More on this story. "Critics Decry Plans for a Movie Depicting Life of Prophet Muhammad," by Maxim Lott for Fox News, November 25 (thanks to Christopher):
If film producer Oscar Zoghbi has his way, Americans will be soon be flocking to movie theaters to see a film about the Prophet Muhammad and his followers that Zoghbi hopes will clear up misconceptions about Muslims, including what he says is "the understanding that all Muslims are terrorists."Zoghbi says he hopes to shoot some scenes for his movie in the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, and he predicts his film, "The Messenger of Peace," will rival Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ."
But some critics predict Zoghbi's movie, which is scheduled to begin production early next year, will be a whitewash, and that it won't tell the whole story about Muhammad or Islam.
Nonie Darwish, the author of the upcoming book "Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law," said the film will likely try too hard not to offend.
"The movie will probably avoid or justify Muhammad's violent and unprovoked battling years in Medina, where assassination and mass murder were done by Muhammad … in order to spread the religion, take control and silence his critics," Darwish said.
"We will probably see the image of Muhammad that most Muslims were spoon-fed in their religious education."
Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.com, said Western audiences looking to learn more about a religion tangled in stereotypes of suicide bombers will be disappointed by "The Messenger of Peace."
"They're already taking a stand on a controversial issue with the title alone, denying and downplaying the manifest fact that numerous Muslims around the world have justified acts of violence by invoking Muhammad's words and example," Spencer said.
But Zoghbi says his film will very deliberately take a moderate approach.
"We are trying to depict the values and teachings of the Prophet. It's not a historical film in any way," he said...
Naturally, since if it was a "historical" film, Zoghbi would have to rely on Muhammad's biographers, Ibn Hisham, al-Waqidi, Ibn Ishaq -- or, for a succint sum, Robert's Truth About Muhammad -- something he would not want to do.
Now, apart from a niche market, this film is sure to bomb. Of course, there's a residual demand for a film like this to be featured during "outreach week" at your friendly, neighborhood mosque.
Perhaps John Esposito can be given a walk-on role, and a fully-shrouded Karen Armstrong can also be cameoed.
"We will probably see the image of Muhammad that most Muslims were spoon-fed in their religious education."
HOLD THE PRESS!!!!!!!!!
I thought that it was illegal to show Mohammed on film?
Illegal in Sharia and in some European nations and in most of the MSM.
Will they have a "south park" censorship each time Mohammed is on the screen?
This has got to be a joke? Right?
Ah, I didn't know the connection between the movie, The Messenger, and that weird Hanafi Muslim hostage drama in D.C. in '77! And to think that Akkad, the director of that film, was killed by a 2005 al-Qaida bombing in Jordan--these augur misfortune ahead for the makers of this film.
Robert, you would be a natural to play (or do a voice-over as) Shaitan in a scene depicting the Satanic verses incident, if only that could be written in to the film!
Zoghbi hopes will clear up misconceptions about Muslims, including what he says is "the understanding that all Muslims are terrorists."
Who is it that has this misconception that “all Muslims are terrorists”? Doing a Google search on the phase, I see that the vast majority of hits are preceded by the word not.
"We are trying to depict the values and teachings of the Prophet.
But the title of the film is Messenger of Peace. That’s bound to be a little confusing.
It's not a historical film in any way," he said...
Ok, now I get it. The idea isn’t so much to clear up misconceptions about peaceful Muslims, but to spread the misconception that Islam is a peaceful ideology. I hope it spreads to those who are terrorists and directly addresses ideas like: “slay the infidel wherever ye shall find them” and "cast terror into their hearts". Because, you do know those guys do have their own copies of the Koran, right?
Such a movie should only be shown in dar ul Islam, and nowhere else! Let Muslims try and resolve the conflicts between this movie script and the works of Bukhari, Ibn Ishaq, Tarabi, et al.
Once they have, then show it in the West.
I'm still in love with Jewdog's idea of setting a movie about Mo in the Wild West and making him a white guy (even though Mo was a white guy, as were all Arabs before they decided that raping black women was their favorite pasttime for 1300 years). Replace the scimitars with guns and you have a hit. Make him some sort of cowboy/snake oil salesman. The only thing I can't figure out how to reconcile is the status of all women as sex slaves, as this was not the case in the Wild West.
"even though Mo was a white guy, as were all Arabs before they decided that raping black women was their favorite pasttime for 1300 years"
Jdamn, I've noticed you've said this before and I find it fascinating. I remember googling to try and find out more at the time and came up with nothing. Is this really true?
(I met a Berber guy a while back and he was white.)
No doubt he's hoping to get funding -- the most important part of any movie project -- from the Gulf states. But he's overlooking the requirement that he not show Muhammad on screen, which for Western audiences will kill it. And of course he's providing the occasion, not to be missed, for reviewers and commentators and people standing with signs outside movie theaters (their placards carefully filled with Qur'anic passages, and stories from the Hadith, the ones that describe how Muslims should treat non-Muslims, or women -- with little Aisha, Asma bint Marwan, the Banu Qurayza, and the Khaybar Oasis playing a prominent role.
Such a movie would not necessarily be a bad thing. It might be just the ticket. How all occasions do inform themselves -- or rather, how all occasions can be taken for Infidels to inform themselves, and others.
