Tag: Prophet Muhammad

Muhammad-Film Consultant: ‘Sam Bacile’ Is Not Israeli, and Not a Real Name

Revelations about the alleged producer of the now-infamous trailer for “The Innocence of Muslims.”

Actors portray the Prophet Mohammed and other historial figures in the controversial film, Innocence of Muslims. (YouTube)

As part of my search for more information about Sam Bacile, the alleged producer of the now-infamous anti-Muhammad film trailer “The Innocence of Muslims,” I just called a man named Steve Klein — a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, California (whose actual business, he said, is in selling “hard-to-place home insurance”), who has been described in multiple media accounts as a consultant to the film.

Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.”

He said the man who identified himself as Bacile asked him to help make the anti-Muhammad film. When I asked him to describe Bacile, he said: “I don’t know that much about him. I met him, I spoke to him for an hour. He’s not Israeli, no. I can tell you this for sure, the State of Israel is not involved, Terry Jones (the radical Christian Quran-burning pastor) is not involved. His name is a pseudonym. All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he’s Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign.”

I asked him who he thought Sam Bacile was. He said that there are about 15 people associated with the making of the film, “Nobody is anything but an active American citizen. They’re from Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, they’re some that are from Egypt. Some are Copts but the vast majority are Evangelical.”

What are we to make of Steve Klein’s assertions? I’m taking everything about this strange and horrible episod with a grain of salt, though I will say that I haven’t seen any proof yet that Sam Bacile is an actual Israeli Jew, or that the name is anything other than a pseudonym. More to come, undoubtedly.

via Muhammad-Film Consultant: ‘Sam Bacile’ Is Not Israeli, and Not a Real Name – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic.

September 13, 2012
Afghanistan Bans YouTube over Prophet Mohammad Video

The Afghanistan government banned Google’s YouTube today in an attempt to stop its citizens from watching a U.S.-made film insulting the Prophet Mohammad, according to the Ministry of Communications. This particular video has sparked protests in Egypt and Libya and also led to the killing of four Americans. The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff were killed while running from a consulate building in Benghazi, which was stormed by gunmen later tied to the militant Islamist organization al Qaeda.

“We have been told to shut down YouTube to the Afghan public until the video is taken down,” Aimal Marjan, general director of Information Technology at the ministry, told Reuters. In a second report, Reuters said Marjan declined to say if the goal of Afghanistan’s YouTube ban was to prevent Muslims from being offended or to curb violence.

The film is titled “Innocence of Muslims” and portrays the Prophet as a womanizer and a religious fake. The man who created it, an Israeli-American, describes Islam as a “cancer.” The video has received very contrasting reactions all over the world.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai unsurprisingly condemned it, saying its producers had done a “devilish act.” He also noted that insulting Islam was not protected by freedom of speech in his country. Meanwhile, US pastor Terry Jones, whose plans to burn the Koran triggered deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010, approved of the film, and even went as far as promoting it.

The Afghan government strongly condemned the making of the film as “inhuman and insulting,” deemed it offensive to Islam, and expressed “disgust” for it, according to a statement from the Afghan presidency cited by the AFP. Those in power also said “the heinous act of the filmmaker and fanatic pastor hurts the feelings of the Islamic world”.

This is not the first time material and actions deemed insulting to Islam have sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan, but it is the first time that it has resulted in YouTube being blocked. The video-sharing site has previously been blocked in China, Morocco, Thailand, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Libya, among others.

Image credit: stock.xchng

via Afghanistan Bans YouTube over Prophet Mohammad Video.

September 12, 2012
Sam Bacile, Anti-Islam Filmmaker, In Hiding After Protests

İslam karşıtı filmin yapımcısı islam’ı kanser olarak niteliyor

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Israeli filmmaker based in California went into hiding Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam’s prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by ultra-conservative Muslims on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya, where one American was killed.

Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, writer and director Sam Bacile remained defiant, saying Islam is a cancer and that the 56-year-old intended his film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.

Protesters angered over Bacile’s film opened fire on and burned down the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing an American diplomat on Tuesday. In Egypt, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner.

“This is a political movie,” said Bacile. “The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re fighting with ideas.”

Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world.

“Islam is a cancer, period,” he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

The two-hour movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.

The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.

It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage.

Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

Though Bacile was apologetic about the American who was killed as a result of the outrage over his film, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence.

“I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good,” said Bacile. “America should do something to change it.”

A consultant on the film, Steve Klein, said the filmmaker is concerned for family members who live in Egypt. Bacile declined to confirm.

Klein said he vowed to help Bacile make the movie but warned him that “you’re going to be the next Theo van Gogh.” Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a film that was perceived as insulting to Islam.

“We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen,” Klein said.

Bacile’s film was dubbed into Egyptian Arabic by someone he doesn’t know, but he speaks enough Arabic to confirm that the translation is accurate. It was made in three months in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and about 45 people behind the camera.

