CAIRO, April 9, 2005 (IslamOnlin.net & News Agencies) – A new Hollywood blockbuster set during the Crusades has sparked controversy on whether it will clear stereotypes about Muslims and enhance Western understanding of Islam or just fuel animosity toward the faith.

“We have Christians who think this movie is pro-Muslim and Muslims who think that this movie is pro-Christian. It will make both go and see the movie, which is positive for improving understanding,” famed young Egyptian actor Khaled El-Nabawy, who plays the role of a Muslim scholar in the “Kingdom of Heaven,” told Reuters.

“It's time for the West to know more about us,” he said.

“When you don't know me, you're going to judge me in a bad way, which is risky. We are not terrorists. We are very civilized and our history is a witness to this.”

The film, by “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott, depicts a 12th century Muslim-Christian battle for Al-Quds (now occupied by Israel) during the Third Crusade and is to be premiered in May.

Filmed in Morocco and Spain, it is being tipped as one of the summer's biggest movie releases and has a budget estimated at around $130 million.

“I believe this movie teaches people to hate Muslims,” said Abou El-Fadl.

Syria's Ghassan Massoud, who plays the Muslim leader Saladin in the movie starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, David Thewlis and Eva Green, said the film represents Saladin as a noble warrior and man of peace.

“Ridley Scott respects the character of Saladin very much. He wants to portray him as a noble and respectable person,” he said.

“Saladin fights battles, but he also enters into dialogue. We want to show that dialogue can be much better than war,” Massoud told Reuters.

Massoud hoped the film would help repair some of the damage done to the image of Arabs and Muslims by unfair Western media coverage of the Islamic world after the 9/11 attacks.

“One film isn't enough. But it might affect some sections of opinion,” he noted.

Nabawy tuned down concerns by some Arabs that the film would be biased against Muslims because it was produced by the American Twentieth Century Fox.

“Ridley and screenwriter William Monahan made great efforts to have an objective and balanced script. They were discussing everything together until the last day of shooting.”

But an American Muslim professor said that a film about the Crusades, a term once used by US President George W. Bush to describe his war on terror, will fuel “hatred” against Muslims.

“I believe this movie teaches people to hate Muslims. There is a stereotype [in the movie] of the Muslim as constantly stupid, retarded, backward, unable to think in complex forms,” Khaled Abou El-Fadl, professor of law at the UCLA School of Law, told The New York Times.

“It's really annoying at an intellectual level, and it really misrepresents history,” added Abou El-Fadl, who serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch (HRW), and was also appointed by President Bush as a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

He made his judgment based on a copy of an early draft of the script.

The Muslims in the movie are depicted as the “most honorable, most gentlemanly characters,” said Poland.

But David Poland, an American film critic, said Abou El-Fadl cannot jump to this “extremist” conclusion without seeing the movie.

He argued, in statements posted by the Hot Button movie critique Web site, that the film depicts the Muslims as the “most honorable, most gentlemanly characters.”

“And they win with dignity and respect for those they vanquish, even in the face of great unkindnesses when their people were overtaken,” Poland said.

He also praised Massoud, as a promising performer, who could achieve international stardom.

“Massoud, who plays Saladin, is the performer most likely to get award nominations, because of the humanity of his performance.”

Poland said that one of the remarkable elements is that the world would see a movie “quite free of politics, religious rhetoric or the use of history as an analogy to today.”

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• Saladin and other Projects

• Warriors of God