mosque soon becomes the site for unwelcome meetings with both these men: needling advances from Brahim and condescending reprimands from the imam both compromise the mosque’s intended role as a site of sanctuary. Even in her own home, her freedom is encroached upon, as the visiting imam admonishes her offer of a handshake, and instructs her to cover her head.  

While these encounters may lean into stereotypes around domineering men in Islam, Amina doesn’t conform to the corresponding cliché of a submissive woman. Though always polite, she’s never deferential or defeated. Instead, she’s playful yet resolute, maintaining a quiet righteousness throughout. Haroun shows a practice of faith that’s not mutually exclusive with female empowerment or agency, which Amina exudes. He succeeds in demonstrating that contrary to popular narrative, Islam is not the oppressive structure, but rather patriarchy is, and many of Haroun’s observations – the demonisation of single mothers, the politicisation of pro-choice ideology, for example – are found beyond the Islamic world.

One of the scenes most indicative of the insidious nature of patriarchal power structures is when the imam tells her “We’re all brothers in Islam,” a highly gendered and exclusionary choice of words. This interaction is echoed later, when a woman who endangers her personal security to solve Maria’s predicament refuses compensation, telling Amina, “You’re like my sister.” 

This dynamic is mirrored in Haroun’s sonic choices. The call to prayer we hear repeatedly is performed exclusively by a lone male voice. At the end, however, it gives way to a collective female chant, sung at Amina’s niece’s coming-of-age party, highlighting the female solidarity – the main manifestation of sacred bonds or ‘lingui’ – that the film champions.

Throughout, Haroun navigates interweaving interpretations of morality and religion. Much has been made of the corporeal, clinical subject matter of the film as it respectfully examines the extractive and insertive processes women’s bodies are subjected to. However, equally strong is its exploration of the spiritual and moral, and how they too intersect with matters of women’s rights. It makes for a welcome, nuanced depiction of Islamic faith that isn’t predicated on female submission.