The Message (الرسالة Ar-Risālah) is the first blockbuster movie of Hollywood standards on Muhammad and Islam. In the Middle East it is known as ” Mohammad, Messenger of God”. Released in 1976, it is an Islamic epic drama film directed and produced by Moustapha Akkad (liberal Muslim), chronicling the life and times of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through the perspective of his uncle Hamza and adopted son Zayd. The story does not chronicle Muhammad’s marriages, his change of tune from Mecca to Madina, murder of Umm Qirfa, caravan robberies, genocide Banu Qurayza, the battles initiated by Muhammad on tribes without provocation to “clear Arabia” for Muslims only, taking women and children as slaves, killing all the men and boys deemed to reach puberty even when they surrender, taking their property as war bounty… No it skips all these, trying desperately to present Muhammad as a message of peace.
The movie is a response to multiple movies release by Hollywood in late 70’s about Jesus. But if there is ever a tragedy to be told (and lessons to learn), is how liberals and moderates end up paying for their blind attempts to defend the indefensible. Attempts to re-represent Islam as Islam 2.0 for the 20th century has all but failed. They suppressed any suggestion that Islam is not perfect but they repackaged it as “perfect and untouchable” leaving sufficient space for fundamentalists to dig deeper and say “well this is what Islam REALLY says, and since it is perfect…. Forget your liberal value, I want Shariah and let the Jihad commence!” We need doubt in our faith, we need to question what we see, we need to have a balance of faith whereby people know Islam is not perfect but let’s see what happens. The person blowing himself has blind faith that their religion is perfect, the person joining these terrorist groups has blind faith their religion is perfect and is reading the Quran literally as a manual. If they had even 0.001% of a doubt, they would not do it. Islamic moderates and apologists failed and it is our next generations who need to challenge the core aspects of the faith to start a real change. This change starts by realising “Islam’s message is not perfect.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moustapha_Akkad