The full film has been shown once, to a mostly empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year, said Bacile.

via Sam Bacile, Anti-Islam Filmmaker, In Hiding After Protests.

September 12, 2012
Turkey gives Prophet Mohammad’s hairs to Chechnya

Grozny, February 3, Interfax – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has given three hairs of Prophet Mohammad to the Chechen Republic. The hairs were taken from Istanbul to Grozny on Thursday.

“The Chechen diaspora in Turkey asked Erdogan to give the holy hairs to Chechnya. We received a positive response within a month and the priceless gift has been delivered to Grozny today,” Aihan Ergyuven, chairman of the Chechen committee Sivas, told reporters at the Grozny airport.

Despite the cold weather, thousands of Chechens, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, met the hairs at the Grozny airports and in the city’s streets.

A religious ritual marking this event was held in the republic’s central mosque.

According to earlier reports, a different hair of Prophet Mohammad was taken from Uzbekistan to Chechnya on January 26, 2011. The hair is a capsule, which is located in a box. According to historical documents, the hair, which was taken to the Grozny central mosque, had been in Uzbekistan since the times of the Caliphate.

via Interfax-Religion.

February 5, 2012
Turkish hacker claims French cyberattack

AFP

A Turkish hacker has claimed credit for bringing down the website of a French satirical weekly that published images of the Prophet Mohammed that he says are an insult to Islam.

But in an interview with France’s Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday, the hacker also said he was against violence and did not support those who are suspected of having firebombed the weekly’s offices.

The Paris offices of the weekly, Charlie Hebdo, were destroyed in a fire on Wednesday after it published a special Arab Spring edition with Mohammed on the cover as “guest editor” saying: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter!”

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Police said they suspect the offices were firebombed and the newspaper has said it received threats from Muslim fundamentalists.

The weekly’s website was also taken down in a cyber-attack claimed by Turkish hackers’ group Akincilar. It remained offline on Sunday.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not like we siphoned off bank accounts. This was a protest against an insult to our values and beliefs,” the hacker, who identified himself as Ekber, told the newspaper in Istanbul.

The 20-year-old, who uses the hacker name Black Apple, said he had launched the attack after reports broke online of the weekly’s plans. He said it took six hours of work by a team of hackers to take down into the site.

However, when asked whether he supported the firebombing, Ekber said: “Of course not, we do not support violence. Islam is a religion of peace.”

He said the group was also prepared to launch cyber-attacks on another French newspaper, Liberation, which has republished the images.

Charlie Hebdo has said its site remains offline because the Belgian company hosting it, Bluevision, was refusing to reinstate the page after receiving death threats.

It has also claimed that Facebook threatened to terminate its account because it was publishing inappropriate images.

Akincilar, the Turkish hackers’ group, is named after the famed Akinci warrior-horsemen of the Ottoman Empire and has claimed responsibility for thousands of cyber-attacks in recent years.

The group has previously targeted the site of a Turkish satirical magazine, The Penguin, after it questioned Islamic faith in a cartoon.

It has also carried out attacks on Israeli, Armenian and Kurdish websites in what it said was the defence of Turkish national values.

© 2011 AFP

November 7, 2011
BBC to show film on Muhammad’s life

The BBC is to trace the journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad for a new series which is claimed to be a first for British television.

Al Jazeera reporter Rageh Omaar will present the three-part programme for BBC2, following in the prophet’s footsteps from Mecca and along the journeys he took during his life.

To ensure the programmes are in line with Islamic tradition, they will not depict the face of Muhammad or feature dramatic reconstructions of his life.

The Life Of Muhammad is to be screened next month and will follow events such as his migration to Medina and the founding of the first Islamic constitution, through to his death. It will also examine his legacy and the impact of the faith he established.

The trio of hour-long films have been made by Faris Kermani, the director and producer of Channel 4 series Seven Wonders Of The Muslim World.

The BBC’s commissioning editor for religion and ethics, Aaqil Ahmed, said: “For some people in the UK, Muhammad is just a name, and I hope this series will go some way to explaining who he was, how he lived, what his prophetic message was, and how all of this compares to his legacy today.

“This is a very timely landmark series filmed in Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, Syria, Turkey, the USA, the UK and Jordan. It features comment from some of the world’s leading academics and commentators on Islam – a subject that many people may know little about.”

The BBC said the programmes would raise questions about Islam’s role in the world today and explore “where Islam’s attitudes towards money, charity, women, social equality, religious tolerance, war and conflict originate”.

Omaar is a former world affairs correspondent for BBC news who joined Al Jazeera’s English service in 2006.

He said: “The details of Muhammad’s life really are little known, and I hope that my series will – for many – shine a light on the very beginning of Islam, taking viewers to the heart of this faith, illustrating just how Muhammad’s life and legacy is as important today as it was over 1,000 years ago.”

via BBC to show film on Muhammad’s life – TV & Radio, Media – The Independent.

June 23, 2011