Moustapha Akkad's son, Malek Akkad, says this message of unity was important to his father. "Muhammad teaches us to worship one God," one says.
In a key scene, Muhammad's followers are interrogated by the Christian king of Abyssinia and must justify their beliefs under pain of death. The film depicts the life of the Prophet Muhammad.įILMCO INTERNATIONAL / THE KOBAL COLLECTION "It was genius."ĭirector Moustapha Akkad (left) with actress Irene Papas during the filming of The Message. "To figure out a way to have the prophet become a person without showing him - it was brilliant," says Islamic scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl, a close friend of Akkad. The prophet's presence is suggested when other characters speak to the camera directly, as if to a vision of revelation. "Not only do you not see Muhammad, you never even see his shadow," Quinn told People magazine. There was a major challenge, though: Images of the Prophet Muhammad are forbidden in Islam. The English version, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score, starred Anthony Quinn, playing the prophet's uncle Hamza, and Irene Papas as Hind, a Meccan woman who long opposed the prophet's forces but eventually became Muslim. The Arabic version featured some of the biggest stars of Muslim cinema.
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To make his movie accessible to both the Islamic world and the West, Akkad shot it simultaneously in two versions, Arabic and English. With money raised from Middle Eastern sources, Akkad set to work on a Quranic film on the same scale as biblical Hollywood spectacles like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur. The character of the prophet is never seen, only suggested. "I thought I should tell the story that will bring this bridge."Īctor Anthony Quinn played Hamza, the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, in The Message. "Being Muslim myself who lived in the West, I felt that it's my obligation, my duty, to tell the truth about Islam," Akkad said in an interview in 1976. But it would prove extremely difficult to make, and faced a backlash in many parts of the Muslim world - and was even linked to a violent event in Washington, D.C.
He intended the film as a bridge for understanding between Islam and the West. He was determined to create a film spectacle about nothing less than the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the birth of Islam in the 7th century. I was so moved by that scene, and I tried to really kind of do similar."Īkkad embarked on an ambitious quest to create a truly Arab screen epic. "To me," Akkad later recalled, "the scene that I admired most in my life is David Lean's scene when Omar Sharif was introduced. Akkad was riveted as he watched a scene in which actor Omar Sharif emerges from the sands like a wraith on horseback - an Arab screen hero.
In 1962, a Syrian-born Hollywood filmmaker named Moustapha Akkad watched the epic film Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean. It is currently being restored by Moustapha Akkad's son Malek for a high definition rerelease. The film was difficult to make and faced a backlash in part of the Muslim world. The Message, directed by Moustapha Akkad, was released in 1976 in both English and Arabic versions.
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