Representing Muhammad: The Prophet on Screen

Abstract

Muhammad: The Messenger of God (Majid Majidi 2015) is a major contribution to the discourses on and representations of the Prophet. Endorsed by Iran’s highest political authority, the supreme leader, the project’s ambitions far exceed the film’s limit, the multiple significances of which are examined here. The mammoth undertaking in the construction of the movie set, the Cinematic City of Nur, is an assertion of religious legitimacy as well as superiority in the preservation of Muslim sacred sites, history, and heritage. The film attempts to rectify the “falsification” of the narratives of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad both in western depictions as well as by Muslim extremists. Majidi employs various approaches in negotiating the three, at times contradictory, demands of the medium’s need for dramatization, the religious desiderata, and the film’s claims to authenticity, which I outline here. Even though set 1400 years ago, the film highlights the relevance of the Prophet’s narrative in a continuum that both precedes and extends beyond his own lifetime. The Prophet is relevant to the past before him as he is presented as the true heir to Judaism and Christianity. His narrative is relevant to the present as the story of his suffering resonates with the challenges that contemporary Iranians face as history repeats itself.