Filmmaker Moustapha Akkad: Remembering a lion of the desert

Killed in Jordan: Moustapha and Rima

Whenever Muslims have talked about their continued demonized image in Hollywood, and subsequently about the dearth of Muslims working behind the camera to help change it, the example of filmmaker Moustapha Akkad often came up as a bright spot. Akkad, who was murdered last week in the Jordan suicide bombing along with his daughter Rima, was for half a century the most successful Muslim in Hollywood, known in the West for jumpstarting the horror genre with the “Halloween” films that he produced. But to Muslims worldwide, he was the one who brought the 1976 movie “The Message” – which told the story of the birth of Islam while deftly avoiding portraying the Prophet Muhammad directly – to the big screen.

As with his 1981 film “Lion of the Desert” (about the real-life story of Libyan resistance, led by the simple Omar al-Mukhtar, to the Nazi invasion of WWII), “The Message” performed poorly at the box-office (despite critical acclaim) but won the hearts of Muslims worldwide for being the “Passion” of its day. “I felt that it was my obligation [and] my duty to tell the truth about Islam,” said Akkad, whose first experience with the type of extremists that took his life was when a group of Muslims who thought that “The Message” portrayed the Prophet (which it did not) took hostages at three Washington, DC theaters, demanding the movie not be shown in the US.

Having lived in California for most of the last 50 years, Akkad’s passion was to tell stories of import to the Arab and Muslim worlds, but in a way that would be relevant and entertaining to Americans. “In my house, I am a pure Arab, mentally and everything,” he told a Jordanian newspaper last year. “When I step out, I am thinking like an American.” Akkad has inspired a generation of Muslim Americans – among them his son Malek – who have entered the creative fields, determined to tell their stories and to entertain others.

At the time of his death, Akkad had been achieving some progress in his decades-long effort to bring the story of Salahuddin to the screen in an $80 million epic, reportedly convincing Sean Connery to play the lead role. (“The character of Saladin should be presented in a language [Americans] understand and interpreted by actors/actresses well-known to them,” explained Akkad.)

But for the meantime, the cameras are off as family and Hollywood friends pause to remember their own “Lion of the Desert.”

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.