Arab TV networks airing serial Al-Azhar objections

Arab TV networks have ignored Al-Azhar’s objections and began broadcasting a TV series on Monday that the seminary has deemed sacrilegious. “Al Hassan and Al Hussein”, a series showing Imam Hassan (AS) and Imam Hussein (AS) as having good relations with Muawiyah, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs, is scheduled to be aired on many Arab TV networks during the holy month of Ramadan. Al-Azhar had asked Egypt’s ruling military council to intervene to prevent the broadcast of the TV series. As a result, the Egyptian Ministry of Information asked their TV channels and networks to cancel the broadcast of the serial. Al-Azhar announced that it plans to sue the producers of the series for depiction of the family members of the Prophet Muhammad (S) and his companions. An Al-Azhar law that was passed in the 1926 forbade the physical personification of the Prophet Muhammad (S), his family and companions. El Tahrir, Alhayat Mosalsalat and several other Egyptian TV channels along with some Lebanese, Syrian, Tunisian, Moroccan, and Sudanese TV networks have begun broadcasting the serial, the Persian service of the Mehr News Agency reported, quoting Arabic news websites, on Tuesday. Syrian filmmaker Abd al-Bari Abu al-Khair directed “Al Hassan and Al Hussein” with a budget of 3 million dollars. Egyptian Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi and several Syrian and Saudi Arabian religious figures who approved the TV series are named in the titles.