94-650: The Message ( Arabic : الرسالة , Ar-Risālah ; originally known as Mohammad, Messenger of God ) is a 1976 epic film directed and produced by Moustapha Akkad that chronicles the life and times of Muhammad , who is never directly depicted . Released in separately filmed Arabic- and English-language versions, The Message serves as an introduction to the early history of Islam . The international ensemble cast includes Anthony Quinn , Irene Papas , Michael Ansara , Johnny Sekka , Michael Forest , André Morell , Garrick Hagon , Damien Thomas , and Martin Benson . It
188-646: A cinema prompted Akkad to change the title from Mohammed, Messenger of God to The Message , at a cost of £50,000. The film was banned in Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Irwin Yablans distributed the film in the United States. As the film was scheduled to premiere in the United States, a splinter group of the black nationalist Nation of Islam calling itself the Hanafi Movement staged a siege of
282-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
376-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
470-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
564-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
658-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
752-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
846-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
940-571: A seven-picture agreement worldwide. In the United Kingdom , Akkad once tried to buy Pinewood Studios from The Rank Organisation and also had a studio at Twickenham . At the time of his death, he was in the process of producing an $ 80 million movie featuring Sean Connery about Saladin and the Crusades , for which he already had the script, that would be filmed in Jordan . Speaking of
1034-405: A similar avoidance of direct depictions of Jesus in early biblical films , and suggested that "from an artistic as well as a religious point of view the film is absolutely right". Variety praised the "stunning" photography, "superbly rendered" battle scenes and the "strong and convincing" cast, though the second half of the film was called "facile stuff and anticlimactic." Charles Champlin of
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#17327649840571128-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1222-600: A thorough attempt to be respectful towards Islam and its views on portraying Muhammad. It was rejected by the Muslim World League in Mecca , Saudi Arabia . $ 10 million was raised for the film from Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United States and it had a final budget of $ 17 million. Akkad started filming in 1974, with a crew of 300, 40 actors for both English and Arabic language versions, and over 5,000 people for crowd shots. A $ 700,000 replica of Mecca
1316-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
1410-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
1504-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
1598-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
1692-439: Is a religion that has a 700 million following, yet it's so little known about which surprised me. I thought I should tell the story that will bring this [history] to the west. In 1978, he helped make low-budget film history when he produced Halloween . Akkad became best known for his key involvement in the first eight Halloween films, as an executive producer (the only producer to participate in all of these films). The series
1786-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
1880-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
1974-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
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#17327649840572068-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
2162-408: Is far more languid." John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The unalleviated tedium of this ten-million dollar enterprise (billed as the first 'petrodollar' movie) is largely due to the tawdry staginess of all the sets and the apparent inability of Moustapha Akkad ... to muster larger groups of people on any but two-dimensional planes." Derek Malcolm , writing for The Guardian , criticized
2256-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
2350-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
2444-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
2538-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
2632-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
2726-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
2820-483: The Associated Press , stated that the film "is a reverent, plodding (three hours) ultimately rewarding epic of the birth of Islam". Richard Eder of The New York Times described the effect of not showing Muhammad as "awkward" and likened it to "one of those Music Minus One records," adding that the acting was "on the level of crudity of an early Cecil B. DeMille Bible epic, but the direction and pace
2914-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
The Message (1976 film) - Misplaced Pages Continue
3008-638: The Los Angeles Times thought the battle scenes were "spectacularly done" and that Anthony Quinn's "dignity and stature" were right for his role. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it two stars out of four, calling it "a decent, big-budget religious movie. No more, no less." Alexander Walker , writing for the Evening Standard , praised the film and said that "I found myself wholly absorbed by it". Bob Thomas , writing in
