A Sinner in Mecca (2015) Movie Script

1
PARVEZ: A few years ago,
I met a man on Manjam...
...a gay dating website
popular in the Middle East.
He lived in Saudi Arabia.
His name was Mohammad,
and he said...
...I should call him Mo.
When my plane touched down
in Saudi Arabia...
...on the anniversary of 9/11...
...the kingdom's most famous
son...
...Osama bin Laden...
...had finally been hunted and
killed.
A cold, naked fear filled me...
...as I walked towards
Saudi immigration...
...because I had never thought
I would be Muslim enough...
...to be allowed in.
I was a marked man, a Muslim...
...who was not only openly
gay...
...but had also been
publicly labeled an infidel...
...for my previous film
which was about gay Muslims.
A Jihad for Love is the picture.
The man who made it is sitting
beside me, Parvez Sharma.
-Nice to see you.
-Thank you.
REPORTER: Why have you called it
A Jihad for Love?
Again, part of that discussion
of taking Islam back from...
...the extremists
within my own religion.
Jihad, as the film explains,
means "in a struggle."
Right now, there's a battle
for the soul of Islam.
PARVEZ:
This battle of faith...
...is being fought on the
streets of the Muslim world.
Almost a quarter of humanity
is Muslim...
...and the soul of Islam
lives in Saudi Arabia.
It is an Islam of fear.
Many of the laws of the land...
...date back to the seventh
century.
Saudi Arabia is a country
that practices...
...a very puritanical strain of
Islam called Wahhabism.
Also in the news today, the
beheading of an Indonesian made
in Saudi Arabia.
REPORTER 1: Saudi Arabia is one
of the most repressive countries
in the world...
...where there is zero tolerance
for dissent.
A Saudi girl was reportedly
sentenced to 90 lashes...
...for assaulting a teacher.
Amnesty International
says it happened...
...after the girl was caught
with a camera phone, which is
banned.
REPORTER 2: In Saudi Arabia,
being gay could be punished by
death...
...public lashings or jail time.
That's the law.
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ:
MAN:
PARVEZ:
CROWD :
L-O-V-E! L-O-V-E! L-O-V-E!
C827.
C827.
PARVEZ:
WOMAN:
PARVEZ: Yes.
-Parvez.
PARVEZ:
Islam would condemn my wedding.
But Islam has always been
a central part...
...of my very being.
I am now faced...
...with a crisis of faith.
I need to prove
that I can be a good Muslim...
...and be gay.
According to Islam...
...all Muslims are required to
go on a pilgrimage to Mecca...
...at least once in their
lifetime.
This pilgrimage, called a
hajj...
...cleanses one of all sin.
To cleanse my sins...
...and prove that I am a good
Muslim...
...I must go on this journey.
Filled with fear and doubt...
...I enter Saudi Arabia in
Medina...
...Islam's second holiest city.
It is where Muhammad...
...the Prophet of Allah, is
buried.
He is the founder of Islam.
I visit his grave...
...before my hajj begins.
The square where Mo claimed
he saw the execution...
...must be very close
to the Prophet's mosque...
...where I stand on my first
night.
The Islam the Prophet Muhammad
fought so hard to build...
...was a religion of peace.
Today's Islam, which has been
hijacked by a violent
minority...
...would not be recognized by
him.
In Medina, the Prophet also
built...
...Islam's first democracy.
Near his grave...
...stand the graves
of many of Islam's ancestors...
...at a cemetery called Jannat
Al-Baqi.
None of these graves
are recognizable...
...because in the 1920s...
...the Saudi ruling family...
...destroyed them.
For the Saudis, praying to
graves represents idol
worship...
...which they consider
un-Islamic.
In this city of the dead...
...I think about my mother's
death.
I want to be a pilgrim
she would be proud of.
PARVEZ :
These streets in Saharanpur...
...are streets of guilt and
shame.
My mother never forgave me...
...for being gay.
I was 21...
...when she died from cancer.
Her anger was relentless...
