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HARD CHOICE: A young man has to choose between four different women. -- PHOTO: MD ENTERTAINMENT
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JAKARTA - PEOPLE here have been flocking to the cinema to watch an Indonesian film that, as usual, involves a love story. But this movie has a central message - that Islam is a compassionate religion.
More than three million people, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, have seen Ayat-Ayat Cinta, or Verses Of Love, since it opened in mid-February in the world's most populous Muslim country.
After watching it over the weekend, he tearfully hailed it as the country's answer to the stereotyping of Islam in the West.
'I wiped away my tears several times. It's a touching movie...,' Dr Yudhoyono told reporters after watching it at a cinema at Plaza Indonesia. 'This movie taught us good values about how we should uphold tolerance and peace in life.'
Dr Yudhoyono's spokesman called the film an 'antithesis' to a movie accusing the Quran of inciting violence, made by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders and released on the Internet last week.
Ayat Ayat Cinta is a break from the kind of teen romances that pull in crowds in Indonesia. It pointedly addresses a host of sensitive issues, such as Islam's treatment of women, polygamy and inter-faith marriages.
All are woven into the compelling story of Fahri Abdullah Shiddiq, an Indonesian who goes to Cairo to study at Egypt's Al-Azhar University.
Fahri is a handsome 27-year-old who finds himself forced to choose between four beautiful but distinctly different women who fall in love with him.
Eventually he marries a veiled, dark-eyed woman named Aisha, a rich German-Turkish student.
That breaks the hearts of the other three, two of whom wear the Muslim headscarf, and a Coptic Christian neighbour named Maria.
Fahri's life is turned upside down, though, when he is falsely accused of rape and faces death by hanging.
Ironically, the only person who can prove his innocence is Maria. Lovesick, she agrees to testify on Fahri's behalf if he agrees to marry her.
Aisha, desperate to save her husband, urges Fahri to take Maria as a second wife and he reluctantly agrees to do so.
Fahri struggles to be fair to both women while practising polygamy, which is allowed in Islam but remains controversial in predominantly Muslim Indonesia.
The movie, set in modern-day Cairo but shot in Central Java and India, is part of a trend whereby Islamic teachings are reaching popular culture via movies, books and songs.
Director Hanung Bramantyo said he wanted to show a face of Islam that is distinctly different from Hollywood blockbusters, which associate it almost exclusively with terrorism and intolerance.
The film is based on a best-selling novel of the same name by Habiburrahman ElShirazy, an Indonesian, that presents Muslims as people who are peaceful, patient, sincere and honest.
Dr Syafii Anwar, of the Jakarta-based International Centre for Islam and Pluralism, said: 'The movie is a breakthrough in addressing sensitive issues in the community like the treatment of women and polygamy, besides showing Islam as a religion of tolerance.'
It deals with interfaith marriage too, which is also controversial in Indonesia, as Fahri marries the Christian Maria. She eventually converts to Islam - not at her husband's insistence but of her own accord.
Inter-faith marriages are frowned upon by the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), the highest religious authority, and are the subject of much debate. But a growing number of liberal Muslim Indonesians see such marriages as acceptable, as Christians 'are People of the Book' mentioned in the Quran.
'Interfaith marriage between Muslims and Christians is still controversial here but the movie is able to address the issue well,' said office secretary Veronica Sihotang, a Christian, after watching the movie.
The film also touches on anti-American sentiment in Indonesia. In one memorable scene, an Egyptian man lashes out at a veiled woman who gives up her seat on a crowded Cairo train to an elderly American tourist, and calls the woman 'an infidel whose nation has waged war against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq'.
But Fahri steps in and tells the man his actions are against the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, who preached tolerance.
That, as Fahri tells the man, means that all foreigners entering the country should be welcomed.
salim@sph.com.sg
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