Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Different faiths unite in this project!, July 7, 2006
How do you define the level of success in leadership? This question has been on my mind for sometime. Muslims know that the greatest example of leadership is Prophet Muhammad so I turned to him for inspiration. I searched at amazon and came across this DVD. I won't spoil it for you by telling you too much, but I can categorize my opinion as per two target audiences:
FOR NON-MUSLIMS: You will find this production very informative and non-biased-as the main producers and creators of this production are three Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Americans (strange, but true). The guests who are interviewed also come from different faiths; so this production is not about a group of Muslims going on and on about how wonderful the prophet was. You will learn about how this religion got started, how did Muhammad become the prophet of Islam, and how did he lead Muslims around him and throughout centuries. The production mixes between past life of the prophet and how Muslims behave today. The universality of the production and interviews are very well presented.
FOR MUSLIMS: If you live or lived in a Muslim country and learned about Islam and the prophet since childhood, most likely, you won't find much to learn about the prophet that you didn't already know. However, the examples of Muslim Americans and what they're doing in their daily lives to live the Muslim way of life are truly inspiring and worth seeing. If it's for nothing else, it makes you proud of seeing some good Muslims who are just ordinary people.
The quality of the production is good. There is a good mix between interviews and footage of universal sceneries. The producers had a major challenge for not being allowed to show any illustrations or create any reenactments portraying Prophet Muhammad, who's the lead character, since that's not welcomed by Islam. Nevertheless, this production tells an engaging story that took place more than 1400 years ago of a man who within a period of only 23 years managed to change history.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A powerful and thoughtful documentary, September 13, 2006
This is a really inspiring, moving, and powerful documentary. Interwoven with the story of Mohammad and the creation of Islam are the stories of modern-day Muslims living in America, a very effective if somewhat nonlinear narrative. It's not just a history of Mohammad and Islam, nor is it a story about modern-day Muslims (both by birth and by choice), but a beautiful interweaving of the two. The subtitle 'Legacy of a Prophet' really says it all, as these people live their lives in accordance with the teachings and examples of Mohammad, still looking to him as a role model and looking at his life for guidance over a thousand years after he walked the earth. I wish more people with open minds would see things like this and come to realise that the majority of Muslims are kind sweet generous peace-loving people like the people in this video, such as Kevin the fireman, Ingrid the professor (she appears in the deleted scenes), and Najah the nurse. As is pointed out in the scene at the Dearborn soup kitchen, the Catholic priest who came there to learn more about Muslims soon found out the truth about the religion and its practioners, and that the extremists in the news are a small minority, the same way that if an outsider to his own faith had asked him about extreme and newsworthy examples of so-called Catholics behaving badly, he'd rightly explain to the person that that's the exception and not the rule. It was also surprising to learn that Dearborn, Michigan has a huge Muslim population; you don't usually think of a city in Middle America as having a large immigrant or Muslim population! After seeing this documentary, now I have even more respect and love for Islam, even though it's not my own personal path to the Divine, and for the prophet Mohammad.
The extras are also great. There are a number of deleted scenes, interviews, and a virtual Hajj. Also very moving and inspirational is that the people who made this documentary are Muslims, Jews, and Christians, all working together with mutual respect and tolerance for one another's faiths. The Islamic artwork used for illustrations during the historical narratives was also very beautiful and inspiring, and as the non-Muslim film-makers soon found out, the story or the visuals didn't lose any of their zing or power just because the subject of the documentary is not allowed to be given a face or even drawn at all. That convention of Islamic artwork just makes the viewer really pay attention to the story of Mohammad's life and the profound impact he still has on his millions of followers the world over today, instead of looking at a physical depiction of him and getting one set idea about who he was based on that.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A informative but bland documentary on the Muhammad, February 25, 2008
This documentary produced for PBS, on one hand it is very informative, illustrating the life of Muhammad as well as a look at Muslim culture in America. This post 9/11 documentary, provides a sensative look at faith that has over a billion followers all over the world, with at least 7 million people in America. For a non muslim, it is interesting for me to see just how much the story of Muhammad and the begins of Islam correlate with the beginnings of Christianity and the lives of other figures such as Moses and Jesus.
The only complaint I have about this documentary, is that it is a little bland and slow. I felt like, considering Muhammad's very interesting life, it could have been more exciting.
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