“Çağrı” ve “Hz. Muhammed: Allah’ın Elçisi” Filmlerinde Hz. Peygamber’in Temsili ve Arap-Fars Edebi Geleneklerinin İzleri

The Prophet Muhammad inspired Islamic literature and art with accounts of his birth, characteristics, miracles, life, and even appearance centuries before his representation in modern cinema. Poets and artists used different methods in the visual representation of the Prophet Muhammad. Islamic scholars, due to their special position in religion, did not consider it permissible to make images of prophets in the Arab tradition. The tradition of describing the Prophet Muhammad, which began with al-Tirmidhi’s work al-Shama’il al-Nabawiyya, which describes the Prophet Muhammad’s appearance, clothing, eating and drinking habits, and morals in writing, has sometimes inspired miniatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad in regions influenced by Persian culture. In traditional regions where Arab beliefs prevailed, the depiction of living beings was frowned upon due to the respect for the divine grace inherent in all beings. However, for Iranians, Aryan peoples, and Mongols, depiction was quite natural. In Islamic literature and art, the representation of the Prophet Muhammad in the works of Arab poets and painters is more reverential, abstract, and distant, while in the Persian tradition, this representation is more figurative, descriptive, and at times daring. Can we trace the origins of this artistic difference in today’s cinema? Our study seeks to answer this question. To this end, we examine examples from modern cinema, such as the film The Message by Arab-American director Mustafa Akkad and the film Muhammad by Persian director Majid Majidi, to identify an approach similar to that found in literary history.