Producer of `The Message` killed in Amman blast

Moustapha Akkad with Anthony Quinn directing the movie "The Message"

It seems the cycle of violence unleashed after the events of September 11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is spiraling humanity down a path of incoherence and annihilation where some of our brightest minds and talent are being sacrificed.

The senseless brutality that has killed scores of innocent people in the Amman bomb blast includes an icon of the Muslim world, Moustapha Akkad, producer of the epic film, "The Message" about the story of Islam.

He and his daughter Rima Akkad were attending a wedding at the Radisson Hotel at the site of one of the bombings. His daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, 34, instantly died. He died of his injuries two days later in hospital.

Early on in his career, Akkad ventured into producing and directing films portraying the history of Muslim heroes. "The Message" (1977) told the story of the beginning of Islam, and "Lion of the Desert" (1981) starred Anthony Quinn as the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar, who fought Mussolini's invading troops in the deserts of Libya.

Moustapha Akkad (1935 - November 11, 2005) was a Syrian-American producer, director and actor born in Aleppo, Syria. In the US he is best known for his participation in the Halloween movies (all 8 films) as an executive producer. In 1950, he left Syria to study film in the United States at UCLA.

In creating The Message, he consulted Islamic scholars and overcame the most difficult task of producing a film about the life of prophet Muhammad without showing the image of the Prophet. He saw the film as a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Islamic world, stating in a 1976 interview, "I did the film because it is a personal thing for me. Besides its production values as a film, it has its story, its intrigue, its drama. Beside all this I think there was something personal, being Muslim myself who lived in the west I felt that it was my obligation my duty to tell the truth about Islam. It is a religion that has a 700 million following, yet it's so little known about it which surprised me. I thought I should tell the story that will bring this bridge, this gap to the west."

He was in the process of producing a film about Saladin that would be shot in Jordan. Speaking of the film, he said, "...Saladin exactly portrays Islam. Right now, Islam is portrayed as a terrorist religion. Because a few terrorists are Muslims, the whole religion has that image. If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the crusades. But you can't blame Christianity because a few adventurers did this. That's my message."

May Allah grant Moustapha Akkad and his daughter Rima maghfirah, and may He grant his family the patience to endure this tragedy that is a loss for all of us.