3102-779: The 2005 Amman bombings . They were both in the lobby at the Grand Hyatt Amman on November 9 when a bomb exploded; his daughter died instantly, and Akkad died of his injuries two days later in a hospital. He is buried in the Al-Jadidah Cemetery in Aleppo in Syria . Akkad was survived by his former wife, Patricia Al Akkad and their sons, Taric and Malek, who helped produce most of the Halloween movies, as well as his widow, Suha Ascha Akkad, and their son Zade. He
3196-702: The Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
3290-561: The Battle of Uhud , killing Hamza . The Muslims run after the Meccans and leave the camp unprotected. Because of this, they are surprised by riders from behind, so they lose the battle. The Meccans and the Muslims close a 10-year truce. A few years later, Khalid ibn Walid , a Meccan general who has killed many Muslims, converts to Islam. Meanwhile, Muslim camps in the desert are attacked in
3384-574: The Patriarch of Alexandria ; Kisra , the Sasanian Emperor . Earlier, Muhammad is visited by the angel Gabriel , which shocks him deeply. The angel asks him to start and spread the Quran . Gradually, a small number of people in the city of Mecca begin to convert. As a result, more enemies will come and hunt Muhammad and his companions from Mecca and confiscate their possessions. Some of these followers fled to Abyssinia to seek refuge with
3478-545: The Washington, D.C. chapter of the B'nai B'rith . Under the mistaken belief that Anthony Quinn played Muhammad in the film, the group threatened to blow up the building and its inhabitants unless the film's opening was cancelled. The movie was pulled from theaters on the day of its premiere, but resumed playing after the siege ended. Akkad offered to show the film to the Hanafi Muslims and said that he would destroy
3572-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
3666-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
3760-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
3854-841: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Moustapha Akkad Moustapha al Akkad ( Arabic : مصطفى العقاد , romanized : Muṣṭafā al-ʿAqqād ; July 1, 1930 – November 11, 2005)
The Message (1976 film) - Misplaced Pages Continue
3948-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
4042-607: The 1976 movie and give it a modern twist", according to IMDb and the World Entertainment News Network . He hoped to shoot the remake, tentatively titled The Messenger of Peace , in the cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. In February 2009, Barrie M. Osborne , producer of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings film trilogies, was attached to produce a new film about Muhammad. The film
4136-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
4230-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
4324-677: The Lebanon . He received his high school degree from the Aleppo American College . His father, then a customs officer , gave him $ 200 and a copy of the Quran before he left for the United States to study film direction and production at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Akkad spent a further three years studying for a Master's degree at the University of Southern California (USC), where he met
4418-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
4512-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
4606-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
4700-486: The Shiat in Lebanon have approved the accuracy and fidelity of this film. The makers of this film honor the Islamic tradition which holds that the impersonation of the prophet offends against the spirituality of his message. Therefore, the person of Mohammad will not be shown. Moustapha Akkad considered creating a film about Muhammad and the birth of Islam in 1967. The film's script, written by H.A.L. Craig,
4794-540: The West for being partially funded by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who invested $ 35 million in the movie. This negative publicity may have been the cause of its relatively poor performance at the box office. Clint Morris describes the movie as: "A grand epic adventure that'll stand as a highpoint in the producing career of Moustapha Akkad." In 1985, his production company Trancas International Films had inked an agreement with Galaxy International releasing in order to release films for
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#17327649840574888-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
4982-668: The director Sam Peckinpah . Peckinpah became Akkad's mentor in Hollywood and hired him as a consultant for a film about the Algerian War that never made it to the big screen, but he continued to encourage him until he found a job as a producer at CBS . In 1976, he produced and directed Mohammad, Messenger of God (released as The Message in 1977 in the United States), starring Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas . Akkad faced resistance from Hollywood, which forced him to make
5076-747: The dub by Hasan Kamal . The dub also featured a redone soundtrack notably featuring the song "Marhaba Mustapha" by A. R. Rahman . Its release in India was approved by Maulana Kalbe Sadiq , the Vice President All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other Indian ulema . Though it still faced opposition in Hyderabad , during its release there in February 2008 at the Rama Krishna Theatre , by
