An Egyptian box office hit that highlights the religious establishment’s cozy relations with the state has provoked a backlash from scholars, with some calling for the film to be banned.
Adapted from a novel by prominent journalist Ibrahim Eissa, “Mawlana” (The Preacher) tells the story of a popular television preacher who struggles to reconcile his religious principles with demands and pressures from politicians and security agencies as well as ordinary human temptations.
Through the protagonist, an imam from Al-Azhar, Cairo’s 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning, the film lays bare the complex and troubling interplay between the state, religious establishment, mass media and extremism in Egypt.
Clerics at Al-Azhar have responded angrily to the film, which they say tarnishes the image of the establishment just as it steps up efforts to rein in violent extremism.
“The film came out at a bad time. This is a time when people are asking to renew religious discourse and improve Azhar’s image. The film coming out now is very wrong. Even its title is problematic,” said Sameh Mohamed, a preacher at Al-Azhar.
Mohamed said the film, in which the televangelist initially bends to the demands of senior officials before having a change of heart, paints clerics as unprincipled and state-controlled.
Variety, the US-based entertainment trade paper, called the film “a forthright critique of corruption and fundamentalism” that was “certain to be one of the most discussed movies” in Egypt.
“The Preacher” is showing to packed houses in regular commercial cinemas, not just a few art houses in the capital. It had raked in 7.3 million Egyptian pounds ($388,300) by its third week — a strong showing for a local film.
The film also explores the origins and effects of sectarian tensions that have flared in recent years between Muslims and Christians.
In the film’s dramatic climax, a young man blows up a church. Life imitated art the day after its premiere with the suicide bomb attack on Cairo’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic papacy.

Source: Arab News