Shakirah Hunter

Uproar has met the release of the controversial film “Lady in Heaven” as it hits mainstream media outlets. As soon as it was released a petition was signed and just in the first day it received over a hundred thousand signatures. This film sparked fury and anger throughout the Muslim community. There have been numerous protests across England and at least five cities have seen protests outside cinema stores with one clear request: they want this film completely cancelled and completely taken down from cinemas. Cineworld has now decided to pull the film’s release after it was met with protests. Executive producer Malik Shlibak claimed that he has received death threats.

The scriptwriter of this film Yasser Habib has been an extremely controversial figure and is based in the UK. Known for being a hate preacher – he has become famous over the years for peddling this same type of sectarianism that is prevalent in this film. Criticism of both the writer as well as the film itself – many cinemas have buckled under the pressure and have cancelled the film.

The scriptwriter has claimed to be from the Shia community, yet his own community have disagreed with his stance. This is NOT a Shia/Sunni Muslim fight but rather it is the entire community condemning this fanatic and hate preacher. Al Habib originates from Kuwait, where he had been sentenced to a ten-year jail term for this type of hate peddling. He managed to flee from Kuwait and is now living in the UK, he has very few supporters yet has a large establishment that costs millions of pounds. This film was budgeted at fifteen billion dollars which is extremely suspicious as to how he was able to come up with such massive funding.

There is a lot of suspicion around this person and who are his backers. Accusations from Shia majority countries like Iran have come across that they suspect he is backed by Western Intelligence services. He has been condemned by Shia scholars as well Sunni Scholars.

You Tube removed a video criticizing this film by Brother Muhammed Ali as it has angered many of the scriptwriters’ support group. In this film one of the main factors that angered the Muslim Ummah is that he firstly maligns the Ahlul Bait – the Noble and Honored family of Rasulullah (s) but at the same time he tries to frame the modern twenty first century issues in the current wars in countries like Iraq or Syria and then draws a comparison to the Beloved Sahaba. The intent is clearly to malign the Sahabah as well as the entire Muslim Ummah.

As Muslims across the world respond, our defense is always clear : the Sahaba and the family of our beloved Prophet Muhammed (s) will never be a topic that we will allow to be maligned in any way. This film clearly sets out to do exactly that. To paint the beloved Sahaba especially Abu Bakr (ra), Umar (ra) and Uthmaan (ra) as though they are nothing but thugs and to somehow link them to modern war in the twenty first century. Added to this the writer very provocatively uses the story of Fatima (ra) covered up in a burqah yet depicting her story with no real concrete facts or any basis in reality.

This film highlights to us Muslims the very active work of the Shayaateen from amongst both man and jinn and should serve only to motivate us to protect our Deen in every action that we take.