The Message
Mohammad, Messenger of God
An epic account of the birth of Islam in seventh-century Arabia, told without ever showing the Prophet on screen.
Selected for its rare formal discipline: a religious epic that centres its subject entirely through absence and the witness of others.
In Mecca, a message of one God is preached against the city's idol-worshipping establishment, and its first followers face persecution, exile to Abyssinia and the migration to Medina. Moustapha Akkad tells the story through those around the Prophet — his uncle Hamza, the freed slave Bilal, the Meccan leader Abu Sufyan and his wife Hind — while the Prophet himself is never seen or heard, his presence implied by the camera and the reactions of others. Akkad shot this English-language version with Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas back to back with a separate Arabic-language version, Al-Risalah, using a different cast on the same sets.
- Moustapha Akkad
- Anthony QuinnHamza
- Irene PapasHind
- Michael AnsaraAbu Sufyan
- Johnny SekkaBilal
- Michael ForestKhalid ibn al-Walid