Documentarians Hope to Enlighten Americans about Prophet

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

It`s about time this project is completed!

Let us hope that it will make people think.

Ciao

It takes months and even years to build a bridge, but it takes few seconds to demolish it. On one hand the efforts of some moderate Americans to understand Muslims and Islams are commendable but on the other hand one should keep in mind that Jerry Falwells, Pat Robinsons, and Rush Limbaughs are only the idiots who have access to the microphones; what about thousands of churches, ministries, monastries, and seminaries who are propagating anti-Muslim hate at this very moment as we speak; especially when anti-Muslim bigotry is being legislated, being legalized, being enforced at this very moment who is going to save the bridge?

Ghalib Zaman

You should have translated this masterpiece from Iqbal, as you are good at it. At least do try to translate ``Yeh daur upnay `Braheem kee talaash mein hai `` couplet.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Making a movie with no pictures

July 12, 2002

BY CATHLEEN FALSANI RELIGION WRITER

How do you make a two-hour documentary for PBS about a historical figure whose image you cannot show?

That`s what filmmakers Alexander Kronemer and Michael Wolfe had to figure out before they made their film, ``Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet,`` which tells the story of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam.

Much like Judaism, Islam forbids the use of ``graven images,`` and the likeness of the Prophet is almost never seen in Muslim religious art. The idea is that images can easily become objects of worship.

``The problem for the documentarian is that there are none,`` Kronemer said, referring to images of Muhammad. ``What will people be watching for two hours? . . . It`s not like telling the story of Jesus, which is usually done through various reenactments with actors.``

After some contemplation, Kronemer and Wolfe thought they could tell the story of Muhammad`s life in a kind of travelogue. Sort of an in-the-steps-of-Muhammad kind of thing.

So, off they went to Saudi Arabia to film. But, sadly, most of the historical sites from Muhammad`s life 1,400 years ago are gone--destroyed by the sand of time or purposely by one despot or another.

There are only so many ``evocative images of the desert`` that an audience is willing to sit through, Kronemer said. The sun rises over the desert. The sun sets over the desert. The sun rises over the desert. You get the picture.

Plus, filming in the desert has its drawbacks. For instance, Kronemer recalled one excursion into the desert in Saudi Arabia to scout locations that ended with a truck with failed brakes stuck in the sand and two of the most frightening things the filmmaker says he`s ever heard:

``Save the water,`` and, ``This is where the hyenas live.``

So the travelogue idea was scratched, along with the working title, ``Muhammad: In the Footsteps of the Prophet.``

Kronemer and Wolfe, who are both white American converts to Islam, had more thinking to do and began to deconstruct the story of Muhammad.

``In many ways, the story of the Prophet Muhammad is a quintessential American story,`` Kronemer said. ``He started with nothing as an orphan,`` and rises through faith and hard work to do something great and historic. Rags to riches. Up by the bootstraps. Rocky Balboa.

``Americans love that story,`` Kronemer said.

The Muslim tradition is based on what is in some cases minute details of the Prophet`s life, he explained. The way Muslims pray--the physical postures of their praying--and many other practices in the everyday life of a Muslim anywhere in the world are dictated by descriptions of how Muhammad acted when he was alive. The descriptions of the Prophet`s life are kept in a collection of writings known as hadith.

``For example, Muhammad always preferred the right hand to the left hand,`` consequently, more than 1,000 years later, many practicing Muslims will enter a room with their right foot first, pass food to another with the right hand, and always allow the person to their right to go through a doorway first, Kronemer explained.

Those kinds of things got the filmmakers thinking about a better way to tell the story.

``This is not just the story of a man who was alive 1,400 years ago, but a man who is alive today,`` in the lives of Muslims, he said. ``Muslims bodily, in their actions, are repeating what he did and how he did it.``

The result of that epiphany is a riveting documentary that tells the story of the Prophet by telling the story of Muslim Americans today.

The filmmakers tell the story of Muhammad`s flight from Mecca to Medinah to escape the Meccans, who wanted to kill him for his beliefs, through the journey of a man who immigrated to the United States. The man was fleeing religious persecution in his home country.

An African-American congressional aide, standing on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., helps tell the story of Muhammad`s law making.

A Muslim-American nurse in Dearborn, Mich., talks about how her profession fulfills her faith tradition`s command to help others, and also helps the filmmakers tell the story of the end of Muhammad`s life.

To explain what the Prophet said in the Quran--that to save the life of one person is to save the whole world--the filmmakers profiled Kevin James, a Muslim-American firefighter for the New York Fire Department who was one of the thousands of firefighters who risked their lives to save others at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

The documentary, which is set to air on more than 300 PBS stations nationally on Dec. 18, cost $2.5 million to make and took nearly five years. It was funded through grants and 5,000 private donations.

``This is a story Muslims have been telling for 1,400 years,`` Kronemer said. ``My biggest enemy in this was indifference. After 9/11, people aren`t indifferent anymore.``

Khudee kaa sirr-e nihaaN, La ilaha il LilLaah
Khudee hai taigh, fisaan--La ilaha il LiLaah

Yeh daur upnay `Braheem kee talaash mein hai
Sanam kadaa hai jahaaN, La ilaha il LiLaah

Yeh maal O daulat e dunyaa, yeh rishta O paivand
Butaan e vehm O gumaaN, La ilaha il LiLaah

Kiyaa hai tOO nay mata-e ghuroor kaa saudaa
Faraib sood O ziaaN, La ilaha il LiLiaah

Yeh naghmaa fasl-e gul O lalaa kaa naheen paband
Bahaar ho kay khizaaN, La ilaha il LiLaah.

Allama Iqbal.