5170-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
5264-648: The eve of the attack. The Meccans become very scared but are reassured that people in their houses, by the Kaaba , or in Abu Sufyan's house will be safe. They surrender and Mecca falls into the hands of the Muslims without bloodshed. The pagan images of the gods in the Kaaba are destroyed, and the very first azan in Mecca is called on the Kaaba by Bilal ibn Rabah . The Farewell Sermon is also delivered. The film ends with
5358-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
5452-447: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
5546-430: The film for its length. Muna Wassef 's role as Hind in the Arabic-language version won her international recognition. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1977 for Best Original Score for the music by Maurice Jarre . The musical score of The Message was composed and conducted by Maurice Jarre and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra . Side One Side Two The film's release in India in 2007/8
5640-448: The film if they found it offensive. The standoff was resolved after the deaths of a journalist and a policeman, but "the film's American box office prospects never recovered from the unfortunate controversy." An Indian Hindi-Urdu dub was released across the country in December 2007, it was produced by Yamshi Ahmed and Saad Ahmed under the Oasis Enterprises banner and was distributed by Anuj Saxena 's Maverick Productions with scripting of
5734-425: The film in Morocco. While creating Muhammad, Messenger of God , he consulted Islamic clerics, he wanted and tried to be respectful towards Islam and its views on portraying Muhammad . He got the Approval from Al-Azhar University in Egypt but was rejected by the Muslim World League in Mecca , Saudi Arabia . The Governments of Kuwait , Libya and Morocco promised to support the film financially, and when it
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#17327649840575828-413: The film was shown at the Dubai International Film Festival in December 2017, and it was given a theatrical release in Saudi Arabia. The film needed to gross $ 35 million to break even, but only earned $ 5 million during its theatrical run, with $ 2 million coming from the United States. Sunday Times film critic Dilys Powell described the film as a " Western … crossed with Early Christian". She noted
5922-412: The film, he said: Saladin exactly portrays Islam. Right now, Islam is portrayed as a terrorist religion. Because a few terrorists are Muslims, the whole religion has that image. If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the Crusades. But you can't blame Christianity because a few adventurers did this. That's my message. Akkad and his 34-year-old daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, were killed in
6016-403: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
6110-420: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
6204-558: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
6298-550: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
6392-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
6486-536: The local Islamic group Tanzeem Islah-e-Muashra and the Islamic political party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen - whose floor leader of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Akbaruddin Owaisi sought a ban on the film for allegedly portraying Islam in a bad light. While this resulted in the stoppage of the film's exhibition in the city, distributor Maverick Productions defended the film saying that it contains no objectionable scenes but they were willing to cut any scenes deemed offensive. A 4K resolution restoration of
6580-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
6674-434: The narrator discussing the legacy of Islam, followed by actual footage of worshippers making tawaf around the Kaaba in recent times. The end credits feature a montage of footage from various mosques around the world as the adhan echoes throughout them all and Muslims gather to pray in congregation. Arabic version The scholars and historians of Islam - The University of Al-Azhar in Cairo The High Islamic Congress of
6768-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
6862-426: The night. The Muslims believe that the Meccans are responsible. Abu Sufyan comes to Medina fearing retribution and claiming that it was not the Meccans, but robbers who had broken the truce. None of the Muslims give him an audience, claiming he "observes no treaty and keeps no pledge". The Muslims respond with an attack on Mecca with many troops and "men from every tribe". Abu Sufyan seeks an audience with Muhammad on
6956-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
7050-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
7144-471: The project, Gaddafi allowed him to move the filming to Libya for the remaining 6 months until the film was finalized. Akkad saw the film as a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Muslim worlds , stating in a 1976 interview: I did the film because it is a personal thing for me ... Being a Muslim myself who lived in the west I felt that it was my obligation my duty to tell the truth about Islam. It