...and my shame, eternal.
[WHISTLE BLOWING
AND HORNS HONKING]
PARVEZ :
DIVINE :
PARVEZ:
MAN :
In all the years
since my mother's death...
...it is the words we
exchanged...
...that have kept me company...
...even on the loneliest days.
[MUSICIANS PLAYING UPBEAT MUSIC
AND SINGING IN SPANISH]
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
OVER PA]
DAN:
WOMAN:
WOMAN:
MAN:
PARVEZ:
Yay!
[MAN PLAYING CLASSICAL MUSIC
ON PIANO]
PARVEZ: The journey that lies
ahead of me...
...must be taken alone.
It is a journey of the spirit.
I head towards Mecca...
...Islam's ground zero.
The only clothing I now wear...
...is two pieces of unstitched
white cloth...
...called an ihram.
I'm hoping for purity.
I pray to you, Allah...
...that my ihram doesn't fall
off.
GUIDE:
PARVEZ: Mecca is one of the
world's most visited cities...
...yet it's most forbidden.
Non-Muslims had not
been allowed to enter...
...for 14 centuries.
Hajj is a pilgrimage...
...that even predates the birth
of Islam.
It is a series of rituals...
...re-creating the journeys
of Islam's ancestors.
GUIDE:
MEN :
PARVEZ: I don't know what waits
in Mecca.
GUIDE:
PARVEZ:
Filming is forbidden in Mecca.
Armed with my phone...
...I'm filming my hajj in
secret.
I need evidence that my faith...
...is strong enough
to survive this journey.
I am once again in the closet.
Not only as a gay pilgrim...
...but also as a filmmaker.
MAN:
PARVEZ:
This is my hajj of defiance.
As a Sunni, I have chosen
to make this journey...
...with Shia pilgrims.
I don't think the Prophet
Muhammad could have foreseen...
...this most bitter split in
Islam...
...which continues to this
day...
...that between Shia and Sunni.
In 18th century Arabia...
...a Sunni cleric
called Muhammad Wahhab...
...made a simple bet
with the Sunni tribal leader...
...called Muhammad bin Saud.
Wahhab would give
bin Saud's descendants...
...the religious authority...
...to rule what would become
present-day Saudi Arabia.
Bin Saud's descendants...
...would allow Wahhab's cruel
and puritanical version of
Islam...
...called Wahhabi Islam,
to become the law of the land.
Women are not the only targets
of the country's sharia laws.
The Saudis even rewrite
their own history.
GUIDE:
MAN :
A great deal of Islam's history
has successfully been erased.
Also erased from that history
are pilgrims like me.
My sin of homosexuality
is punishable by death.
I am a pilgrim in hiding.
[DRIVER WHISTLING
AND DANCE MUSIC PLAYING]
PARVEZ :
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ : My husband
Dan has never understood...
...my need for dangerous
journeys.
He does not believe in God.
I always have.
Dan.
Dan is a musician.
[WOMAN SINGING
IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
He grew up in small-town
America.
We met at a party in New York in
I am so afraid.
My happy memories of my
honeymoon with my husband Dan
seem so distant.
I'm consumed by my fear of death
at the hands of the Saudis.
But I know I cannot begin my
hajj without Allah and the
Prophet's invitation.
I am hoping they will protect me
and allow me to complete my
hajj.
This is my journey,
to be accepted into Islam.
I'm going to God's house.
MAN :
PARVEZ : For
Muslims, the center of the
universe...
...is this cube-shaped structure
called the Kaaba.
It was said to have been built
by the Prophet Ibrahim and his
son Ishmael...
...21 centuries before Christ.
This is the beating heart of
Islam.
Every Muslim in the world
faces the Kaaba when they pray.
The Kaaba has a magnetic pull.
And for the faithful, just
touching it brings absolution.
Every year, millions of pilgrims
bring their sins here...
...hoping to be cleansed.
This is the only mosque in the
world...
...that men and women
are considered equal...
...and are not separated.
