shakercoola A historical epic about the birth of the Islamic faith and the story of the prophet and disciples of Muhammad ibn Abdullah who, according to Islamic doctrine, was sent to present and confirm the monotheistic teachings preached previously by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. It is a fabulous story with intrigue and drama and one of very high production values and a spellbinding musical score worthy of its Oscar nomination. The battle scenes at Badr and Uhud are spectacular and compelling viewing for 3 hours. In accordance with the beliefs of some Muslims regarding depictions of Muhammad, his face is not depicted on-screen nor is his voice heard. This is, I believe, not only rightly so respectful, but it works creatively too by lending an atmosphere and mystery, and because it is a story about faith alone. Watching this film - the English language version - in the same month that it is finally to be released in the Middle East after 42 years make it a little more special. The film will now reach twice the number of Muslims than there were in 1976, and so it is high time the rest of the world embraces the story of the 7th Century Messenger.

afurtado-54894 I expected to learn a lot more than I actually did. The acting was terrible with little conviction. I wondered how they shouted Allah hu Akbar at the beginning of the movie when no one was yet converted to Islam and Mohammed had not yet started preaching his message. The movie went into Islam superficially in my opinion. It purported to deliver the message. If it did it did not come through. The message deserved far far better than the movie delivered. I was excited to watch it in the first place, but in the end I was unmoved

Smoreni Zmaj Movie about the beginning of Islam.I am Orthodox Christian, but I must acknowledge this masterpiece.Allegedly, this film is historically precise, and if it really is, then there's no essential difference between Christianity and Islam. Trouble does not lie in opposition of two religions, it lies in existence of greedy, blood thirsty politicians who incite religious fanaticism and abuse basically peaceful religions to accomplish their political and economical goals.Anyway, if you're not Muslim, you just have to put your prejudice aside (if you have any) and you'll enjoy this excellent piece of cinematography.

ansreaganite-845-889351 Cinematically, it was pretty good. Clearly a lot of work went into the sets, costumes & locations. While the acting was adequate, I have to disagree with other reviews in that I did not think it was Anthony Quinn's greatest work. Maybe because I viewed it through the lens of Christianity or maybe it was the way the actors talked to the camera when addressing Mohammed (i.e., it is against Islam to show the likeness of Mohammed - sort of a parallel to Jews never wring the word God - they spell it G-d), the movie had an odd "vibe" about it. The story itself is difficult to follow, much like the Koran itself. Though downplayed in the movie, early messages from God conflicted with later messages. It also plays up the 'peaceful' side of Islam, (but there again the movie has some fantastic battle scenes, if you overlook the overly fake looking blood) which stands in stark contrast to the evidence we see on the nightly news. Ideally, every Muslim would embrace the teachings of this movie and renounce the more radical teachings - not just the modern day "terrorist" mindset, but the way the early Muslims treated women in the early years seems to be quite different than today. I can't think of a Christian equivalent of this movie, as most movies about early Christianity only tell a small portion of the story. This movie attempts to explain the roots of Islam from when Mohammed began hearing from God at age 40, in about 610 AD to the full establishment of Islam around the world. It does to a reasonably good job for the early parts of Islam, but I kind of got lost in all the who's fighting who scenes. It was apparently all historically verified at the time of its making by Islamic scholars,which is explained at the beginning and end of the movie, which only adds to the eerie feeling the movie being less documentary and more propagandist. So, in short, the cinematic presentation is quite good, but the story is hard to follow and I felt it had a propagandist "vibe" throughout the movie. If you have 3 hours to kill and are interested in the subject matter, you'll likely enjoy it. For me I got restless in the middle when I started to get confused about who is battling who and for what reason.