Russell Crowe has earned himself a fatwa in three Islamic countries — so far — for his epic film Noah:
One of the world’s most respected Islamic institutions has issued a fatwa against a Hollywood epic about Noah’s Ark because it ‘contradicts the teachings of Islam’.
Russell Crowe’s £75million film Noah has also been banned in three Arab countries after religious leaders complained that it depicted the Biblical figure – who is also a holy messenger in the Koran.
Due to premiere later this month, the blockbuster will not show in Qatar, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates and several other countries are expected to follow suit.
Their beef against Noah is that it depicts a figure deemed to be holy in Islam. That is haram, whether the depiction is flattering or not. Non-Muslims don’t do haram, but these folks would like to force us to.
Crowe’s Noah is apparently just odd, as the Genesis epic reportedly runs off into global warming alarmism. That wasn’t a political or religious issue in Noah’s day. Or, if it was, it had nothing to do with cars and airplanes and the use of internal combustion engines, leaving Al Gore with a massive sad.
Director Darren Aronovsky didn’t even rely heavily on his source material, or respect the Christian audiences most likely to want to see the film.
“Noah is the least biblical biblical film ever made,” Aronofsky is quoted as saying. “I don’t give a fuck about the test scores! My films are outside the scores. Ten men in a room trying to come up with their favourite ice cream are going to agree on vanilla. I’m the rocky road guy.”
Classy. That’s reaching out to your target audience!
Back to the fatwa.
The fatwa – a ruling or injunction under the laws of Islam – was made by the influential Al-Azhar institution in Egypt’s capital Cairo, a centre of Sunni Islam thought which was founded in around AD970 and includes a university and a mosque.
‘Al-Azhar… renews its objection to any act depicting the messengers and prophets of God and the companions of the Prophet (Mohammad), peace be upon him,’ it announced in a statement.
The fatwa added that the depictions ‘provoke the feelings of believers… and are forbidden in Islam and a clear violation of Islamic law’.
Oddly enough, there isn’t yet a fatwa against Son of God.
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