Oh Islam

The film tells of Tatar armies entering the Middle East and taking territories reaching from Persia to Syria, under a commander called Timur. An ordinary woman from the harem rises and comes to lead the Egyptian resistance against the invaders. This is the film’s account. The production plays freely with history; it is known that the events told and the figures brought together did not meet in this way, so the film is not to be read as a source on the period. The film was the work Egypt submitted to the Academy Awards in 1961. The account leans on large scale battle scenes and crowds. The rise of its heroine stands at the centre of the story. Lobna Abdel Aziz and Ahmed Mazhar appear in Andrew Marton’s hundred and ten minute Egyptian film, completed in 1961.