UK Iranian Influence Organization Calls for Boycotting Movie Depicting Life of Muhammeds Daughter

Iran­ian media report­ed last month that the Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) had urged Mus­lims to boy­cott the con­tro­ver­sial film “Lady of Heav­en,” which depicts the life of the Prophet’s daugh­ter Fatimah. Accord­ing to a report by Iqna:

June 6, 2022 The Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion has urged Mus­lims to boy­cott the con­tro­ver­sial film “Lady of Heav­en” which tries to sow dis­cord among Mus­lims. In a state­ment on Sun­day, the IHRC slammed the screen­ing of the movie, urg­ing the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty to unite to con­front such mali­cious mea­sures.  “With its deroga­to­ry por­tray­al of emi­nent Mus­lim per­son­ages in ear­ly Islam­ic his­to­ry includ­ing the Prophet Muhammad’s wives, the film rep­re­sents a bla­tant provo­ca­tion and brazen attempt to sow dis­cord and divi­sion in the House of Islam,” reads the statement.

Read the rest here.

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. The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report recent­ly report­ed that the Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain (MCB), Britain’s most influ­en­tial Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tion with his­tor­i­cal ties to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, also crit­i­cized the movie’s release. In June, promi­nent Leeds imam Qari Asim was dis­missed from his post as a gov­ern­men­tal advis­er on Anti-Mus­lim Hatred after back­ing calls to ban the film.

The Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) is a UK-based NGO found­ed in 1997 and has had Spe­cial Con­sul­ta­tive Sta­tus with the Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil (ECOSOC)  of the Unit­ed Nations since 2007. The IHRC web­site says it works with dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions from Mus­lim and non-Mus­lim back­grounds “to cam­paign for jus­tice for all peo­ples regard­less of their racial, con­fes­sion­al, or polit­i­cal back­ground.” The IHRC is con­sid­ered sup­port­ive of the Iran­ian regime and has been cen­tral to orga­niz­ing the events of the annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Quds Day, ini­ti­at­ed by the Iran­ian rev­o­lu­tion­ary regime for many years.