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Rabat – Morocco’s Supreme Scientific Council has expressed its strong condemnation of the recently produced film “The Lady of Heaven,” rejecting its falsification of established facts in Islamic history.
The film depicts the life of Lady Fatima, one of the daughters of the Prophet Muhammad, from the Shia denomination of Islam, which greatly differs from the Sunni view on this story.
Since its release on June 3, the controversial film has sparked widespread outrage among Muslims across the world, with the Muslim community in the United Kingdom holding nationwide protests.
Around 120,000 people have signed petitions to have the film pulled from cinemas, saying that its plot does not accurately portray historical events.
Earlier this week, UK-based Bradford Cineworld, as well as other cinemas across the country, announced that The Lady of Heaven movie was being pulled from schedules following protests by angry crowds in front of cinemas.
Responding to the criticism his movie has received, producer Malik Shlibak said that the outrage and controversy is a “massive, massive publicity for the film,” adding that he and his team “expected this from the start.”
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He told SkyNews: “We’re not presenting an over-romanticised version of history. We spent a year in pre-production making sure the history is accurate.”
Shlibak expressed his acceptance of people’s freedom to criticize the film, saying that “any religious topic you tackle is going to have disagreements amongst different groups.” He argued, however, that the protests have “overstepped boundaries,” describing them as an attempt “to censor other people with different views.”
The film has caused “much distress to Muslims across the globe,” said cleric Shahid Ali, who organized a protest against the film in Bradford, UK.
Critics of the £12 million ($14.7 million) historical drama are mainly Sunni Muslims, with many having described the movie as “blasphemous” and racist.
Written by Shia Muslim cleric Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, the film portrays Lady Fatima’s death and describes her in the synopsis as “the first victim of terrorism.”
