Mustafa Akkad - 1st July 1930-November 11, 2005
Abu
Hurayra (R.A) narrated that Prophet (P.B.U.H) said: before the end of
times; ‘People will see such days that the killer will not know why he
kills, nor the innocent why they are slain”.
9
years ago in 2005, this Prediction of the Prophet (PBUH) was horribly
exemplified when in a hotel bomb blast in Amman-Jordan, an
American-Syrian film maker Mustafa Akkad was killed with his daughter
along with many others who gathered
there for a wedding.
Soft
spoken Mustapha Akkad was one of those rare Muslims who took this task
honestly to tell about the history of Islam and its early personalities
through the medium he knew best “Film Making”. He dedicated his efforts
to the religion
he followed and he saw the film as a way to bridge the gap between the
Western and Islamic world, stating in a 1976 interview: “I did the film
because it is a personal thing for me. Besides its production values as a
film, it has its story, its intrigue, its
drama. Beside all this I think there was something personal, being
Muslim myself who lived in the west I felt that it was my obligation my
duty to tell the truth about Islam. It is a religion that has a 700
million following, yet it's so little known about
it which surprised me. I thought I should tell the story that will
bring this bridge, this gap to the west”.
For
most of the Ajami (non-Arabic) speaking population following Islam
significantly in the Indian sub-continent, the knowledge of religion is
limited to memorizing few Verses from Quran and observing other
compulsory obligations without
knowing their meanings . For the people of my generation, Mustapha
Akkad’s film “The Message” was an elementary lesson on the early history
of Islam and ordeals the prophet (PBUH) went through in delivering
divine teachings to his people. This film gave us
preliminary information about central characters of Islam during this
period. In fact only after watching this film the curiosity was
developed to know about the religion we have been following all our
lives without proper understanding.
Whether
or not, the portrayal of some of revered Islamic characters was
correct, is a separate debate, on the whole it was a beautifully made
film in Arabic and English languages with separate cast. The film was
made with near perfection
and this can be well understood from an incident of film’s shooting.
One scene had to be shot to show Prophet’s (PBUH) Camel sitting on
ground after he reached Medina on Hijra from Mecca. It took 14 patient
days to can this scene to show the camel sitting
naturally on its own. In fact a small mud mound had to be made on
ground and a crew member lay behind it with camel fodder day after day
to make the camel sit and eat from it and this happened on 14th day as told by the Producer himself in one of
his interviews.
In
early nineties, we watched this film on VCR and we were enthralled by
beautiful background music whenever Prophet’s (PBUH) presence was to be
shown without actually showing him and this music is still played on
radio Kuwait during Adhan
times.
After
“The Message” he produced “Omar Mukhtar” The lion of desert, on the
life and mission of Libyan Freedom fighter who fought valiantly against
Italian occupation. He is said to have been working on producing a film
on Sultan Salah Uddin
a great Islamic character when he died in that bomb blast. This film
with Sean Connery in lead role would have been yet another gift to
ignorant Muslim masses who depend on such efforts to learn about Islam’s
glorious past.
On
his birth anniversary on July 1 we pay rich tributes to this great son
of soil who was one sane voice in this present blood thirsty world where
innocents are killed for no reasons at all.