A few years ago, filmmaker Michael Schwarz embarked on a project to chronicle the life of Mohammed, presenting the story of the seventh century Islamic prophet to an American audience largely unfamiliar with the religion he founded.
But Schwarz and his co-producers encountered some barriers to traditional biography. They couldn't show the face of Mohammed because many Muslims believe such images are an affront to Islam. They also couldn't film in some places in modern-day Saudi Arabia that were key sites in his life.
And then, with the film about two-thirds complete, came the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We thought it might be the end of our project," Schwarz said. "We thought that there might be such hostility to Islam that nobody would want to hear another word about it."
That did not happen.
The hijack attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon ended up spurring interest in better understanding Islam and helped draw funding that allowed the filmmakers to finish the project, Schwarz said.
The two-hour documentary, "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet," airing on U.S. public broadcasting stations Dec. 18, charts how Mohammed became one of the most important figures in world history. Orphaned as a child, he became a successful merchant who at age 40, according to Islamic belief, was struck by a revelation from God. Over the next 23 years he brought peace to warring tribes of Arabia and established Islam.
"This man's life is pretty exciting actually. It's a cracking good yarn," said co-producer Michael Wolfe, who along with another co-producer, Alexander Kronemer, is an American convert to Islam. "Islam aside, the life of Mohammed has been called one of the great biographies of the world."
FREEDOM TO PRACTICE
The documentary weaves the story of Mohammed with interviews with scholars and modern-day U.S. Muslims.
One of the most striking things they found in making the film, Schwarz said, was that many Muslims who immigrated to the United States said they felt freer to practice their religion there than in their home countries.
They often compared their flight from oppressive societies to Mohammed's own flight to the settlement of Medina from persecution in Mecca, he said.
"Many of them have come here because they say it's the country where they can practice their Islam most freely," Schwarz said.
The documentary comes at a time when Americans are on edge about more potential terror attacks and concern over Islamic extremism is running high.
Mohammed's name often is invoked in discussions about Islam, but many Americans know little about who he was, Schwarz said. Just last month, Nigeria's plans to stage the Miss World pageant ended in bloody riots after a journalist enraged Muslims by suggesting Mohammed would have approved of the beauty pageant and might even have married one of the contestants.
But although the filmmakers rejiggered some elements of the documentary after Sept. 11 and the film includes a discussion about the role of women and charges of anti-Semitism in Islam, the documentary only lightly touches on other politically sensitive issues such as the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
"Editorially it was very challenging because we were trying to tell a story about Mohammed and it was hard enough to keep that focused," Schwarz said.
ADDRESSING SEPT. 11
The filmmakers decided to address Sept. 11 by interspersing biographical details of Mohammed's life with the interviews with U.S. Muslims that touch on the attacks. The documentary tells the stories of Muslim Americans including a New York City fire marshal, the chief of staff for a U.S. congressman, and a critical care nurse in Dearborn, Michigan.
The filmmakers also took that approach in part because they wanted to flesh out Mohammed without showing pictures of him. While some images of Mohammed do exist, the filmmakers did not include them because many Muslims believe such images are offensive. Mohammed opposed idolatry and did not want to become an object of worship himself.
Presenting the stories of modern-day Muslims turned out to be a good way to demonstrate Mohammed's continuing influence, Schwarz said.
"People would say to me, 'If you want to understand who I am as a Muslim, the best place to start is with the story of Mohammed, because he's the person I emulate, he's the person I revere,"' he said. "That opened up this approach of telling the story through contemporary American Muslims who look to him for guidance."