7238-419: The protection given by the king there. They head north, where they receive a warm welcome in the city of Medina and build the first Islamic mosque. They are told that their possessions are being sold in Mecca on the market. Muhammad chooses peace for a moment, but still gets permission to attack. They are attacked but win the Battle of Badr . The Meccans, desiring revenge, fight back with three thousand men in
7332-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
7426-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
7520-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
7614-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
7708-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
7802-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
7896-543: Was a Syrian-American film producer and director , best known for producing the original series of Halloween films and directing The Message and Lion of the Desert . He was killed along with his daughter Rima Al Akkad Monla in the 2005 Amman bombings . He is also the cousin to television personality star Tareq Salahi . Al Akkad was born on July 1, 1930, in Aleppo in the French Mandate for Syria and
7990-459: Was a friend of Akkad, praised his depiction of Muhammad stating that "To figure out a way to have the prophet become a person without showing him — it was brilliant". Akkad saw the film as a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Islamic worlds , 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. Besides all this I think there
8084-509: Was accompanied by a different soundtrack by multiple artists, featuring unique tracks dedicated to the prophet notably "Marhaba Mustapha" by Indian music composer A. R. Rahman . Rahman went onto direct the soundtrack of another film on the prophet, Majid Majidi 's Muhammad: The Messenger of God (2015). The troubled production of The Message inspired American writer Richard Grenier's 1983 comic novel The Marrakesh One-Two . In October 2008, producer Oscar Zoghbi revealed plans to "revamp
8178-525: Was an international co-production between Libya, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria and the UK. The film was nominated for Best Original Score in the 50th Academy Awards , composed by Maurice Jarre , but lost the award to Star Wars (composed by John Williams ). The film begins with Muhammad sending an invitation to accept Islam to the surrounding rulers: Heraclius , the Byzantine Emperor; Muqawqis ,
8272-491: Was approved in its entirety by Tawfiq al-Hakim , a scholar at Al-Azhar University . However, the film's approval was revoked and referred to as "an insult to Islam". Ahmed Asmat Abdel-Meguid and Mowaffak Allaf , the permanent representatives to the United Nations for Egypt and Syria, praised the film for its depiction of Islam. While creating The Message , director Akkad, who was Muslim, consulted Islamic clerics in
8366-585: Was built near Marrakesh and Anthony Quinn was paid $ 1.5 million according to Michael Ansara . Muhammad Ali wanted to play Bilal, but the role was given to Sekka instead with Sekka stating that "Akkad wanted a Moslem with acting experience to play the role" and "how could anyone believe that Ali could be tortured and abused as Bilal was?". Filming in Morocco started in April 1974, but Moroccan police forced them to stop filming on 5 August, as Hassan II of Morocco had been pressured by Faisal of Saudi Arabia . Akkad
8460-570: Was granted permission to film in Libya after showing unedited film to Muammar Gaddafi and filmed from October 1974 to May 1975. Gaddafi wanted Akkad to also make a film based on the life of Omar al-Mukhtar . Akkad filmed the English and Arabic versions of the film simultaneously with different actors. A light bulb on the camera was used during the scenes of characters with Muhammad to represent his immanence. Islamic scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl , who
8554-442: Was highly profitable and hugely influential to subsequent horror films. In 1980 he directed Lion of the Desert , in which Quinn and Irene Papas were joined by Oliver Reed , Rod Steiger , and John Gielgud . It was about the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar (Quinn), who fought Benito Mussolini 's Italian troops in the deserts of Libya. The movie is now critically acclaimed, after initially receiving negative publicity in
8648-593: Was rejected by the Muslim World League, Kuwait kept its financial support but stopped other kinds of supports. King Hassan II of Morocco gave his full support for the production of the film. The production took one year, Akkad filmed for 6 months in Morocco, but had to stop when the Saudi Government exerted great pressure on the government of Morocco to stop the production. Akkad went to Muammar Gaddafi of Libya for support in order to complete
8742-477: Was something personal, being a 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 which surprised me. I thought I should tell the story that will bring this bridge, this gap to the west. In July 1976, five days before the film opened in London's West End , threatening phone calls to
8836-403: Was to be financed by a Qatari media company and was to be supervised by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi . Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of
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