• by IPS Correspondents (cairo)
• Tuesday, November 15, 1994
• Inter Press Service

CAIRO, Nov 15 (IPS) - A new film based on the biblical character Joseph has fuelled arguments between secular intellectuals and conservative Muslims in Egypt and put the government in a quandary.

Egypt's highest Islamic institution, Al Azhar, has decreed that the movie, 'Al Muhajer' (The Emigrant), should be pulled off the screens because, by depicting a character as the prophet Joseph (Yussef), the film is anti-Islamic.

This follows a case brought against Yussef Shahine, director of 'The Emigrant', by a lawyer who says the film also is defamatory because it gives the impression of Jewish supremacy over the nation.

"The film is Zionist," says lawyer Mahmoud Abou al-Faid. "And Yussef Shahine is a Zionist."

To Shahine this comes as a surprise. "I am against Israel," he says. "They regularly ask me to visit there but I never go. How can there be peace while they dominate us with their nuclear weapons?"

'The Emigrant', meanwhile, is pulling in massive crowds at the box office and has given conservative Muslims another opportunity to beat their secular opponents over the head using Egypt's relatively independent legal system.

The case follows a series of similar controversies over movie posters, secular writers and nude paintings. In September, 30 lawyers, said to be acting for themselves, brought a case against two magazines for publishing pictures of women they considered were too scantily clad.

In August, another group of advocates, headed by a well-known Islamic litigant, Yussef al Badri, sued several Cairo cinemas for film posters they believed were flagrantly sexual. These included posters depicting women wearing short night-gowns and displaying naked thighs and deep cleavages.

But the latest battle over 'Al Muhajer' has attracted the greatest attention. Opposition newspapers, headed by the Islamist Al Shaab, have weighed in heavily against the film calling on the courts to rule against it.

Al Azhar's decree has given al-Faid added weight. But the chances of him winning the case remain small. "Let's wait and see," he says. "Even if I don't win, I will have given the people a chance to see the damage the likes of Shahine are doing."

Shahine's defence is to say the film is an autobiography. (MORE)

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© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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