What matters is style and pace. One of the things I found most painful is when fundamentalists say they want to stop artists singing and dancing. The streets of Cairo are full of laughter. Though there's plenty to be serious about. I think you're in a worse mess than we are.
People are all mixed up about the difference between civilization and technology.
In the Arab world, people are exceptionally civilized. They possess nothing, but what they've got they'll give you with pleasure. What's refreshing about such cultural effusions is the striking contrast they provide with American film culture, whose tastemakers have decided that the musical is dead and we're all much happier sitting through explosions, mutilations, and cascades of broken glass. How lucky people are in India and Egypt, where they haven't become sophisticated like us and decided that musicals are passe. If I'm not mistaken, the books we see burning in the final sequence are modern volumes rather than medieval manuscripts, which is part of the movie's point.