Doha ( AsiaNews / Agencies) - Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have banned the release of the film "Noah" which tells the story of the biblical patriarch Noah and the building of the Ark. According to al-Azhar University in Cairo, the foremost academic institutions in Sunni Islam, the film "contradicts the teachings of Islam" and for this reason can not be viewed.
According to the film's
distributor, Paramount, other Arab-Islamic countries will follow the example of
the three Gulf states. Most likely they include
Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait. Even
the authorities of Pakistan, Tunisia and Morocco have expressed doubts about
the film. Al-Azhar
explained that the Hollywood production violates the principle according to
which a prophet of Islam is not to be depicted or represented.
In the
past, other movies have suffered Islamic censorship. This
is the case of "The Da Vinci Code", banned in Egypt after the protests
of the Coptic Orthodox Church. However,
Cairo allowed the screening of "The Passion of the Christ", Mel
Gibson's controversial film about the crucifixion. Noah
has already attracted some criticism from some Christian institutions in the
United States, for the unconventional portrait of the protagonist, played by
Russell Crowe. However,
Darren Aronofsky, the director, issued a joint statement with the U.S. National
Religious Broadcasters, noting that the film "is a dramatization of the
episode narrated in Scripture, not a true reading of the Bible".