Poll | AR Rahman faces fatwa: Are artists free in India?

A Mumbai-based group, Raza Academy issued a fatwa against Oscar winning musician AR Rahman and renowned Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi for working on Muhammad: Messenger of God. We claim to be a liberal nation but do artists in India really have freedom of expression?

Last week, a Mumbai-based Sunni Muslim group, Raza Academy issued a fatwa against Oscar winning musician AR Rahman and renowned Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi for working on Muhammad: Messenger of God, the first part of a trilogy on the life of the prophet. Reacting to the fatwa, the musician wrote on his Facebook page, "I didn't direct or produce the movie Muhammad: Messenger of God. I just did the music. My spiritual experiences of working on the film are very personal and I would prefer not to share these."

AR Rahman has reacted strongly to the fatwa issued against him for working on Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi's film Mohammad: Messenger of God.

Rahman

further wrote that he is "not a scholar of Islam" but added that there was "no intention of causing offence" when he agreed to work on the film.

Muhammad: Messenger of God, Iran's most expensive film, released in the Islamic republic earlier in August 2015. The movie depicts the Prophet onscreen, an act that Islam doesn’t allow. The visually stunning 171-minute film cost an estimated $40 million, partly funded by the state, and took more than seven years to complete.