The last person who tried to do that was hustled out of his home in the middle of the night and sent to prison, after his film was blamed for an attack on an American Embassy.
“The last person who tried to do that was hustled out of his home in the middle of the night and sent to prison, after his film was blamed for an attack on an American Embassy.”
Even when “respectfully” done there is no way to please Muslims on this score. Case in point:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074896/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_44
As pointed out on Wikipedia:
Depiction of Muhammad
In accordance with Muslim beliefs regarding depictions of Muhammad, he was not depicted on-screen nor was his voice heard as the muslim tradition holds that the impersonation of the prophet offends against the spirituality of his message. At the beginning of the film, a statement is displayed, “The makers of this film honour the Islamic tradition which holds that the impersonation of the Prophet offends against the spirituality of his message. Therefore, the person of Mohammad will not be shown (or heard).”
This rule extended to his wives, his daughters, his sons-in-law, and the first caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali ibn Talib his paternal cousin). This left Muhammad’s uncle Hamza (Anthony Quinn) and his adopted son Zayd (Damien Thomas) as the central characters. During the battles of Badr and Uhud depicted in the movie, Hamza was in nominal command, even though the actual fighting was led by Muhammad.
Whenever Muhammad was present or very close by, his presence was indicated by light organ music. His words, as he spoke them, were repeated by someone else such as Hamza, Zayd or Bilal. When a scene called for him to be present, the action was filmed from his point of view. Others in the scene nodded to the unheard dialogue or moved with the camera as though moving with Muhammad.
The closest the film comes to a depiction of Muhammad or his immediate family are the view of Ali’s famous two-pronged sword Zulfiqar during the battle scenes, a glimpse of a staff in the scenes at the Kaaba or in Medina, and Muhammad’s camel, Qaswa.
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Even after all that. The film is banned in many Muslim countries.
Again, from Wikipedia:
“In a film review, The New York Times reported that “when the film was scheduled to premier in the U.S., another Muslim extremist group staged a siege against the Washington D.C. chapter of the B’nai B’rith under the mistaken belief that Anthony Quinn played Mohammed in the film, threatening to blow up the building and its inhabitants unless the film’s opening was cancelled. The standoff was resolved” after the deaths of a journalist and policeman, but “the film’s American box office prospects never recovered from the unfortunate controversy.”[1]