I prepare for my Welcome Tawaf,
the ritual circling of the
Kaaba.
This circling has not stopped
for over 14 centuries.
Like a drop entering the ocean,
I move forward to join the
moving mass.
PARVEZ :
CROWD :
[CROWD CONTINUES SPEAKING
IN ARABIC]
PARVEZ :
CROWD :
PARVEZ :
Bloody and bruised, I search for
refuge.
I find myself inside one of the
world's largest shopping malls.
The current Saudi regime has
transformed this ancient
birthplace of Islam...
...into a mecca of capitalism...
...and its pilgrims into eager
shoppers.
Is it only I who notices the
Starbucks logo conveniently
edited by the Saudis...
...or questions the very
existence of this franchise...
...in the holiest of Muslim
cities?
BARISTA:
PARVEZ:
Cheese.
Starbucks Makkah.
[BARISTA & PARVEZ
SPEAK IN ARABIC]
PARVEZ:
Recharged, I press on
to the next ritual:
Running seven times between two
hills.
The Saudi ruling family controls
this ancient space as well.
The hills are now covered in
glass.
And the running now takes place
in an air-conditioned corridor.
Because men wrote the history
of Islam...
...what is often forgotten
is that this ritual of Saee...
...re-creates the struggle of an
abandoned mother named Hagar.
Looking for water to save the
life of her infant son
Ishmael...
...she ran between the hills
of Safa and Marwah seven times.
For me, she has always been
the mother of Islam.
I feel my own mother's
presence...
...giving me strength
for the remainder of my hajj.
Forgive me. Forgive me.
MAN 1 :
MAN 2 :
PARVEZ:
I have never doubted my own
faith in Allah...
...but I have no faith in this
rigid Saudi version of Islam.
My need to separate the two
is now critical.
But my hajj continues.
Trying to reach the plains of
Arafat, I stand on a bus for an
entire night.
[MAN 1 & MAN 2 SPEAKING IN
ARABIC]
Prophet Muhammad, you said that
the most important day of
hajj...
...lives in the plains of
Arafat.
For us pilgrims,
this is the Day of Judgment.
We stand naked in front of
Allah...
...and have only until sunset to
make our prayers for
forgiveness.
In Allah's eyes, each one of us
pilgrims is a sinner.
I ask you, O
Prophet, is there a place in
Islam for sinners like me?
MAN 1 :
MAN 2:
MAN 1:
MAN 2:
MAN 1:
MAN 2:
MAN 1:
MAN 2:
PARVEZ:
I leave Arafat wondering...
...if Islam will ever accept me
just as I am.
The next ritual means spending
the night in the open plain of
Muzdalifah...
...to collect pebbles for
stoning the devil.
Confession is the first step
on the part of redemption...
...and sinners have a strange
way of finding each other.
On this darkest of nights
in Muzdalifah...
...I come across
a modern-day Muhammad...
...whose sins are truly
unforgivable.
BASHEER :
PARVEZ :
BASHEER:
PARVEZ:
BASHEER:
PARVEZ:
BASHEER:
PARVEZ:
BASHEER:
PARVEZ:
BASHEER:
PARVEZ:
BASHEER:
PARVEZ:
BASHEER:
MAN:
PARVEZ :
MAN:
PARVEZ:
MAN:
PARVEZ:
MAN:
PARVEZ:
Before the ritual stoning of the
devil...
...we must stay in Mina,
the world's largest tent city.
There is nothing sacred
about these streets in Mina...
...which we pilgrims walk on.
WOMAN 1 :
PARVEZ:
WOMAN 2:
PARVEZ:
WOMAN 2:
PARVEZ:
WOMAN 2:
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ:
MAN [SINGING IN FOREIGN
LANGUAGE]:
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ:
I prepare to confront Satan...
...as I walk the tunnels
that lead to one of the last...
...and most dangerous rites
of my pilgrimage.
This place called Jamrat...
...is where three columns
representing Satan stand.
And this is where the Prophet
Ibrahim...
