Egyptian clerics call for ban on new Iranian film about Prophet Muhammad

DUBAI: A film on the life of the Prophet Muhammad is expected to break box office records in Shia Muslim Iran after its release on Thursday, but some Sunni Muslim clerics in the Arab world are already demanding that Tehran ban it.

The state-sponsored Muhammad, Messenger of God, directed by Oscar-nominated director Majid Majidi, is at $40 million Iran’s most expensive movie to date. Part of the film was shot in South Africa.

“I decided to make this film to fight against the new wave of Islamophobia in the West. The Western interpretation of Islam is full of violence and terrorism,” Majidi said.

The 171-minute movie, the first part of a planned trilogy, focuses on the prophet’s childhood.

His face will not be shown on screen, in accordance with traditional Islamic strictures. The camera shows the boy actor playing him only from behind, or only his shadow.

A Steadicam was customised especially to depict Muhammad’s point of view by the movie’s cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.

The identity of the boy playing Muhammad has not been made public.

Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the most prestigious institute of Sunni Islam, is not satisfied with such precautions and has called on Iran to ban the film.

“This matter is already settled. Sharia prohibits embodying the prophets,” AlAzhar said in a statement.

“It is not permissible in Islam that someone (an actor) has contradictory and conflicting roles; sometimes we see him as a blind drunk, sometimes as a womaniser... and then he embodies a prophet... this is not permissible.”

Regional rivalry between Sunni power Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran has intensified mutual suspicion between followers of the two branches of Islam in recent decades.

There has been no official political,” Sami Yusuf, who is one of the Islamic world’s biggest musical stars and who sang the soundtrack for the film, told Reuters.

In accordance with Islamic strictures, the

only from behind, or only his shadow

comment on the movie yet from Saudi Arabia, where Islam was born more than 1 400 years ago.

“Most of these reactions are

“I am sure people in AlAzhar and others who criticise the film haven’t seen it yet. They are against the film only because it’s a cultural export of Iran.”

He said it was a “shame” there were only two major productions describing the life of Muhammad, in contrast to the many on Jesus Christ and other prophets.

Depictions of Muhammad have often provoked angry unrest after being deemed blasphemous by Muslims. Cartoons published by a Danish newspaper in 2005 were followed by violent protests in which scores of people died.

Islamist militants shot dead 12 people at the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo in January this year, saying they were avenging its blasphemous cartoon depictions of Muhammad.

Iran’s late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill writer Salman Rushdie in 1988 for The Satanic Verses, a novel deemed blasphemous in its treatment of Muhammad and Islam.

Muhammad, Messenger of God is only the second fulllength movie drama on the prophet. The first, The Message (1976), was directed by Syrian Moustapha al-Akkad. Anthony Quinn played Muhammad’s uncle, Hamza.

That film did not depict Muhammad’s face on screen, but some Muslims were offended. Akkad was killed in a 2005 suicide bombing in Amman. It is not known whether the attack was related to the movie.

Muhammad, Messenger of God was mainly shot in Iran. Mecca was recreated in minute detail. Scenes with elephants were filmed in South Africa, after India refused to let the filmmakers in, fearing the reaction of Muslim countries to the movie.

One cinema in Tehran, which asked not to be named for legal reasons, said the movie was their most popular at the moment. – Reuters