Silvester, there are still many white Arabs, many of them from Central Asia-ish, like Syrians. It is not a coincidence that they are farther from Arabia proper than are the darker Arabs. The Arab slave trade lasted 1300+ years. Arabs today still abhor physical labor, so that was of course done by blacks. Think about it. Why is it that the 200-year slave trade in America left us with huge black communities, whereas the Arab slave trade brought many, many more Africans to Arabia and beyond, yet there are no black communities anywhere n the Middle East with the exception of Falasha communities in Israel? Because, whereas the American slave trade consisted of buying 2 men for every woman, the reverse was true with the Arab slave trade; it was two women for every man. The way that works out, once a tribe has been conquered (so men would likely have been killed disproportionately), most of the remaining men were sent off to be slave soldiers ("Moors"), and those who weren't made to be slave soldiers were castrated. The women were brought to Arabia as slaves. Sure, they did manual and physical labor, but their main purpose was that of sex slaves.
Or think about it geographically. Copts, who are closer to the equator, are white. People of the same latitude, like Mediterranean people, are white. Arabs used to be as white as Greeks or Sicilians, if not more so. Besides, "Muhammad is a white man." The Hadith are full of white racism. It is unlikely that that would have been the case if the Arabs of the day were just as dark as the "raisinheads" to whom they felt so superior, as they are today.
Read 'The Arabs as Master Slavers,' 'Slavery in the Islamic Middle East,' Patricia Crone's 'Slaves on Horses' (I think Daniel Pipes has a similar book, but I have been unable to find a copy; Amazon should alert me if they find one, but I pre-ordered it months ago), 'Women and Slavery in Africa,' 'The Legacy of Arab Islam in Africa,' 'Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters' (which also deals with the white slave trade), or 'Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade.' There are also several books on the non-Africa slave trade, like 'White Gold,' 'White Slaves, Africa Masters' (which deals with Europeans who were sold into slavery in Africa to Arabs, like the 8000 blondes who were abducted as the first act of the Moors in Spain), 'The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India,' and 'The Muslim Slave System in Medieval India.'
Bill Warner's also written some great articles on it. I've actually read several of these books with his recommendation. I will only post a couple, since my posts don't get through when I post more than two links. Two seems to be the magic number.
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/obama-and-slavery/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929550/posts
jdamn,
Thanks for taking the trouble to reply at such length. I know all about slavery and the fact that the black female slaves were used as sex slaves, I just had no idea that it actually changed the appearance of the Arabs even down to this day. And that M was 'white' was, I assumed, just in comparison to black people. Obviously I need to do more reading, so thanks a mil for all the book recommendations.
I take your point about the Copts. I was quite astounded when the guy I mentioned above said he was a Berber. I always assumed people north of the Mediterranean were white and that those south of it were not! My bad!
To add to the comments of jdamn and Silvester about African slaves in Islam: after acquiring the slaves, the Arab traders brought them to assembly-points to make up caravans to the coast. The slaves were generally women, girls, and boys. At the assembly-points, the boys were made into eunuchs (not just castrated), which assured that not only would there be no contribution by them to the population, but that they would be unable to have sex at all, making them suitable as harem-guards. A large proportion of the boys died from infection or loss of blood. Likewise, the male offspring of black slave-girls were eunuchized. Thus the African component of a slave's ancestry gradually dwindled. By the 4th generation, she would be only 1/8 African.
I think we all thought that once upon a time, probably because that's what we were de facto taught in school as kids (and were never really given the opportunity to unlearn in college when we studied the ancient world, since we gloss over Islamic imperialism in higher education), but when North Africa was Rome, almost everyone was white, and those who weren't were "Ethiopian." Africa's only a short ferry ride from Sicily, you know. It's not a coincidence that Berbers and Copts remained white while the Arabs around them got darker and darker. It's also not a coincidence that Saudis are the darkest Arabs. They were the first and the last Arab slavers, aside from the covert, smaller-scale slavery that still exists in the Arabian interior and Mauritania. I also forgot to mention Semitic Jews. They're also just as Middle Eastern as Arabs (and many were once considered to be Arab, being from Arabia) and very much white. I imagine that's what Arabs used to look like once upon a time, like Semitic Jews.
I wonder if the Arabs themselves are aware of their lineage? They would hardly be too happy about it, being the racists that they are, particularly the Saudis!
Jdamn,
I read the first of the two articles you linked. I think the author, Bill Warner, is missing a very big point as he tries to convince his reader that Obama is in an ideal postion to tell the world the true complete story of African slavery. The point he's missing is that Obama probably isn't aware of truth.
BTW, everytime I see your screen name I'm reminded of the JDAM I'm more familiar with,
Joint Direct Attack Munition.
Earth Shattering Kaboom!
Richard
I think Obama's well-aware of the truth. For instance, he claims that terrorism results from poverty. He knows the source of terrorism, so this is obviously a lie. He studied the source of terrorism in an Indonesian madrassa for four years. He knows about his father's "Arab-African" heritage. He seems more interested in his heritage than in the guy himself, but that could just be the way Bill Ayers painted it when he wrote "Dreams of My Father." Obama knows all about his "Arab-African" roots and all about the ugliness that is Islam and he eats it up with a spoon.
My handle comes from back in the day when I was in the roller derby. They make you pick some stupid nick and I wasn't willing to because (a) people don't just pick their own nicks and (b) I'm a woman with a guy's name and I went through more crap over it before I was six than most people have to deal with in a lifetime. So I was "Justin, Damnit." It eventually got shortened to "jdamn," since that was back in the "Jenny from the block" days.
In the Netherlands there will be a new film lauchned on the 10th of december, by Ehsan Jami, he is ex-muslim.
The film named:"Interview with Muhammad", has topics like womenright's, Jews, and 'leaving islam', how it will be broadcoast is unknown.
The film is aproaxomalie 10 min. long.
His other animationfilm 'The life of Mohammed' is earlier cancelled, because he had received threatments and the advice to cancel it from the justice department.
He has invited the minister of justice for the premiere.
http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Artikel.htm?contentid=213542