The murder of filmmaker Moustapha Al-Akkad silences one of the Arab world's most eloquent defenders, writes Sami Moubayed Syrian director Moustapha Al-Akkad (1935-2005) died in Jordan, following injuries sustained in the 9 November bombing of the Grand Hayat Hotel in Amman, for which Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility. He was attending a wedding at the hotel together with his daughter Rima who was killed instantly. I got to know Akkad 15 years ago through his good friend in Damascus, the Syrian actor Duraid Lahham. In April this year I had the pleasure, arranged through my publisher Scott C Davis, of interviewing Akkad for my new book Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000. He was a man who lived, laughed and worked with undiluted passion. Everyone in Syria knew of their compatriot in Hollywood, especially the inhabitants of his native Aleppo and the Damascenes with whom he mingled on his many visits to Syria. Akkad's tragic murder is particularly troubling for Syrians who took great pride in his achievements. There is a sad irony in the fact that Akkad, who spent his life dispelling stereotypes about Islam and Arabs, should have fallen victim to Islamic fundamentalism. Despite his popularity with Arab audiences Akkad had been the subject of fundamentalist threats in the past. One aspect of the tragedy of the Amman bombings is that they deprived the Arab world of a man whose work represented a potent weapon against the massive media machine propagating negative images of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. He was one of only a handful of Arabs portraying "our side of the story" in America and, with Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, one of only two Arabs to carry weight in Hollywood. Not that Hollywood allowed him a proper mouthpiece. His classic movie Al-Risalah ( The Message, later re-filmed in an English version released under the title Mohammad: Messenger of God ) presented a nuanced image of Islam as far removed as possible from that promoted by criminals such as Osama Bin Laden. It is horrifying to think that Muslim fanatics had threatened to kill Akkad in 1976 when he produced Messenger of God. Unable to murder him in 1976, they succeeded three decades later. Akkad was born and raised in Aleppo where he attended the local French school. After independence in 1946 he completed his secondary education at the American Aleppo College where, in the theatre arts classes taught by an American named Douglas Hill, Akkad discovered his love of acting. It was Hill who applied for a scholarship to enable the 19-year- old to attend the Theater Arts Department of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Akkad's studies at UCLA coincided with the raging insurgency in Algeria against the French. In Los Angeles director Sam Peckinpah, who was developing a film on the conflict and, searching for an Arab assistant, contacted Akkad. When the Algerian revolution ended the film was dropped but the bond between Akkad and Peckinpah remained. After graduating Akkad accepted Peckinpah's invitation to work with him as a production assistant at MGM studios on the movie Ride the High Country. Akkad later moved to the CBS News Department and, with Peckinpah's encouragement, produced his own show "As Others See Us". He then formed Akkad International Productions, specialising in documentaries as well as features. The success of one of these early documentaries, Caesar's World, which was broadcast across the US, allowed him to open offices for his film company in Beirut, London and Hollywood. In 1972 Akkad founded Filmco International Productions. It was through Filmco that Akkad produced and directed his first blockbuster in the Arab world, Al-Risalah, starring the late Egyptian actor Abdallah Ghaith and Syrian actress Mona Wasif. The movie was made in 1976 and its popularity in the Arab world prompted Akkad to work on an English version for release in the US. Entitled Mohammad: The Messenger of God, it starred Anthony Quinn as Hamza, the uncle of Prophet Mohamed, and Irene Papas as Hind, wife of the Mecca notable Abu Sufyan. It was the first feature film with popular lead actors in cinema history to deal with the Muslim community and the beginnings of Islam. The movie received positive reviews in the United States and opened in 3,000 theatres across the country. Some American Muslims, however, were outraged by the idea of a Hollywood movie on Islam, apparently assuming that it somehow constituted a Jewish attack on their faith. In Washington DC a group of Hanafi Muslims stormed the offices of Bnai Brith (a Jewish service organisation) taking 22 employees as hostages and demanding the film be withdrawn from cinemas. Akkad negotiated with the leader of the group, offering to show him the film and, should he find it objectionable, burn it. The offer was refused and Akkad was forced to withdraw the film from circulation in the US. It was subsequently released a second time, provoking threats to burn any cinema in which it was screened. The threats did their job, keeping many cinema-goers out of the movie theatres. Though Akkad had solicited the approval of various Islamic authorities before embarking on the film it was nevertheless banned in Saudi Arabia and several other countries. It was only after Ayatollah Khomeini approved the film for distribution in Iran that it came to be widely viewed and praised in the Muslim world. Following the 9/11 attacks the Pentagon purchased many copies of Messenger of God in order to show to troops preparing for military duty in Afghanistan and, later, in the Middle East, the aim being to help them better understand the Islamic faith. In 1978 Akkad produced Halloween, a low- budget horror movie costing $300,000. It was a huge success at the US box office. The film was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, starring Janet Leigh. Akkad hired Leigh's then 17-year- old daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, to play the lead role. In Akkad's own words, Halloween is a movie in which "horror is based on suspense -- there is nothing of blood, gore or special effects." The success of the film led to seven sequels, the last released in 2002 in the US. For the first Halloween sequel -- released in 1981 -- the budget was increased to $15 million. 1981 was also the year Akkad produced and directed Lion of the Desert, a bio-pic focusing on the life of Libyan nationalist Omar Al-Mukhtar, who led an armed revolt against the Italian occupation of Libya and was executed on the orders of Mussolini in 1932. The film starred Anthony Quinn as Mukhtar, Oliver Reed as General Graziani, the officer in charge of crushing the Libyan revolt, and Rod Steiger as Mussolini. Despite an impressive cast the film was not a box office success though it has since been screened many times on US television and is a perennial favourite in the Arab world. In 1986 Akkad produced Free Ride, a comedy. With a lacklustre cast and plot, it went unnoticed. The following year he returned to the horror genre, producing An Appointment with Fear, which also flopped. In 2001 he began preparations for his third epic, Saladin, a high-budget Hollywood production with Sean Connery cast in the role of the Muslim sultan. Thanks to the senseless actions of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda the project remained on hold. Now, with Akkad's death, it will never materialise.
