Oh crap...here we go :-P

[Dr Mordrid]

BBC link.....

Epic Muhammad movie in pipeline

An epic movie about Islam's Prophet Muhammad is in the pipeline, backed by a producer of the Lord of the Rings.

American Barrie Osborne, who also produced The Matrix, told Reuters the film would be an "international epic" aimed at "bridging cultures".

In accordance with Islamic rules, the Prophet cannot be depicted on screen. Images of the Prophet are considered blasphemous by Muslims.

The $150m (£91m) English language film should go into production in 2011.
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[Tjalfe]

if a cartoon depiction causes huge uproars, I can only imagine what a movie will do

[Elie]

He'll produce the movie then go into hiding forever!

[TransformX]

I can only wonder how does "bridging cultures" sits with "In accordance with Islamic rules, the Prophet cannot be depicted on screen. Images of the Prophet are considered blasphemous by Muslims" in the same idea..

[Evildead666]

There won't actually be any images of the prophet.....

And if there are, there will be a huge "censored" splattered in front of the black box....

[Brian Ellis]

The question of images in Islam seems to be very controversial. As I understand it, images of anything living or having lived is forbidden if interpreted strictly. This is why mosques are ornamented with beautifully executed scripts, mostly from the Quran, and almost never with images. However, there are many depictions of the Prophet in Islamic art (Link) and even many more of other living things. The rule therefore seems flexible, but I've no idea why or how.

Some years ago, I visited the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. They have a fantastic collection of medieval Islamic manuscripts, many of which are illuminated. There is one Quran there that was supposed to have been written less than 100 years after the Prophet's death but the contents are not published. There is speculation why and it may be that there are depictions which are not acceptable. It is possible that the real reason is that the script used was not current at the supposed time of writing and it dates from at least a century later. However, many illuminations in other sacred and secular works show some representations of living things eg


Whatever, it seems that Muslims interpret their rules very variably.

That having been said, such a film does not seem a good idea!

[ND66]

This would be fine, since we “spared” them in here:

The Christ the Redeemer statue and Vatican are destroyed in "2012," but not the Kaaba....

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-roland-emmerich-fatwa.html

.

[TransformX]

I wonder, will we see any sex scenes between an adult man and his 9-10 year old wife in the movie?