{‘The Preacher’ tackles complex relationship between clerics and government, and some are calling for it to be banned.}<\/p>\n
An Egyptian box office hit that highlights the religious establishment’s cosy relations with the state has provoked a backlash from Sunni Muslim leaders, with some calling for the film to be banned.<\/p>\n
Adapted from a novel by prominent journalist Ibrahim Eissa, “Mawlana” (“The Preacher”) tells the story of a popular television preacher who struggles to reconcile his religious principles with demands and pressures from politicians and security agencies, as well as ordinary human temptations.<\/p>\n
Through the protagonist, a Muslim scholar from Al-Azhar, Cairo’s 1,000-year-old centre of Islamic learning, the film lays bare the complex and troubling interplay between the state, religious establishment, mass media and “extremism” in Egypt.<\/p>\n
The issue could not be more timely.<\/p>\n
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief, overthrew the government in 2013 and is still battling fighters.<\/p>\n
The day after the film’s premiere, a suicide bomber killed 28 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) on Cairo’s main Coptic Christian cathedral.<\/p>\n
Muslim leaders at Al-Azhar said the film tarnishes the image of establishment Islam just as it steps up efforts to rein in attacks.<\/p>\n
“The film came out at a bad time. This is a time when people are asking to renew religious discourse and improve Azhar’s image. The film coming out now is very wrong. Even its title is problematic,” said Sameh Mohamed, a preacher at Al-Azhar.<\/p>\n
Mohamed said the film, in which the televangelist initially bends to the demands of senior officials before having a change of heart, paints Muslim scholars as unprincipled and state-controlled.<\/p>\n
The film’s director, Magdy Ahmed Ali, begs to differ.<\/p>\n
“This is the perfect time for the film,” he said. “The army is fighting terrorism, extremism is on the rise, and people are calling for a renewal of religious discourse.”<\/p>\n
{{Box office hit}}<\/p>\n
Sisi has made combating attacks a priority and assigned Al-Azhar a central role in defending mainstream Islam.<\/p>\n
Egyptian courts have jailed thousands of Muslim Brotherhood followers during his rule.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the military ousted the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi from the presidency in mid-2013, the religious endowments ministry fired 55,000 preachers not authorised by Al-Azhar.<\/p>\n
The preachers were accused of inciting violence, spreading “extremist” views or supporting the Brotherhood.<\/p>\n
The Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned by the government, says it is peaceful.<\/p>\n
Variety, the US-based entertainment trade paper, called the film “a forthright critique of corruption and fundamentalism” that was “certain to be one of the most discussed movies” in Egypt.<\/p>\n
“The Preacher” is showing to packed houses in regular commercial cinemas. It had raked in 7.3 million Egyptian pounds ($388,300) by its third week – a strong showing for a local film.<\/p>\n
Apart from Sunni-Shia tensions, the film explores the origins and effects of sectarian tensions that have flared in recent years between Muslims and Christians.<\/p>\n
Egypt’s Copts are the largest Christian minority in the Middle East, making up about 10 percent of the country’s 83 million population.<\/p>\n
In the film’s dramatic climax, a young man blows up a church.<\/p>\n
Life imitated art the day after its premiere with the suicide bomb attack on Cairo’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic papacy.<\/p>\n
“Religion, with power, with money is a killer triangle,” Eissa, who helped adapt the script for cinema, told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
“This triangle is responsible for all the intellectual, political and social decline we are in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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