Majid Majidi is an Iranian movie director, movie producer, and screenwriter. Majidi's movies have touched on many themes and genres and he has won many international awards.
His latest work is “Muhammad: The Messenger of God” a 2015 Islamic epic movie about the Holy Prophet of Islam. The movie is set in the sixth century where the story revolves around the childhood of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Majid Majidi director of “Muhammad: The Messenger of God”, a 2015 Iranian movie, in an exclusive interview with Al-Alam News Network said: "in recent decades severe attacks and propaganda have been emerged against the Holy Prophet of Islam in the West, such as the publication and spreading of insulting caricatures, this is why I felt I should do something.
"About 8 or 9 years ago, the Danish festival was held a celebration for me to review my work and give an award to me, it coincided with the publication of cartoons against the Prophet of Islam", Majidi added.
"I felt contradiction, I saw that on the one hand they wanted to give me an award and on the other hand they insulted to our most sacred beliefs. I sent a letter to the chairman of the festival and apologized to him and told him I can’t come to his country and get award because in their country has insulted to my most sacred beliefs", Director of “Muhammad: The Messenger of God” said.
He emphasized that: "I thought as a Muslim artist what should I do, so I tried to work and make movie to describe a drop of the endless ocean of merciful character of Prophet Muhammad, and in fact I tried to give a beautiful and merciful readings of the Prophet Muhammad".
About the process of writing the script and production of the movie, Majidi said: "the production of the movie and making it lasted about 7 years and we are now in the 8th year. It was a very difficult work because on the history of Islam had been done very little works in history of cinema.
He added: "I would just refer you to the world of cinema and movies which have been made about the prophets".
Majidi said: "In Christianity at least about 200 movies have been produced about the life of Jesus Christ, 120 movies about the life of Moses, and about 70 movies about the other prophets.
He added that even 42 movies had been made about Buddha.
Majidi said: "just on the life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad as the last messenger of God, two movies have been producted, one of them is Al-Resalat which has been made 42 years ago by Moustapha Al Akkad and the other is my movie which God helped me and it is a success for me".
Majidi said: "watch how little works are done about the history of Islam".
"Because of sensitivities in the Muslim world and the West, dealing with the life of the Prophet Muhammad was a difficult task", Majidi added.
Majidi said: "Production of the movie lasted 7 years and I did 3 years of research. In research work, I used most historical Sunni sources such as Ibn Hisham, the history of al Tabari and so on. As well as contemporary Sunni historians from Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, and other Islamic countries around the world I had used."
"I tried to choose a period of the Holy Prophet’s life which is agreed between the Shia and Sunni and I am confident that this movie will contribute greatly to the unity of the Islamic world, God willing a consensus among the Muslim world", Majidi emphasized.
Majidi said: "With this movie, we can open a window of Islam to the West because these days, negative propaganda spreading in the West against Islam and unfortunately they promote these propaganda with terrorism".
"These days, we see that what a violent interpretation of Islam of the Muslim world has been created in the West and unfortunately, it has been promoting", he said.
"This movie tries to show a merciful reading of the Prophet Mohammad and for me it was very important that I pointed out one period of the life of the Prophet Muhammad that Shiites and Sunnis are about consensus. This movie describes this issue that why should be a new religion as Islam emerges, we have deep look at these events and it could be the start for a wave of movie making about Islam", Majidi said.
"We have built a great Cinematic City, and built Mecca like 1400 years ago, so that at least god willing it will stay at least 30 years and many movies will be produced about the history of Islam in this Cinematic City", Majidi added.
"I was recently in Montreal, where the movie was screened, the people welcomed the movie as magnificent. Some friends also came from Qatar and said they wanted to make a movie about the Prophet of Islam. We embraced them and told them Iran is ready to provide them with this equipment", he said.
Majid said from here we invite all moviemakers from the Muslim world to come here and use the possibilities that we provide and produced movies about in the history of Islam so that we can show the West the true side of merciful Islam.