British Muslim Brotherhood Group Sides with Scholars Criticizing Release of Movie Depicting Life of Muhammeds Daughter

On 5 June 2022, the Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain (MCB) released a state­ment sid­ing with Mus­lim schol­ars who had crit­i­cized the release of „The Lady of Heav­en,“ a new movie depict­ing the life of the Prophet’s daugh­ter Fatimah. Accord­ing to a post on the MCB website:

A new film enti­tled ‘The Lady of Heav­en’ has been con­demned as divi­sive and sec­tar­i­an by schol­ars across the rich tra­di­tions of Islam. The MCB, which proud­ly rep­re­sents affil­i­ates from across the dif­fer­ent schools of thought in our faith, sup­ports those schol­ars and lead­ers who are advo­cat­ing for greater uni­ty and for the com­mon good, as com­mand­ed by our Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

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In the state­ment, the MCB said the pri­ma­ry goal of some of the film’s sup­port­ers was to “fuel hatred,“ which it said should not be allowed to happen.

The con­tro­ver­sy cen­ters on “The Lady of Heav­en,” a new film by Shia Mus­lim cler­ic Sheikh Yass­er al-Habib, described as the first film depict­ing the life and death of the Prophet Mohammed’s daugh­ter Fati­ma. Strict reli­gious bans on the depic­tion of the Prophet have led to protests out­side cin­e­mas in sev­er­al British cities which called the film “blas­phe­mous” and “racist.” More than 133,000 peo­ple had signed a peti­tion against the movie, lead­ing to some British cin­e­mas pulling screen­ings from their sched­ules. Most Sun­ni Mus­lims believe depic­tions of Islam­ic prophets should be pro­hib­it­ed, where­as Shia Islam typ­i­cal­ly accepts such depic­tions if they are done respect­ful­ly. In June 2022, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that promi­nent Leeds imam Qari Asim had been dis­missed from his post as a gov­ern­men­tal advis­er on Anti-Mus­lim Hatred after back­ing calls to ban the film.

The MCB is among Britain’s most influ­en­tial Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions that his­tor­i­cal­ly has act­ed in con­cert with the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. In Feb­ru­ary 2022, the GIOR report­ed that the MCB had pub­lished a state­ment on its web­site urg­ing mem­bers of the House of Lords to reject a part of the British government’s Police, Crime, Sen­tenc­ing, and Courts Bill, describ­ing it as “increas­ing­ly puni­tive” and “erod­ing our civ­il liberties.”