Omar (TV series)

Omar (Arabic: عُمَرْ‎) or Farouk Omar (Persian: عمر فاروق‎‎) is a historical^[2][3] Arab television drama miniseries-serial that was produced and broadcast by MBC1 and directed by Hatem Ali.^[4] Co-produced by Qatar TV, the series is based on the life of Omar ibn Al-Khattab, the second Caliph of Islam, and depicts his life from 18 years old until the moments of his death.^[4] The series had to face large controversy^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]} due to its depiction of Omar, Abu Bakr, Uthman and Ali, the four Rashidun Caliphs,^[12] along with other characters, who some Muslims believe should not be depicted, much like the Prophet Mohammad. The series consists of 30 episodes and was originally aired in the month of Ramadan since July 20, 2012.^[13][14][15] It was made at a cost of 200 million Saudi riyals and filmed in Morocco, primarily in the cities of Marakesh, Tangiers, El Jadida, Casablanca and Mohammedia. After the series was broadcast on MBC, it was dubbed into several languages for international broadcast^[1][16][17] and subtitled in English on YouTube; it received great support from many different scholarly bodies and people watching it.^[18][19][20] As the series depended largely on reliable historical established facts, the series did not face criticism in terms of its content, as past films faced.

Receptions from scholarly bodies

Salman al-Awda,^[21] Yūsuf al-Qaraḍawī, Yasir Qadhi,^[22] Alī al-Sallabī and Khaled al-Musleh^[23] viewed the series positively.^[24]

Saleh Al-Fawzan,^[25] Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia (Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al Shaykh),^[25][26] Al-Azhar University, Abdul Azīz bin Fahd,^[27][28] Muhammad Al-Munajid, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan,^[29] and Saleh al-Maghamsi and thousands of Saudi clerics viewed the series negatively.

Cast

Trivia

Two actors of this series, Hassan Al-Jundi and Muna Wassef, both acted (as Abu Jahl and Hind respectively) in the 1970s Arabic language film Al Risalah (الرسالة), the version of Moustapha Akkad's religious biopic The Message (a.k.a.Mohammad, Messenger of God) made for the Arab World. Hassan Al-Jundi also acted as Kisra in the English language film while his counterpart in Al Risalah played the character of Abu Jahl in the same film.

List of episodes

Production

Saudi producers, the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), said the series is the largest ever Arabic production, with 30,000 actors and a technical team from 10 different countries who toiled 300 days to make the 31-part series.^[39] The director Ali said that building a replica of Mecca and the surrounding area was a challenge that faced him until he and the crew finally chose a location in Morocco. The series needed a huge crew amount to 500 actors, actresses, and extras in one single day.^[40] Ali also pointed out, several scenes in the series were difficult to shoot like which elephant treads on one of the actors. Ali said, “The elephant was well-trained for the scene and we made the actor wear an iron shield just in case anything goes wrong.” The horses used in the series were brought from Eastern Europe and were trained together with the elephants to make them adapt to each other. The series featured many battle scenes on a large scale. Ali said it took them a total of 54 days with a rate of 12 hours a day and with the participation of 500 extras that were trained on this type of scenes.^[4]

Committee members for managing historical context

A board committee of scholars was created for maintaining the historicity of the script. The major members of the board were:

1. Yusuf al-Qaradawi^[41]
2. Akram Zia Omari^[41]
3. Salman al-Awda^[41]
4. Abdul Wahab Turairi ^[41]
5. Ali al-Sallabi^[41]
6. Saad Al-Otaibi^[41]

VFX effects

Most of the episodes of the series contained many expensive computer-generated imagery (CGI) effects which were maintained by French CGI production BUF in association with Hecat,^[42][43] as well as title^[44] and ending theme^[45] also. Moreover, the sets of ancient Mecca and Medina and other sites in Arabia and elsewhere in the post classical era were also produced by the Soora Studio, a Syrian set producer production, which previously made the sets of many other popular Arabic dramas.

Music

A nasheed or Arabic song praising Omar and describing a complete archive of the serial was featured after the scene of his assassination in the ending episode. The nasheed, entitled "Salamun Alayka", was sung by the Kuwaiti Quran reciter Mishary Al-Afasy.^[46]

International broadcasting

The series later has been broadcast in the television channels of different countries such as Turkey,^[1] Indonesia, Iran, Tunisia, Egypt etc. either dubbed or with native subtitle.

Country	Network	Series premiere
Arab League	MBC1, Qatar TV	July 20, 2012
Indonesia	MNCTV	July 20, 2012
Tunisia	Nessma TV	July 20, 2012
Turkey	atv	July 20, 2012
Iran	Nour TV	August, 2013

Traditional historicitic and depictional controversy

In the events of Muhammad's era, Muhammad, his childrens and wives were not depicted but many direct actions of him have been shown redirected from any other sahaba near to him for the restrictions and limitations of Muhammad's visual depiction in the Islamic world. Although in a sequence before the death of Abu Bakr, there was a shadow depiction of Aisha shown silently conversating with her father. The dress code of male companions was also controversial, mostly for wearing gawns below ankle, which is forbidden in Islam. Besides, in the event of the battle against Musailimah, the characters of the companions behind of Khalid bin Walid have been shown to give the slogan "Ya Muhammada" (O Muhammad), which was a subject of controversy about historicity among some sunni clerics. They argued that it could not be told by them because calling on any other except Allah is a form of polytheism (shirk).

See also

• Muhammad: The Messenger of God (film)
• Muhammad: The Final Legacy (TV series)
• Bab Al-Hara
• Fetih 1453
• Prophet Joseph (TV series)
• He Who Said No (film)
• Muhteşem Yüzyıl
• Bilal (film)

References

External links

• Ofiicial page on mbc.net.
• Omar at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Trailer
• Database on elcinema.com.
• All Episodes officially released on YouTube with English Subtitles
• "Omar" the app - MBC group's official comprehensive application about Omar series