Why is it so offensive?

Q&A: Anti-Islam film

Thousands have protested across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia against a film made in the US that depicts the Prophet Muhammad. What is in the film and why it has enraged so many people?

How did the film come to public attention?

The 14-minute video was first posted on YouTube on 1 July without attracting much attention. It was later picked up by various Arab TV stations, with religious Egyptian TV channel al-Nas' presenter Sheikh Khalad Abdalla broadcasting scenes on 8 September. A clip from his show, dubbed into Arabic, was posted online and within days had been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

The Afghan government says it has blocked YouTube to prevent people from watching it.

White House officials have asked YouTube to consider whether the film breaches its own guidelines. These guidelines include the stipulation: "We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we do not permit hate speech..."

Google, which owns YouTube, said in a statement that the video was "clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube", but added that "given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt" it had restricted access to the video in both countries.

The access to the video has also been blocked in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and India.

What does the film show?

The footage, a trailer for a longer film entitled Innocence of Muslims (initial title was Desert Warrior), appears to depict Islam as a religion of violence and hate, and its Prophet Muhammad as a foolish and power-hungry man.

It opens with a scene in which a Coptic family in a newly radicalised Islamic Egypt is attacked by a group of Muslims while police look on without intervening. The father tells his daughters that Muslims want to kill all Christians and that the Islamic state is hiding their crimes.

It then shows the Prophet Muhammad and his life with his family and his followers in the desert. He is shown having sex with his wife Khadija and other women.

The video implies Khadija is behind the creation of the Koran, which is described as a combination of subversions of the Torah and the New Testament.

The trailer depicts Muhammad and his followers as killers, looters and extortionists. In one scene the Prophet sanctions the sexual abuse of children; in another, he says he is gay.

Why is it so offensive?

Depicting the Prophet Muhammad in any way already defies Islamic belief, let alone satirising him. His wife Khadija and his earliest companions are also revered in their own right in Islam, and so mocking these individuals is also considered serious blasphemy.

The founding principle of Islam is that the Koran is the direct word of God, revealed to Muhammad in order that he impart it to humankind. Depicting Khadija as planning to concoct a holy book out of the Old and New Testament defies an intrinsic Islamic belief.

Other references to Muhammad's alleged affairs with women, his greed and violence would clearly be insulting in any context.

Date: 2016-01-05; view: 877