I’m just wondering:
Producer Barrie Osborne cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad.
Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad’s life and examine his teachings. Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as “an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam”.
Osborne’s production will reportedly feature English-speaking Muslim actors. It is backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, who have installed the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to oversee all aspects of the shoot. In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen.
“The film will shed light on the Prophet’s life since before his birth to his death,” Ahmed Abdullah Al-Mustafa, Alnoor’s chairman, told al-Jazeera. “It will highlight the humanity of Prophet Muhammad.”
Hmm… will Osborne cover Mohammed/Muhammad’s relationship with A’isha?
Numerous people have said that Mohammed had sex with his youngest wife, ‘Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr, when he was about 53 and she was only nine years old. Some Muslims deny that. If somebody were to claim Mohammed and ‘Aisha had sex when she was nine, and they were wrong, that would be a serious slander against Mohammed. On the other hand, if it were true, that would show a very different side of Mohammed that would shock many. So is this accusation against Mohammed true or false?
This paper will first give the evidence for A’isha being nine when her marriage was consummated, then raise 11 objections to this, and finally, ask what if each view were correct.
This is important to a widely practiced but overlooked practice today: child brides in Muslim lands due to Mohammed’s example.
In Iran as of June 2002 it is legal for a 9 year old girl to marry with her parents’ permission. Voices Behind the Veil p.136-137
In the Ivory Coast this book also tells of a 12 year old girl who would leave the house for hours before returning home. After her father tied her up, burned her back with a piece of iron, locked her up for three days with no food, he eventually married her of to a 40-year old man. He never sent her to school because he said that it would drive them from their tradition, they would start asking questions, and not want to marry until they are 19 or 20.
The Taliban encouraged families to marry off their daughters as young as eight years old. (Voices Behind the Veil p.110)
The Dallas Morning News 9/28/03 p.1,10S had a story about the sad plight of Muslim Nigerian girls who were married very young, got pregnant and had labor before their small bodies were ready. It was actually somewhat of a gross story, basically of many girls who needed C-sections but did not get them. Many survived, but could not have any children due to their perforated uteruses.
To understand the authoritative nature of the example of Mohammed, we have to understand something of the Muslim hadiths. They hold a higher place in Sunni Islam than church tradition does in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Sunni Muslims hold to six collections of hadiths as the most authoritative writings in Islam after the Qur’an. The rest of this paper shows that the accusation is completely true, according to numerous corroborating early Muslims sources.
So.. it would seem that Osborne’s attempt to accurately portray Mohammed in this film might land him in jail for making child pornography.
I’m pretty sure he’ll skip over this part of the prophet’s life.
What say you?
Crossposted(*).
