Widespread negative media stereotypes? Really? I think that is wildly overstated; the major media has bent over backwards to portray Muslims as peaceful and Islam as “hijacked.”
What do you bet that this film says nothing about, say, the Banu Qurayzah massacre, which was affirmed just recently by Magdi Ahmad Hussein, the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Labor (Islamist) Party? Hussein said:
“Sir, why do the government clerics ignore the killing of the prisoners during the time of the Prophet? 600-700 prisoners were killed in the raid on the Qurayza tribe.
“Why do they conceal this? Why do they hide the fact that the Prophet gave the order to assassinate some poets — to assassinate! Not in military operations, but rather by individual assassination.
“Why did he order the assassination of K’ab Ibn Ashraf, the Jew, leader of Khaybar ? And then he ordered the assassination of the leader who successive him. As a result, the Jews became fearful and terrified.”
I am confident that American schoolchildren will hear nothing of those adventures of Muhammad in this cartoon.
From the KRT Wire, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
(KRT) – Stung by widespread negative media stereotypes, many of America’s Muslims will take to mainstream movie theaters to mark the end of their holy month of Ramadan with a groundbreaking, full-length animated feature called “Muhammad: The Last Prophet.”
The film’s screening in November coincides with Eid al-Fitr, the feast that concludes Ramadan.
Distributors of the children’s film are taking their cue from Christian filmmakers, although no one connected with the 90-minute cartoon expects the limited run to duplicate the half-billion dollar success of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”
“It’s not about what the box office generates, but about how much interest and benefit the people can get out of it,” says Oussama Jammal, whose animation production company owns the North American distribution rights to “Muhammad.”
Because of resistance by theater chains, which question whether there is an audience for the film, Jammal’s company, Fine Media Group, has had to rent the theaters and sell tickets on its Web site: finemediagroup.com.
“For us, it is about calming down the anxiety about Islam and Muslims in this country,” he says.
Many Muslims also hope “Muhammad” will increase understanding of their faith among the larger American community. A poll released Oct. 4 by the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations found that 25 percent of Americans believe anti-Muslim stereotypes. In a separate finding, the survey reported that negative images of Muslims in media and popular culture far outweigh positive ones.
Remember, those “anti-Muslim stereotypes” consist of thinking that Islam encourages violence, and the like.