They were furious over a film of our Lord Jesus Christ, but who cares if this non-sence comes to the screen. God have mercy! I pray that people are not pulled away from God.
The Prophet hits the silver screen with an eye to reverse stereotypes
U.S. release of 'Muhammad' passes without the hype of Mel Gibson's 'The Passion'
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Thursday, November 18, 2004
The Prophet hits the silver screen with an eye to reverse stereotypes
NEW YORK: Forget about dancing genies, buxom harem girls and dashing heroes in mythical Arab lands bent on saving ravishing princesses. In this animated movie, the issue is one of divine love, devotion and a struggle for God.
But "Muhammad, The Last Prophet," a two-year, $10-million undertaking, is more than a 90-minute cartoon chronicling the life of Islam's founding prophet, say its producers and distributors. It is about a struggle that began 1,400 years ago and is still being waged today in places as glitzy as Hollywood and as gritty as the narrow, booby-trapped roads and alleys of Fallujah, Iraq.
"In a volatile political climate such as today's, there is a lot of interest in learning about Islam and Muslims and the legacy of the Prophet," said Oussama Jammal, chief executive of the Joliet, Illinois-based Fine Media Group, the movie's North American distributors.
"There's also a need to try to explain the religion and the Prophet in a historically accurate way. Hopefully, this movie can help in this," he said.
Jammal carefully timed the film's U.S. debut to coincide with Eid al-Fitr, a celebration marking the end of the Muslims' daylight fasting month of Ramadan. It was, he said, the ideal time to release a movie "that will hopefully help Muslims celebrate their history."
But making a movie about Islam's Prophet - even in the most tranquil of political times - is a difficult undertaking. Islam bans depicting Mohammed or his closest followers and the film's producers were careful to not show his face.
Many of the scenes were shot to allow viewers to see the images through his eyes, and such care earned the film the thumbs up from the clerics at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, the foremost theological institute in the Sunni Muslim world.
To add to its mass market appeal, Badr International, a British Virgin Islands company that produced the film, also enlisted director Richard Rich. The Burbank, California-based director worked for Disney for 14 years and his credits include the hit movie, "The Fox and the Hound."
The result is a well-produced cartoon that Jammal says is the first feature length movie produced by the Muslim community to be shown on the big screen in America.
The movie begins with a couple and their young daughter meeting a destitute old man whom they bring home in the spirit of charity advocated by Islam. At their home, they begin to tell the story of Mohammed, starting from the first revelations on Mount Hira when the Angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to the Prophet - then 40-years-old - and urged him, "Read."
Mohammed, whom tradition says was illiterate, responds, "I cannot read."
"Read, in the name of your Lord who created/Created man from a clot (of blood) ... He who taught by the pen/Taught man that which he knew not," says Gabriel, as quoted in one of chapters of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
The story unfolds with Mohammed, a merchant in the city of Mecca in what today is Saudi Arabia, first doubting the revelations, but quickly finding support and encouragement from his wife, Khadija - the first to convert.
At the time, Mecca was a pagan religious center, and the new faith challenged the authority of the city's rulers.
But Mohammed's message that there is but one omnipotent God - that of Abraham, Moses and Jesus - under whom all are equal, increasingly won favor among common people.
With Mohammed winning over more followers, the ridicule with which he was initially greeted gives way to persecution - laying the foundation for his flight to neighboring Medina and the battles that, after patience and dialogue failed, would secure Islam's hold on the Arabian peninsula.
The film makes a point of showing the respect with which Mohammed held other monotheistic faiths. Twice there are references to Islam's God also being the God of Jews and Christians. It's a message of tolerance that viewers said is painfully absent today, both on the part of extremist Muslims and many in the West.
"This movie is important to bring out the message of peace that Islam teaches," said Firaz Shaikh, a Long Island resident.
"It's a great way for the children to learn about the religion in a constructive way and to truly understand it's spirit and the Prophet's message," said the 51-year-old native of India who, with his wife and two children, attended the movie in a predominantly Russian neighborhood in Brooklyn.
But for such understanding to find footing, the film must first go mass market - something which Jammal, the movie's distributor, admits is hindered by theater companies' reluctance to run an independent film that they see has limited appeal.
The movie debuted last Sunday in about 37 U.S. cities - with the vast majority of showings in individual theaters rented from United Artists. Now, Jammal hopes for a second showing in the United States, and has his sights set on Europe next.
Unlike Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ," the opening of "Muhammad" in the United States seems to have caused little controversy.
The movie has already appeared in the Middle East, and ruffled a few feathers. One 90-second scene was cut by Egyptian censors who argued that the images of Muslims destroying pharaonic-looking idols in Mecca could spark a backlash against Egypt's rich archaeological heritage.
Some Arab critics also argued that certain events were omitted, likely to make it more palatable for Western markets.
But for some who saw the film in New York, it was learning, not politics, that drew them.
"We all learned something here," said William James, a Muslim convert who brought along Quentin Young, his 4-year-old Christian grandson. "I picked up a few things I didn't know before, and Quentin here learned a couple of words of Arabic."
"What does Allahu Akbar mean," he asked the child.
"God is Great," piped up Quentin, eyeing the bag of popcorn his grandfather was holding. "And so was the movie."
But others expressed doubts that the film, with its limited - four day - engagement would do much to shatter stereotypes.
"The people here are ignorant. They just see (Osama) bin Laden, and to them, that's what Muslims are," said German-born Marie Edwards, referring to the Al-Qaida leader who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Her husband, David Edwards was more optimistic.
"Islam is terribly misunderstood, but I don't think that people would be unmoved" by the movie, he said.
"Personally, I think it's a good religion," he added. "And I'm an atheist."
For more information on "Muhammad, the Last Prophet", go to
http://www.finemediagroup.com
