

That's a far cry from the big, late-1970s crowds that The Message was intended for, made on a budget of $17 million, according to its Syrian-American producer Moustapha Akkad. The Message (also released under the title Mohammad, Messenger of God) is now used in the military's hearts-and-minds campaign, intended for shoring up public relations in remote Muslim regions. But after police arrested two and confiscated the Urdu-dubbed video, they discovered not the " Sam Bacile" production the locals had assumed - soldiers were actually screening a three-hour, high-budget epic that earned an Academy Award nomination for best original score - in 1977. Shouting first, then throwing stones, a contingent of Kupwara's residents, schoolteachers, and pupils misrecognized the movie as the devious and amateurish YouTube trailer that led to protests in Egypt. Nearby in Pakistan, protests over the controversial Innocence of Muslims had recently turned fatal, and demonstrators at the University of Kashmir carried placards that read " Obama, we are all Osama." Yet at a middle school in the Kupwara district - where one-third of the population is illiterate and more than two-thirds are Muslim - the Indian army went ahead with its screening anyway. India's northernmost province, Jammu and Kashmir, was not the right place - and Septemwas especially not the right time - to be screening a film about the Prophet Muhammad. Ī screenshot of the 1977 film The Message.

Released in 1977, it was intended to honor Muhammad as much as this year's The Innocence of Muslims was intended to degrade him but it provoked a violent backlash.
