Arab Times, Kuwait
Jan 13 2008
‘Islamic Jesus’ hits Iranian movie screens
TEHRAN, Jan 13, 2008 (AFP) – A director who shares the ideas of
Iran’s hardline president has produced what he says is the first film
giving an Islamic view of Jesus Christ, in a bid to show the ‘common
ground’ between Muslims and Christians.
Nader Talebzadeh sees his movie, ‘Jesus, the Spirit of God,’ as an
Islamic answer to Western productions like Mel Gibson’s 2004
blockbuster ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ which he praised as
admirable but quite simply ‘wrong’.
‘Gibson’s film is a very good film. I mean that it is a well-crafted
movie but the story is wrong — it was not like that,’ he said,
referring to two key differences: Islam sees Jesus as a prophet, not
the son of God, and does not believe he was crucified.
Talebzadeh said he even went to Gibson’s mansion in Malibu,
California, to show him his film. ‘But it was Sunday and the security
at the gate received the film and the brochure and promised to
deliver it,’ though the Iranian never heard back.
Even in Iran, ‘Jesus, The Spirit of God’ had a low-key reception,
playing to moderate audiences in five Tehran cinemas during the holy
month of Ramadan, in October.
The film, funded by state broadcasting, faded off the billboards but
is far from dead, about to be recycled in a major 20 episode spin-off
to be broadcast over state-run national television this year.
Talebzadeh insists it aims to bridge differences between Christianity
and Islam, despite the stark divergence from Christian doctrine about
Christ’s final hours on earth.
‘It is fascinating for Christians to know that Islam gives such
devotion to and has so much knowledge about Jesus,’ Talebzadeh told
AFP.
‘By making this film I wanted to make a bridge between Christianity
and Islam, to open the door for dialogue since there is much common
ground between Islam and Christianity,’ he said.
The director is also keen to emphasise the links between Jesus and
one of the most important figures in Shiite Islam, the Imam Mahdi,
said to have disappeared 12 centuries ago but whose ‘return’ to earth
has been a key tenet of the Ahmadinejad presidency.
Talebzadeh made his name making documentaries about Iran’s 1980-1988
war against Iraq, an important genre in the country’s
post-revolutionary cinema.
But such weighty themes, and his latest film on Jesus, compete with
domestic gangster thrillers and sugary boy-meets-girl love stories,
the movies that continue to draw the biggest audiences in the Islamic
Republic.
The bulk of ‘Jesus, the Spirit of God’, which won an award at the
2007 Religion Today Film Festival in Italy, faithfully follows the
traditional tale of Jesus as recounted in the New Testament Gospels,
a narrative reproduced in the Koran and accepted by Muslims.
But in Talebzadeh’s movie, God saves Jesus, depicted as a
fair-complexioned man with long hair and a beard, from crucifixion
and takes him straight to heaven.
‘It is frankly said in the Koran that the person who was crucified
was not Jesus’ but Judas, one of the 12 Apostles and the one the
Bible holds betrayed Jesus to the Romans, he said. In his film, it is
Judas who is crucified.
Islam sees Jesus as one of five great prophets — others being Noah,
Moses and Abraham — sent to earth to announce the coming of
Mohammed, the final prophet who spread the religion of Islam. It
respects Jesus’ followers as ‘people of the book’.
Iran has tens of thousands of its own Christians who are guaranteed
religious freedoms under the constitution — mainly Armenians, though
their numbers have fallen sharply since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Every Christmas, Ahmadinejad and other officials lose no time in
sending greetings to Christian leaders including the pope on what
they describe as the ‘auspicious birthday of Jesus Christ, Peace Be
Upon Him (PBUH).’
In this year’s message, Ahmadinejad said that ‘peace, friendship and
justice will be attained wherever the guidelines of Jesus Christ
(PBUH) are realised in the world.’
Shiite Muslims, the majority in Iran, believe Jesus will accompany
the Imam Mahdi when he reappears in a future apocalypse to save the
world.
And Talebzadeh said the TV version of his film will further explore
the links between Jesus and the Mahdi — whose return Ahmadinejad has
said his government, which came to power in 2005, is working to
hasten.
Shiites believe the Mahdi’s reappearance will usher in a new era of
peace and harmony.
‘We Muslims pray for the ‘Return’ (of Imam Mahdi) and Jesus is part
of the return and the end of time,’ Talebzadeh said.
‘Should we, as artists, stand idle until that time? Don’t we have to
make an effort?’
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress