Holy War of Images: New Islamic Religious Cinema between Ramadan Series and Internet Streaming

Abstract

More than thirty years after the first celebrated attempt to portray the Prophet Muhammad on the big screen (The Message, 1976), we have witnessed, from the new millennium onwards, a new wave of movies and tv series that focus on Islamic religious topics, in particular on the life of the Prophet. In this battle for hegemony in the visual representation of Islamic themes, the most active players are the Muslim Brotherhood Society, operating from their well-funded new base in Qatar, and Iranian Shi‘ism. Between movies and tv series designed and realized on the life of the Prophet, and the series created for the month of Ramadan on the life of prophets and prominent religious authorities of the past, the list is enriched every year with new titles. These are now able to find global diffusion and exert a global influence through various pay and free access streaming platforms. Some of these productions seem to match the needs of political propaganda of certain Islamic denominations, in some cases even winking at the action of certain radical movements.