“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 womanizer. Sharia (Islamic law) prohibits embodying the prophets,” said Professor Abdel Fattah Alawari, dean of the Islamic theology faculty at Al-Azhar. The identity of the boy playing Mohammad has not been made public.Įgypt’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. The camera shows the boy actor playing him only from behind, or only his shadow.Ī steadicam was customized especially to depict Mohammad’s point of view by the movie’s Oscar-winning Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. His face will not be shown on screen, in accordance with traditional Islamic strictures. The 171-minute movie, the first part of a planned trilogy, focuses on the prophet’s childhood. The Western interpretation of Islam is full of violence and terrorism,” Majidi was quoted as saying by Hezbollah Line, a conservative Iranian magazine. “I decided to make this film to fight against the new wave of Islamophobia in the West. The state-sponsored “Mohammad, Messenger of God”, directed by Oscar-nominated director Majid Majidi, is at $40 million Iran’s most expensive movie to date. DUBAI (Reuters) - A film on the life of Prophet Mohammad is expected to break box office records in Shi’ite Muslim Iran after its release on Thursday, but some Sunni Muslim clerics in the Arab world are demanding that Tehran ban it.