Riyadh, Feb 13, IRNA – Saudi satellite TV, Al-Arabiya aired a news item Thursday evening announcing that a Kuwaiti TV station would begin production of a serial during next couple of days in which Arab actors would for the first time play the roles of 2nd and 3rd Shi’a Imams, Imam Hassan (P) and Imam Hussain (P).
According to IRNA Monitoring Service, Al-Arabiya added, “The serial would be produced having acquired the permission of religious sources of jurisprudence in a story in which there are roles also for such personalities as Muaviyeh, and his son, Yazid.
It is said that the objective behind the production of the historic serial on Islam is decreasing tension between the Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.
The Kuwaiti producer of the serial told Al-Arabiya, “Some of the best cinema and TV actors of the Arab world from Syria, Egypt, and Morocco will play roles in this serial.
Muhammad al-Anzi added, “This historic work will be produced with the presupposition that the disciples of the Prophet (P) lived peacefully side by side one another, while the Jews of the time kept hatching plots against the Muslims.”
He emphasized that six Shi’a and Sunni sources of jurisprudence have issued verdicts allowing artists to act our roles of the infallible household of the Prophet (P), Muaviyeh, and Yazid.
Al-Anzi who had earlier produced the two part TV production titled “Khaled bin-Valid” reiterated that the Syrian actor, Samer al-Mesri would play Imam Hussain’s (AS) part in his new TV serial.
He told Al-Arabiya that the historic era covered in the serial is between the assassination of Caliph Othman in Medina and the Martyrdom of Imam Hussain (P) in Karbala and the film taking of it would begin within the next couple of days in Syria and Lebanon.
The budget allocated to the TV production is three million US dollars and cinema cameras would be used for its film taking.
The scenes would be set by Iranian artist, Nasser Jalili and the work is scheduled to end in May, 2009, and to be aired during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.