Muslims protesting outside Cineworld Bradford on Monday evening against the screening of the film.
Sun 05 June 2022:
In Blackburn, a demonstration was staged against a film that is believed to incite “Shia and Sunni tensions.”
The Lady of Heaven is a British film directed by Eli King and written by cleric Yasser Al-Habib. Filming started in 2019 but was put on hold because to the Covid epidemic.
It has since been published countrywide through mainstream theater chains such as Vue, Cineworld, and Showcase, including areas with large Muslim populations such as Blackburn, Bradford, and Manchester.
Protests were also planned in other cities where local Muslims were concerned that the script ‘negatively depicts’ deeply respected Islamic religious figures and contradicts well-known historical truths.
Muslims also protested outside Cineworld Bradford on Monday evening against the screening of the film.
Many people turned up outside Vue Cinemas in Blackburn last night (Friday June 2) after 6pm to hold a silent protest. None of the group were holding banners but simply wanted to know their feelings known to the cinema chain.
There were suggestions that someone had brought ‘dozens of tickets’ and was distributing them in the car park earlier.
Protest at the Leisure Exchange in response to the screening of ‘The Lady of Heaven’, a film depicting the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and it is also supposedly blasphemous which has caused a lot of anger and disappointment amongst the Muslim community #bradford #TheLadyOfHeaven pic.twitter.com/LGJewCF9iC
— Mahnoor Akhlaq (@mahnoor_akhlaq) June 3, 2022
The independent film has already sparked a lot of controversy in the run-up to its release, and it has been prohibited in countries, like Pakistan, which labeled it “sacrilegious,” and Egypt, have also banned the film.
‘Historical inaccuracies’ have also been cited by certain Shia experts as a reason for the story’s condemnation.
The plot revolves around Laith, an Iraqi child in the middle of a war-torn country after losing his mother, has found himself a new home with an elderly woman who tells him the story of Fatima, whose face is never shown, the daughter of Muhammad.
Critics say it also looks to liken an ISIS assault on a woman to that of an inaccurate story of how two of the Prophet’s closet companions were responsible for an assault on his daughter Fatima to the fourth caliph Ali, who is revered highly by both Shias and Sunnis.
Other critics have said the depictions of caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, the wife of the Prophet, Aisha and other negative characters were black as this ‘stems from the racial bias against darker skinned people’.
BREAKING: Angered Muslim protested outside @cineworld in Bradford after launch of “blasphemous” sectarian film The Lady Of Heaven.
The film, which depicts Islam’s Prophet and insults his wife Aesha, has sparked outrage across Muslim community. #TheLadyOfHeaven #Bradford pic.twitter.com/5goGG5OAXf
— Robert Carter (@Bob_cart124) June 3, 2022
Roshan Muhammed Salih of 5 Pillars has been a vocal critic of the film had watched the movie.
He felt, ‘there is no doubt that Lady of Heaven is going to create sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shias in the UK’.
He adds: ‘Lady of Heaven is two hours plus of the most extreme Shia sectarian narratives about how the caliphate was supposedly “usurped” from the Ahl ul Bayt. And most Muslims will find the invective against three of the most beloved companions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shocking and disgusting.’
Muslims protested outside Bradford Cineworld last night against the screening of the blasphemous sectarian hate film Lady of Heaven. Full video: https://t.co/c9Gkl5XoI8 pic.twitter.com/8WwJ7I5Zrd
— 5Pillars (@5Pillarsuk) June 4, 2022
He admitted there had been calls from some Shia spokespersons to distance themselves from this movie and also urged ‘all mainstream Sunni scholars to reject this story as a complete lie.’
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