I'm not sure if we should be that surprised by middle eastern tones when we have terms like Butlerian Jihad[0] and Emperor Padishah[1] Shaddam[2] IV - infact, o

I'm not sure if we should be that surprised by middle eastern tones when we have terms like Butlerian Jihad[0] and Emperor Padishah[1] Shaddam[2] IV - infact, one of the things I like about Dune is this amalgamation of the east and west in names/terms in far far future - a future so distant that the religions we know now have mixed up and produced something very new but still relatable. Otherwise, if the focus was just to be as alien as possible, we could have characters made of entirely unknown matter speaking in an unknown medium - except they won't be as accessible. I think the trick is to make things as alien as possible without leaving humanity entirely behind, which I think Dune manages to do beautifully. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padishah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padishah [2]: based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_(name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_(name)