#Watch the message movie movie#

Though they never grew beyond a few thousand in number, the group received outsized attention for one member - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA Hall-of-Famer - who was a prominent contributor of seed money. Khaalis founded the Hanafi Muslim Movement of America in 1958, and recruited a group of middle-class blacks practicing moderate Islam to join. Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, the leader of the Hanafi Muslim Movement of America

United Nations ambassador Andrew Young was more blunt: 'I wish there could be a law to restrict publication of information regarding violent crimes,' he said days after the incident. It's been commemorated as an artifact of District-security lore, staged decades before the 9/11 attacks.ДЄfter the Hanafi episode, President Carter criticized the crisis coverage in its aftermath for giving voice to extremists he asked for 'sober consideration' amongst journalists in future scenarios. The 1977 Hanafi Siege dragged on for 39 hours, prompted Associated Press articles headlined 'Moslem terrorists hijacking the capital,' and would be considered the city's first major domestic-terrorism crisis. 'We want the picture out of the country,' Khaalis then declared. Poorly remembered about the plot is what provoked it: the same film that sparked protests in India this year. Among the 149 hostages they seized were a future mayor - Marion Barry, then a city councilman, who survived a shotgun wound to the chest - and then-mayor Walter Washington, who was barricaded in his office. By mid-afternoon they had seized control of the District Building, the Islamic Center, and the B'na B'rith Headquarters, shooting dead a police officer and local reporter in the process. Washington, D.C., came to a standstill six weeks into the Carter administration when on March 9, 1977, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis and 11 other Hanafi Muslims drove a rented U-Haul from Maryland to the District of Columbia loaded with machetes, shotguns, and swords. And Akkad even placed this slide, about 5 minutes into the movie, to conciliate Islamic audiences:

He gained support from Islamic scholars at Al-Azhar University and filmed exclusively in the Arab world - efforts to appease detractors who accused him of commercially exploiting the Prophet's life. 'Being a Muslim myself who lived in the West,' Akkad said, 'I felt that it was my obligation, my duty, to tell the truth about Islam.'ДЄkkad cast Anthony Quinn as Muhammad's uncle, Hamza, in the English version, and shot a separate version with Arabic-speaking actors. That's a far cry from the big, late-1970s crowds that The Message was intended for, made on a budget of $17 million, according to its Syrian-American producer Moustapha Akkad. The Message (also released under the title Mohammad, Messenger of God) is now used in the military's hearts-and-minds campaign, intended for shoring up public relations in remote Muslim regions. But after police arrested two and confiscated the Urdu-dubbed video, they discovered not the ' Sam Bacile' production the locals had assumed - soldiers were actually screening a three-hour, high-budget epic that earned an Academy Award nomination for best original score - in 1977.

#Watch the message movie movie#

Shouting first, then throwing stones, a contingent of Kupwara's residents, schoolteachers, and pupils misrecognized the movie as the devious and amateurish YouTube trailer that led to protests in Egypt. Nearby in Pakistan, protests over the controversial Innocence of Muslims had recently turned fatal, and demonstrators at the University of Kashmir carried placards that read ' Obama, we are all Osama.' Yet at a middle school in the Kupwara district - where one-third of the population is illiterate and more than two-thirds are Muslim - the Indian army went ahead with its screening anyway. India's northernmost province, Jammu and Kashmir, was not the right place - and Septemwas especially not the right time - to be screening a film about the Prophet Muhammad. ДЄ screenshot of the 1977 film The Message. Released in 1977, it was intended to honor Muhammad as much as this year's The Innocence of Muslims was intended to degrade him but it provoked a violent backlash.