...defeated him centuries ago.
This is a place of stampedes.
This in many ways is hell.
If I am a sinner in the eyes of
Islam...
...then these tunnels
lead to my eternal damnation.
If my hajj is not accepted by
Allah...
...hell is where I belong.
On my way to Satan.
For the Wahhabis...
...my actions are unpardonable.
Both I and the Shia pilgrims
I'm on this journey with...
...are considered infidels.
My memories from my childhood
of the Shia...
...are not pleasant.
But together Shia and Sunni
alike...
...we have to stone the devil...
...that lives within all of us.
MAN :
PARVEZ :
MAN:
PARVEZ:
MAN:
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ:
I leave the devil...
...knowing that only Allah
can answer my question.
Is it possible for me
to be a good Muslim?
In India, I grew up surrounded
by Sufi Islam.
As an adult, my relationship
with conventional Islam...
...has never been easy.
I have always been drawn...
...to the mysticism of the
Sufis.
MEN [SINGING IN FOREIGN
LANGUAGE]:
PARVEZ: Sufi music is banned in
Saudi Arabia.
In fact, any form of music...
...is considered un-Islamic...
...by the Wahhabi rulers
of the Holy Land.
This is a city of secrets.
There is a strange comfort...
...in confiding in strangers.
ABDULLAH:
PARVEZ:
ABDULLAH:
PARVEZ:
No one has any--
ABDULLAH:
PARVEZ:
ABDULLAH:
PARVEZ:
ABDULLAH:
PARVEZ:
For all of us...
...the end of hajj is near.
Its culmination will lie
in an ancient act...
...of faith and extreme
violence.
Centuries ago...
...a parent was commanded by
God...
...to sacrifice his own child.
The parent, the Prophet Ibrahim.
The son, his own, Ishmael.
God intervened...
...and Ibrahim slaughtered
an animal instead.
For centuries...
...millions of pilgrims
have concluded their hajj...
...by a re-creation of this
sacrifice.
PARVEZ:
MAN 1 :
MAN 2:
PARVEZ:
MAN 1 :
PARVEZ:
Goat madness.
No, no, no.
MAN 2 :
PARVEZ :
PARVEZ:
MAN 3 :
PARVEZ : Unable to
fulfill the final rite of
hajj...
...I decide to return to my
hometown in India...
...to finish what the Saudis...
...did not allow me to do.
PARVEZ:
PARVEZ & MAN:
PARVEZ:
MAN:
PARVEZ:
MAN [CHANTING IN FOREIGN
LANGUAGE]:
PARVEZ : Spilling
blood is the final ritual of my
hajj.
It is meant to purify.
But all I feel is loss.
By killing this other living
being...
...I have also killed part of
myself.
PARVEZ :
What is gone is the part of me
that wondered...
...if Islam would accept me.
In its place is the
understanding...
...that it is up to me as a gay
Muslim...
...to accept Islam.
[MAN SPEAKS
IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
MAN :
[MAN SPEAKING
IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
PARVEZ:
I tried to lose myself...
...within the masses
of my fellow Indian Muslims...
...but I'm not able to be alone.
As I prepare to pray...
...a strange serenity envelops
me.
For the first time as a gay
Muslim...
...I feel that I'm a rightful
part of the ummah...
...the worldwide community of
Muslims.
I have found my place...
...by fulfilling my hajj.
And I finally feel my mother's
love...
...through her poetry.
WOMAN :
PARVEZ :
PARVEZ : After their
hajj, Muslims leave Mecca...
...but Mecca never leaves them.
Islam's beating heart...
...will now forever beat in my
heart.
The Islam I love...
...is one of peace and
redemption.
Contemporary Islam
is at war with itself.
And I had fought hard...
...to not be a casualty.
Almost there. Mashallah.
We're almost there.
I have emerged from my hajj
a better Muslim.
Islam's reformation is long
overdue.
Perhaps Muslims like me...
...will be the reformers.
I am prepared to leave God's
house.